Barbryn has set a great challenge down thread – but I’m quite depressed about creative work at the moment …
(I’m really struggling to get B-Boy’s Brainasaurus published in a sensible cost effective way – that’s still morally correct for me – paper and inks friendly to the planet – as I know you were wondering) I had a quote for 50 books (32pages, soft cover, digital print) that came in at £9 each – there is no way that reading is being taken over just for the upper middle classes- the same way music is going … I can hand print it for less than that.
So music, I hear you scream – my friends have given up releasing stuff on their record label (sorry Debbie, was hoping to link your boy up with them) – the only way to make enough to get CD out, was to get 30secs of tunes embedded in a cookery program – yeah mum – listen here, some posh feck is talking over our lovingly crafted song – I’VE MADE IT.
It isn’t needed to have a record label now anyway – set up bandcamp – sell it yourself – but the economics are odd and some bands are not realistic .. I see no value in digital, it’s throwaway – Woolworth’s 10p singles bin for the modern age – here today gone tomorrow – whateva.
But friends are trying to sell tracks for a £1 each – because that’s what they think is fair. Well life aint fair. You are not going to get a quid for tuneful air. No one will find it – or listen enough to love it, when many other great songs are given away or stolen.
iTunes and it’s ilk are again digital air – pay the programmers and the store is there.. make that money back and invest heavily in musicians to keep stocking your ‘store’ – does that happen? – does the Apple brand hit the top spot of the ethical companies -ummmmmm. Does it rip everyone off for horrendous profit?
These questions will be answered inside your own mind.
Spotify – again, I was going to start play listings using this method when the G swapped to it.
But then a mate said 3000 plays for his tunes – royalty check 0.008p. I give away my artwork on the computer – people can use it for what the like – as long as it’s morally okay with me and non-commercial. You know what – ‘free‘ is better in the mind than the ignominy of 0.008p.
To put this in perspective – a play on radio1 is worth £30 – the artist doesn’t get that – the nature of the beast at that level is the pimps and the pushers will get the highest cut – but you sell your soul – you pays the costs. When Adele moans about a £4million pound tax bill – I ask – how the fuck much dosh did you fucking well rake in to get stung for that much love? Be thankful, the £6 paid by bods in Asda and Tesco for your tosh represents a large chunk of all their income … STOP WHINING woman. Start ploughing that money back into the human race.
Making mix tapes never ruined the music industry – profit mongers ruin the creative industries.
A blog like this with 50 people loving music will engage and evolve the identity of an artist. We are fairly careful not to overdose an artists body of work – even overviews are created to showcase a brilliant selection – and shows that each of us loves a different track – so we go buy the lot (or what we can afford) – we go and find what we love best.
I sometimes send people an entire album – usually if it’s too expensive – or not available in their country. Those people, I trust, will buy other music and keep the whole creative process going. But mostly it’s a mix tape for the digital age. My playlists on here are able to be downloaded – someone skipping through 13 tracks a week isn’t going to fall in love – but having a tune crop up on your music player on random – makes you listen again – then, you choose to play that band – then, hook, line and ‘sonic fisherman’ sinker.. you need that band in you life.
This is how music has been passed on for ever – singing around a campfire learning a new tune – listening on a radio to a pirate DJ – John Peel’s ramshackle output – your big brother or sisters record collection, your mum’s or your dad’s records – a friend’s mix tape – a punt on a brilliant cover in a second hand store. No artist ever made made money from those sources. – .. this is what music is about. Finding, loving, sharing.. passing on – and hoping that artist will be able to continue.
to be continued….
The rights issue aside, would suggest using EPUB format for the book (trees have rights too). Here’s a how to, if you’re interested:
http://www.pigsgourdsandwikis.com/2011/02/fixed-layout-epubs-for-ipad-and-iphone.html?m=1
You can sell the thing through the evil Apple (evil Amazon doesn’t support EPUB, but that seems to be the best format for e-picture books, right now).
There are plenty of free EPUB readers that can convert a web browser into a reader, so you don’t have to have an Apple device to be able to read the file.
I can epub it and will probably convert it to that at some point – but how ever eco friendly I am (and I’m not sure reading on an electric device is better than controlled forestry) – I want picture books in my children’s hands.
I can also easily place it somewhere ‘on-demand’ like Lulu.com also – but I was trying to buy a collection of short stories – from a friend who is next to me – I order it – it gets printed, so no waste books sitting around… but then it’s flown to me from America, for the same price as the book. I don’t take planes anymore, so why would I fly over the book from the fella standing next to me. (…and the UK on demand companies are so expensive – I could print on silk – with real gold inks… ‘sigh’ again)…
and all of these methods have ‘small print’ that you have to watch out for – that’s not font size of your book – that’s the details in who else can publish, what cut they take and other issues … it’s driving me crazy – don’t you know.
and put in perspective evil apple IS an amazing company – I use a Mac – they are just better – but suicidal workers (a really bad thing) not helping their local economy (Cheap Chinese manufacture = bad thing) and the ‘linked in’ programming get’s on my tits and is expensive.
All those things are true, and the ignominy of .008p really stands out. But I don’t know how it’s going to work out with everyone helping themselves to free music – the spirit of the mixtape is alive and well and a good thing, but the scale is massive now. That .008p might be the record companies trying to find a way to compete with it ?
Most of all though, I’m delighted to hear about the Brainasaurus book.
It’s the fact that spotify give no incentive to buy – 3000 people have ‘chosen’ to play that track – it’s not an accident. If spotify can’t pay a decent wage to those who supply the nuts and bolts of it’s company – then it’s not a useful business model for record labels or artist.
