Spotify: The Anchoress makes no money from 750,000 streams
What is the true story? How are independent musicians surviving in this age of music seeming to have less value, yet it proliferates everywhere with more people consuming it and from a much wider variety of sources than ever.
Is it still a story of the small percentage of artists who are lucky enough to get signed, being fortunate enough to have a hit record while the rest of us hopefuls crash n burn?
Or are we in an age of opportunity and potential for success for more people? Albeit not by joining the 1% of popular artists, but by having a modestly successful career - at the very least one that can support an average lifestyle and allow further investment into producing more music and thereby satisfying our unrelenting, creative urge to write and perform.
Like many of us in the musicians’ community, I’ve posted comments expressing my dismay about the percentage of income revenue similar to the BBC article above. Those worrying tales detail the reality of Artists failing to make a living whilst having what looks like success in the number of streams. But the truth is I never really knew how the system worked and why so many fail at making a living. From the outside it all seems straightforward enough: the content creators are receiving the smallest ££ share for the consumption of their art. “Give them a larger share” = job done, right? It just seems like an obvious injustice with a simple fix, one that must be righted and without delay.
Even as I write now I don’t claim to know what’s best or fair. I’m in research mode and I intend to share what I discover with you. I’m investigating what people are doing, how they’ve achieved their success stories…or failed, whilst also embarking on my own journey of discovery for my band Project PH at the same time. Nervous? A bit…I love my band and the music we’re creating, I want it to do well because our music moves me and I believe there are others who would appreciate what we have to offer. But we need to go DIY as independents - getting that big multi-album record deal is typically offered to young musicians with mainstream music and lots of followers already in place from the socials. The best you can hope for in the funk, jazz, soul, RnB and other niche genres is a distribution deal for an album already made, a risky option as the recording costs are all yours and although a label may pay for artwork and pressing, if they’re not as efficient as you thought, you can end up in a highly frustrating situation. You need your label to do all the marketing and get the album distributed correctly, many fail to cover even these tasks in the most effective way.
This time I want to do things properly. Not to just “put our music out there” and wait for the magic to weave its spell finding an audience because it was “meant to be” - or more likely - not meant to be, and upon fading away, accept that it’s just the way it goes sometimes. No, that’s not going to be my strategy.
We’re about to record and release an EP’s worth of music. We’re going into the fabulous Rosewood Music studios just before Christmas and I’m developing a release strategy around that. Despite my previous feelings, I’m going to try digital distribution including Spotify with this attitude in mind: Treat them like radio exposure (with less of the writers share and no PPL which does suck), but saving me the costs of using other less effective marketing tools to drive attention towards my own physical output - gigs, CDs & merch.
It’s clear that there are musicians who do get the marketing right by using metrics they collect about the fans who stream their tunes. They ARE making a living and from far fewer streams and fans than the artist in the above article. With that many streams and fans engaging with her music, I'd guess she's missing out on making the existing system work for her, one that is fully set up for deeper and ongoing connection with the people who enjoy her music.
I would suggest relying on royalties from streaming alone is not the best way to survive? That's like getting a lot of radio play (and some PPL & PRS) but failing to play live and selling zero records. Our income is from sales, not from just advertising our music to people listening to our music. That’s an ok strategy if the advertising (streaming) leads them to make physical purchases in some way (records/CDs and shows) or to become fans and all that can encompass. Before the internet and streaming took over, radio did this function with Artists getting a share of profits after costs. Getting on a radio playlist was a tough old game full of backhanders, quid pro quo and corruption. Now of course there are fewer physical sales, but if we don't direct-market to fans, musicians are waiting for people to be randomly inspired to make a purchase. That takes a large advertising and PR budget when the right amount of resources and investment exists for an Artist, something that is beyond the scope of most of us.
