

How An Indie Musician Made $19,000 In 10 Hours Using Twitter - replicatorblog
http://mikeking.berkleemusicblogs.com/2009/06/23/how-an-indie-musician-can-make-19000-in-10-hours-using-twitter/

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mcastner
Funny story related to this article: I'd never heard their music before so I
googled them, went to their official website, and checked out their videos
section for some music videos. The music videos they link to on YouTube were
all taken down due to Warner Music Group filing a copyright claim…against one
of their own artists.

Oh, and I still don't know any of their music and I'm not motivated enough to
look elsewhere to find it, so WMG kinda just lost a potential sale there.

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mattmaroon
"TOTAL MADE FROM 30,000 RECORD SALES = ABSOLUTELY NOTHING."

I'm guessing that's only because her advance was greater than her royalties so
far, so she really did make money off of those sales. Probably much more than
$19,000 too.

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kragen
Any clue on what the [edit] solo album advance might have been? I think
advances range over two orders of magnitude or more, don't they?

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J_McQuade
Well, a close friend of mine helms a moderately well-known metal band (albums
charted in Germany, high on the UK Rock Charts and on the Billboard Heatseeker
charts in the US) and after two successful albums, a few large European tours
and a month touring the US (in itself a big feat for a European metal band),
they are still 'down' by a figure in the order of tens of thousands of GBP to
their record label. It's definitely a tough game.

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kragen
See, the thing is, if they're only down by tens of thousands of £, which is
like dozens of thousands of US$, they would earn out from that in short order
if the album revenues were similar to their merchandise revenues Palmer cites
here.

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sh1mmer
I think this is very interesting but also somewhat misleading. Her traditional
media connections, e.g. her label, helped her accumulate 30k fans on Twitter
which she can then leverage in interesting ways.

Not that this isn't interesting. However the point remains that conventional
means remain a good way of starting a following, social networks are a good
way of leveraging them.

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noodle
to be fair, though, she has a little extra clout backing her endeavor. your
average local indie musician will have trouble managing this level of
response.

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replicatorblog
Totally, the Dresden Dolls are working from a huge fan base, but it was
interesting how it almost totally took any third parties out of the equation.
My main interest in tech is the customization of physical products with web
based design tools and It struck me as an interesting model for distribution
in the future. If you are a purveyor of some limited edition good, it would
give you a direct channel, add some mystique to the process, etc.

~~~
noodle
yeah and she also got airtime from neil, her boyfriend, with 600k+ followers.

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replicatorblog
I know this sounds like a spam post, but it is the story of Dresden Dolls
front woman, Amanda Palmer, using twitter in some creative ways to generate
business. Actually filled with useful ideas that could apply to many other
businesses, especially in the service market.

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J_McQuade
The title makes it sound like it was a 'nobody' suddenly using the 'net to
strike gold - Amanda Palmer has a veritable _army_ of uncommonly loyal fans,
fans who would certainly pay far more than $25 for impromptu hand-designed
T-Shirts from her, whatever the medium through which they were advertised.
This story is, for anyone _without_ such a fanbase, worthless.

And 'indie musician'? The text itself (that was copied wholesale from the
artist with little/no value added) references a "huge-ass ben-folds produced-
major-label solo album"! Stupid stupid linkbait. That said, it _is_ a
fantastic record and it's a shame to see she's not made any money from it as
yet.

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kragen
_fans who would certainly pay far more than $25 for impromptu hand-designed
T-Shirts from her, whatever the medium through which they were advertised_

While I agree that her fans love her, I suspect the immediacy of the medium
made a big difference. If she'd advertised in the newspaper, ⓐ most of the
fans never would have seen it and ⓑ those who did would mostly think, "Oh,
maybe I'll order a shirt the next time I'm online."

~~~
replicatorblog
Great point, I'm sure all the mid level bands that have shirts languishing on
Zazzle or CafePress would love to have those kind of sales figures. Having a
huge fan base helps, but this is a new kind of experience that isn't possible
via web,RSS, or other channels as currently offered.

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paul9290
I could not go on reading this article after he proclaimed himself a rock-
star. It seemed an interesting read up to that point!