Spotify say it’s a publicity for the song (the same as videos weren’t payed for on MTV originally – Duran Duran made million £ adverts – MTV got rich on their backs) but it’s not publicity when you just carry on playing that tune on any device you own. It free music with an artist getting bugger all – I’m told Lady Ga Ga has had a rant on a grander scale, than my friends 3000 plays.
I will get the book printed – only small scale – but I will, somehow.
Awesome post shane.
One point though is that Spotify and iTunes are apples and oranges.Spotify streams not sells songs, so that .0008p is per listen. It takes 1,237 listens listens to earn £1, which you can argue is or isn’t fair. What’s not fair though is the same 1,237 plays on YouTube gains the artist …… £0.000000000. Zilch.
Artists have always earned different levels of revenue for different uses of their music – radio plays, record sales, soundtracks, albums vs casettes, DJs, etc… – and streaming is just a new different use. For me the debate is what is a fair share of the profit each type of use generates.
Spotify and iTunes ARE different –
Spotify was supposed to relate to radio – 1 radio play £30 (big station I know) that’s the same as a listen – (I know my friends indie tunes don’t really compare and his maths might be out – but his check was a total 0.008p after 3000 listens) You hear a tune on radio – press play and record.. listen again love the track – go out and buy it. (that was my youth anyway) times have changed.
Hear a song – search on Spotty – listen on the computer or on the move with a handheld device – artist gets pretty much zero – you never have the need to go purchase….
Youtube is like the old MTV – I can rip the tune from the video – but I don’t want that quality to listen to – I see a great video – linked from the ‘spill – I still go out and search for that tune in a decent format.
iTunes and the selling stores – well what get’s to the artist?
I used the same artist and got this result:
apple is 79p – e-music is 42p – Amazon 89p
e-music can’t negotiate a better price than apple and amazon can it?
if they can’t, then a couple of those companies are getting a lot bigger profit.
Any way – what gives?
Well, Dan – he being: Withered Hand – is releasing one more EP in the Summer – then he’s questioning if he want anything to do with the whole thing anymore … that’s what gives.
We are going to be left with hobbyist bands who can afford to self release – all our music will come from the 17 millionaires of the cabinets children… and that my friend – makes me want to vomit.
Agree that royalties paid by the streamers is ridiculous. Only makes sense for the majors. Last FM seem to be more useful for independents, but think that has more to do with helping artists find their audience rather than the royalty side of things.
Apple take 30% (a little steep – but that’s one of the reasons they now have more money than Exxon). Once a major label has taken their slice, Adele would be lucky to see 10% (or nothing until the label recoups any advances). A sorted indie entrepreneur, on the other hand, can get close to the full 70% left. This model is also makes it pretty transparent to the indie artist how many downloads they need to recover their own costs (studio time, engineering, mastering, artwork & copywrite).
Apple are also paying some royalties off their new match service – so artists can get additional royalty for a CD they’ve already had royalties from. Like streaming, this is probably only of benefit to the majors.
Hey Shane, great post and yes, i agree that with an illustrated book you’re going to want a physical product rather than something digital, but unit costs are always going to be massive for such low print runs for picture books rather than the tens of thousands that companies like Taschen will be able to run out. The sickening thing is, the more environmentally friendly you want to be – the more you’re going to have to pay for it.
Apropos of nothing other than your Adele comment regarding her whining about her tax bill – i recommend you read (if you haven’t already) Stephen King’s taxation diatribe recently.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/01/stephen-king-tax-the-rich
Yep – I like that Stephen King rant.. nice one.
Had a interesting day talking with printers – nothing really sorted but some interesting variations.
Call it a book – you are treated as a vanity publishing case – that doubles the price.
Call it a booklet – being created for a present – price can be knocked down 70p a copy within an hour after a first quote significantly cheaper than the book one.
Price it up as a business brochure – that’s 60p less again.
All the same, full colour – weight of paper and card cover – nothing different but wording – brilliant.
Have a mentioned this before: *sigh*
I wish I could offer help/advice, shane, as the world would obviously be a much better place were Brainasaurus being held by loving, slightly sticky, little hands everywhere.
At one time I would parade the Grateful Dead model – give the live music away and they’ll buy the recorded stuff – as the way to go, but that doesn’t work when everyone’s doing it (and I can’t relate it book production anyway).
Unfortunately, capitalism still controls the means of production. Whereas that used to mean just the publishing houses and book/record factories, it now has monolithic control of the marketing and distribution mechanisms too: Apple, Google, Spotify, Cowell, Amazon (Kindle) etc. The creative person has always been a disposable commodity, unfortunately, of value only if they can shift lots of units. The new technologies allow the laws of supply and demand to operate more efficiently: the good and bad sellers can be identified quickly, trends can be identified more easily and marketing geared towards maximising profit put in place more efficiently.
As E said: It’s a motherfucker.
As Che said: ¡Viva la Revolución!
… at the moment I’m with E.
I could go into the stolen image of Che and how ¡Viva la Revolución! has been corrupted by middle class kids on gap years, creating a deadening of the message, by an over used graphic design.. but my brain hurts… so I wont.
Just popping in again to say Hello and Chin Up. It is a rum do isn’t it ? I saw Nick Lowe a month or two back, and I always think about the story that he’d reached a low point (financially, artistically, possibly life in general) when a surprise cheque popped through the letterbox, because Curtis Stigers had covered “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace Love and Understanding ?” on the soundtrack of The Bodyguard. Not sure anything like that would happen now, let alone a new artist breaking through from getting a following to making a half-decent living.