For independents, fan engagement has to be done and done correctly with release strategies in place just like the labels who prepare in advance of releases and with plans to promote the music properly post-release. Instrumentalists and songwriters who write and release their own records sometimes don’t feel they can call themselves “Artist” (we usually work for those kinds of folk). Most are not comfortable with the idea of “selling themselves” aka marketing. They are serious people, who practice for years to get great at what they do, they are not a “brand” FFS! so do very little in terms of engagement with social media platforms in a non-personal way. Then they release their “years in the making” masterpieces - and believe me those records are often very very good. Self-penned, self-produced and well written typically, they are made after all by professional musicians many of whom work alongside familiar names from the commercial world, but often nothing of substance comes of all of that work. Perhaps for a few musicians, it’s a nice earner alongside session work or teaching and private functions aka “the day job”, but making a living from sales of their own original music? Typically no.
My questions to those that get that far - to actually making a record ready to release:
“Who are you selling to? How are they hearing about you? What are you doing to engage people’s attention? Do you have a mailing list? An ads budget? How many followers do you have on the socials. Do you know your follower demographic or the best time to post clips depending upon region and platform?” All of these questions and much more must be known by any musician who is looking to release music independently. If they were signed to a record label any efficient company would have answers to these questions. If you’re an independent you are your own label - after all, someone has to do the work for your music - if it isn’t you and you’re not signed, what is going to happen when you release an album?
In the early 00’s I recorded an album, then an EP, my partner at the time also recorded an album so we started a record label achieving a distribution deal where we got to see our albums in the racks at HMV. One of our albums got the attention of a panellist for the MOBOs and the record became nominated in the jazz category. (2011) We had interviews and reviews as well and I was on the front cover of bass guitar magazine around this time.
We sold a few albums here and there, but most sales occurred when my band at the time, The DEEP MO supported Level 42 on one of their UK tours. We also sold merchandise and we made enough money to pay the band members reasonably well. It was tough doing the tour with the band - a four-piece, driving back and forth from London to the shows in my Ford Galaxy with the Level 42 tour manager generously offering us space for our gear in their truck and the use of their crew for our set including the mix engineers, which all helped us with costs. It was a fantastic experience, but those stories are for another time. My point is I never recovered what we spent making those albums, even with those successes. For us, they were major achievements because when it’s your own music every invitation and positive result feels enormous and highly satisfying, but it just doesn’t always pay the bills. I folded the label after I released my final Deep MO album in 2012. I did zero marketing and only a few gigs in the lead-up, selling a few hundred copies online with most sales again happening whenever we played live. It was great to see how I could shift 30-40 CDs in one night. Frustrating when on a mini-tour one year in Europe, I sold all the CDs I had before the end of our dates - I could only carry so many with me from London.
Back then I suffered from a lack of knowledge about all aspects of how the music business works. My knowledge had been limited to musicians’ issues, how our role works alongside an artist with all the challenges that arise for session musicians and experiences from that point of view. In that area, I have a huge amount of insight and direct experience, and having witnessed what Artists go through has been incredibly valuable, but what I learned has very little to do with navigating the industry from a business perspective, especially what skills and knowledge are needed for today with the challenges of dealing with digital marketing.
So I've been studying through various courses, podcasts and interviews. One huge revelation for me has been this. In marketing circles, musicians - yes you Artists - offering their music shouldn't really consider streaming (selling) your music as an income revenue - on ANY service. Digital releases can be considered "loss leaders". Of course, you can have $$££ coming in, but we’ve all seen the revenue statistics, we gotta be realistic. The idea is, you use singles to increase awareness, gaining fans to share news about further releases, which can lead to more live bookings or even planning a tour around the demographics in your increasing fanbase, plus of course leading to physical sales.
There’s definitely a pattern of advice around this idea of "Don't expect to make money releasing tracks online”.
I've always thought of Spotify as the devil in particular but the truth is "number of streams" has a different significance besides revenue share that I personally didn't consider.
Streaming is another form of MARKETING.
It's not about sales. Therefore it's not about direct income.
The MOST important thing about making your music and putting it out there is getting it to the listener's ears. These platforms push your material out to potential fans. Your releases are notified directly to all of your followers, your tracks end up on playlists and are circulated without you having to do much once they are on those platforms. You can get onto specific services that will curate your tracks and get them to the right bloggers, podcasters, playlists and online magazines - (I’ll be checking them out, so currently can’t recommend any service in particular).
