I recently put up an upcoming artist’s album on my website for digital purchase and set the price at $10.99. I run a beat-selling site and I thought that it might be a good idea to also sell other products and music by artists with whom I have a connection and mutual trust. After a few days the album got is first sale which was exciting for all of us involved. Firstly, because as a musician you get a sense of pride and achievement when people are willing to pay for your music in an age where they can get it for free easily. Secondly, because by selling it directly to our customers we get to keep a larger share of the money than if we were to upload it to iTunes, Amazon and the various popular platforms. Of course those platforms are trusted and have a wider audience so they have their own advantages, but that’s a discussion for another day.
Anyway so after the first sale I started pushing the album to other potential clients and one of them responded that the album is too expensive. I explained that the album has 11 songs, so pricing it at $10.99 means each song is sold at roughly $1 each, which is more than fair in my opinion. However, the person disagreed. She said she can subscribe to Spotify or other streaming services for about $9.99 a month and get access to millions of songs. She had a point. Streaming is the in thing now and many people see no real reason to buy music anymore. After all they can listen to their music wherever they are as long as they have their phone and a good Internet connection, which in many first world countries isn’t an issue.
I was rather discouraged at first to hear that someone feels that music is of extremely little monetary value. The funny thing is that these people who do not want to pay the artist listen to music on a daily basis; early in the morning as they prepare for the day, on the way to work/school, at work/school, during lunch, in the car, on the sports field, in the elevator, when watching TV, at church, at funerals, etc. Take away music from your life and I guarantee you that your life will not be the same.
It’s no secret that streaming pays little to the artist unless his/her music is getting massive traffic. So for the average artist streaming is not going to pay the bills or even cover the costs of producing, recording, mixing, mastering, distributing and marketing their music. So selling an album at $10.99 seems quite fair to me. After all that is within the average range of the cost of an album anyway, even on platforms like iTunes. Anyway at the end of the day it’s up to us musicians to place a value on our own art and stand behind it. We gain to lose the most if we are not compensated fairly. We must come up with a price that we deem fair for us as well as our supporters.
When you think about it most smart phones (which we use for many purposes one them being to play music) cost upwards of $100 and we only get a year or 2 of use before replacing. I’ve personally changed my phone at least 5 times in the last 5 years for various reasons, costing me nearly $1000. So $10.99 for something that can last you a lifetime you isn’t too much to ask.
Musicians don’t be afraid to put a value on your music. Don’t be afraid to charge. There are many ways of making income through music in this day and age. Seek them out and learn to monetize your craft. It’s the talent God gave you and you have every right to make money from it while you also use it to serve the people around you. Other artists such as Ryan Leslie and Talib Kweli have moved away from popular platforms and are selling music directly to their fans and they’re making good money, retain customer information and have a better overall view on their business than a lot of artists. Don’t be afraid to try the same if you feel like you’re being shafted as far as getting money for your music is concerned.
