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Sunday, February 01, 2009

Free your media!

From Podiobooker:

How free media brought in $4.2 million in sales

by

It’s not a giant leap to draw parallels between indie musicians and authors. To wit; I’d like to introduce you to Corey Smith, a new personal hero of mine. He gives his music away for free on his site. And he sells that music — the very same music — on iTunes. When he takes his free music down, his sales on iTunes go down.

That bears repeating. When he takes his free music down, his sales on iTunes go down.

Cory is now making his living as a musician, resulting in gross receipts of $4.2 million last year. Most of that cash comes from concerts. Tickets to those shows go for $5. As in, five dollars.

So let’s go over this again:

  • He gives his music away for free, or you can buy it
  • He uses no-brainer pricing to make his concerts accessible to just about everyone. And all of their friends
  • Phase Three: Profit.

    Read the story on TechDirt. Then see if you can think of any ways YOU can work in this brave new world. I hope a few authors and publishing houses are paying attention.

  • Scott Sigler goes by this philosophy too, as well as the Monty Python gang. I know personally I find myself more inclined to purchase something even after listening to it for free, if for nothing else to support the artist.

    1 comment:

    JJ said...

    I think this works better for something like music that people listen to again and again. I'm not sure the model works nearly as well for spoken word.
    I'm not saying it does. But I'll see more proof before I'm convinced.
    I can name two-dozen people I know personally giving it away for free, and selling it as well, and I can tell you, they have high numbers an no sales.
    As the song goes, nice work if you can get it... :)
    Congrats to those who do!