Very interesting when you think about how much it costs to hire pluggers and retain marketing personnel. I did it myself before the socials took over. I spent £1000’s over a period and got so little back I felt I'd been ripped off. (I was!)
I'm going to DIY my releases this time and thinking about how to do this means understanding more than what seems obvious.
And yes I will point people to my Bandcamp, it is fairer and I want to support that system for those that want to support musicians etc, but now I'm having a rethink about using the streaming services, potentially including letting go of my former position demonising of the “diabolical” Spotify.
Streaming services make a profit from all of the people subscribing and the Ads revenue. They also don't pay out fairly and their system is gamed and mined by tech-savvy folks with the resources and know-how. Check out this method detailing a Spotify hack.
(I do not support anyone doing this kind of thing at all - it’s just nuts to be focused on short term minor gains in exchange for your musical soul).
But the value the services provide is by giving you a marketing push that would cost you thousands. I'm now seeing those services as marketing that pays out (pennies) but doesn't cost YOU anything. Where it goes wrong for musicians is not engaging with your fanbase/new listeners and encouraging them to go to gigs, buy physical CDs and other stuff that could be of interest to them.
You cannot expect to make music and pay for the costs of recording etc plus you and your band’s living expenses with enough left over to finance writing and recording the next album from sales of recorded music… unless of course your streams are in the millions or billions https://www.musicgateway.com/royalties-calculator - but that is still just for those less than 1% https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/over-60000-tracks-are-now-uploaded-to-spotify-daily-thats-nearly-one-per-second/
We must always remember there are other methods of income also.
Check this article for more info: https://www.reviews.com/entertainment/streaming/music-streaming-royalties/
The simple truth, hard to hear but factual.
“…not every artist is that popular — the nonprofit Music Industry Research Association (along with Princeton University and MusiCares) conducted a survey of 1,277 U.S. musicians and found the median musician made about $35K in 2017 (only $21,300 from music-related sources). And 61% of the musicians said their music-related income didn’t sufficiently support living expenses.”
So making a record one time and then expecting the millions to roll in happens for perhaps fewer than 1% of Artists (or 10% of the 1%)
- just like it always did. Now though less mainstream musicians have a better chance to make a modest living from releasing original music, once they understand the system we live in and we make use of all of the tools at our disposal. This does include other paths besides streaming. I’ll be detailing those as I find the stats and stories.
Here’s a list of the types of deals offered: https://www.omarimc.com/10-types-of-record-deals-every-musician-needs-to-know/
Getting our music made is a tough job, getting it heard is even tougher. Thinking of those online platforms as a service FOR us to get our music heard (I’m thinking of the streaming platforms as successful marketing/radio services for the public, as opposed to shops or retailers who are taking all the profits from us - which is how most musicians see them) well it’s starting to make a huge amount of sense to me. And is much more of an exchange of services and content.
The streaming platforms get to use our tracks to provide a service that they charge for - that’s their business model. Ours as musicians is multi-faceted and more in our control than ever before. We need to sharpen up our business acumen, learn the system, yes fight for a fairer share if such a thing can be achieved, but in the meantime to survive we can focus on cutting out the middlemen from owning our works. Hiring and outsourcing support when requiring specific skills the way labels do when budgets allow, but keep as much in-house or DIY as possible, whilst using these services as ads for our unique content that we can retain the rights of gaining a larger share of the profits, even though we may get our music out to perhaps fewer people, but if aimed at the right people we’ll gain those who will come to shows and buy our albums and merchandise.
I'm still investigating, but I'm definitely not making a record only for it to sit on the shelf.
This time I'm going to make sure I do as much as I can to get it heard by as many people as possible. I’ll not pay out to any pluggers or marketing people before trying it the DIY way - it'll be interesting to learn how the machine works.
To any musicians reading this essay - Good luck with your plans to write and release new music, we need your unique art in our lives! Don’t let it stay unheard.
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