As a bit of insight into the economics of independent music publishing, this weekend I broke the 15% mark in terms of CD sales.
(Image by Paul Cory Photography.)
To be precise, I reached the 17.15% point, which means that so far I’ve made back a little over 17% of the cost of recording, engineering, manufacturing, distributing, etc., the CD.
In other words, I’m still over 80% in the hole, almost a year after releasing the album.*
Maybe you didn’t even realize I had a CD out. In that case, at this link you can listen to all 10 songs of Truths and Lies and Make-Believe, which I call “a compendium of musical selections, inspired or influenced by science fiction, fantasy, life, and faith … a multitude of things.” If you decide to buy it, it’s $7 for a download or $10 — only $1 a song! — for a physical CD. (Though you can pay more, if you want to.)
So as I told folks at my concert this past weekend at ConGregate, if you’ve ever bought a copy of my CD, THANK YOU!
And if you like any of my songs, even a little bit, I’d be much obliged if you told a friend or wrote a review or otherwise helped spread the word.
And maybe next month I’ll crack the 20% mark!
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*And yet I’m crazy enough to be thinking of starting to record a second one!
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If only there were ways to make even a small residual from when your album is streamed for listening, from Rhapsody for example. Licensing companies like ASCAP and BMI used to do that.
Oh, to date I’ve made a little over $20 that way. A penny from Spotify here, a little more from Rhapsody or iTunes there ….