Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
The Long Tail to Sales
There’s a book out by Chris Anderson titled The Long Tail, his term for certain species of increased sales opportunities on the internet.
Anderson was writing an article about the website Ecast when he noticed a major change in the way music sales work. Previous market research dictated the “80/20 rule,” meaning 80 percent of your sales come from 20 percent of your product. This explains why record stores are loathe to stock local artists – they take up valuable space that could be used for more Britneys, Beyonces, and Beatles, the three Bs, the 80 per-centers.
But, just as the internet has changed the political debate, it’s changed the way people buy – especially music, books, and video. A brick and mortar store can only stock so many CDs, but an online merchandiser can stock millions of digitalized tunes. Rhapsody, for instance has a library of 1.5 million songs. Sure, U2 will sell the most songs, but Anderson was surprised to find out that about a million of those other songs sell at least once a month! And this is “the long tale.”
Of course that means nothing to the editors of Billboard, but it means millions to Rhapsody, so it is to their advantage to list as many artists as they can.
Artists like you!
You can even buy MY CDs on Amazon! I’ve put them on CDBaby, who don’t care if I am an old fat bald guy living in Middletown, Delaware. In cyberspace no one can tell, and every dime I make is a couple cents for them. The longer the tail the more those pennies add up.
And shelf life doesn’t matter. The pop music scene is appalling. You’re done at 30, literally a hero today and nobody tomorrow.
But Internet sales of music, books, and movies work differently. In his book Anderson compares Blockbuster, ninety percent of whose movies are new releases, to Netflix, with a library of sixty thousand titles. Seventy percent of Netflix’ sales are oldies. Same with books: “at Amazon.com … about a quarter of all book sales come from outside the site’s top-one-hundred-thousand best-sellers” (emphasis added).
What does this mean to “the little guy?” Well, I have about twenty copies left of my 1983 vinyl release out melting in the barn. Recently a couple of people without turntables wanted to hear that old chestnut, which is dated because I sound different, it’s on vinyl, and I don’t do such raunchy material anymore (I am old and fat and bald, etc, and it SCARES people).
ENTER KUNAKI!
So I typed in “cheap CD reproduction” and found a place called Kunaki.com, a real weird setup in Brooklyn, extremely impersonal. For instance, Kunaki’s mission statement mentions “Kunaki prefers to be thought of as a machine.” In an hour I had downloaded their software (for free). Another hour and I uploaded a CD copy of my old vinyl record, along with Jpegs I snapped of the vinyl’s album cover looking good perched next to my mandolin on a bright red chair. Sort of folksy.
Three or four hours later Kunaki is paid and everything in the works and Kunaki says the 30 CDs at $1.65 each plus postage will arrive in 3 business days. I say “Oh yeah, sure,” figuring at worst I’m out about seventy bucks.
Ay caramba! The CDs arrive in less than 48 hours! I send a half dozen off to CDBaby with thirty bucks and by the end of the week I get an email that two of them have sold! Whew! My head is spinning.
A BRAVE NEW WORLD
It’s a brave new world for somebody whose opus is off beat or not-for-prime time. Me, I realize I’ll never be on MTV and I want to strangle Toby Keith.
Though personally I try to resolve these issues everyday – I spend most of my waking hours, when I’m not watching MTV beach parties and swilling Coronas, hugging my life-size Toby Keith doll—I have considered just accepting myself.
It’s possible there is a niche, albeit a tiny one, even for me. It used to be everybody got their 15 minutes of fame – now you just need to hit your niche.
Maybe not in Nashville, but in cyberspace, somebody might want to hear your screams.
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Posted By beat_master_meat @ 7:47 PM
Author's site: http://www.crabmeat@crabmeat.net
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don_charbonneau's comment posted January 9th @ 12:10 AM:
Hello,
Just wanted to say thanks for this post. I've been reading these articles for the past 10 months or so with some interest but have to say (for an old folkie like myself)that this one certainly hits home!
I followed up on the "Kunaki" link and downloaded their cd/dvd software and yes it is free.
I found this post to be quite useful...thanks again
all the best
Don Charbonneau
Commentors site: http://www.doncharbonneau.com |
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wipeout's comment posted January 9th @ 5:34 AM:
Sounds all great, but the long tail only works for you when costumers know that they can find something to buy from you.
first: costumers have to be willing to buy cds. every year cd-sales go back more than 20%. digital does not rise the same.
second: costumers need to know you and/or your product.
for Radiohead its easy to go a "pay as much as you like thing". everyone knows them and all blogs, media and even those who don't have nothing to do with music reported on their genious marketing strike.
third: myspace and co., iSound help those who have no/little budget to get public, but not costumers. now you say no, but I've spent some time to analyse traffic.
myspace does not help me selling records.
iSound gives me a nice widget to sell digital-files, but 85% of my sellings are done via iTunes.
amazon whats 30.-$ a year and takes 55% when I sell a cd. so they make real profit with us "little" producers telling us that we can make real money out of the long tail.
yes, we make some money out of the long tail, but those who run the database make the real money out of the long tail.
I like all these tools, they help me to distribute music to a broad audience. but its hard to get this audience find you. as an artist its easier to play great shows and sell music from stage.
greetings
wolfgang
www.base.at
Commentors site: http://www.isound.com/dorninger |
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cr_rollyson's comment posted January 9th @ 7:15 AM:
It's refreshing to hear a positive article on what the digital world has opened up.
Commentors site: http://www.myspace.com/crrollyson |
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21129's comment posted January 9th @ 10:44 AM:
These are worthwhile insights and true. The future of this business will see less Thrillers and more modest slices of pie going to a more eclectic and esoteric variety of artists - if collectively we can inspire patronage from mainstream society and elevate awareness and moral consciousness about supporting true artistic independence.
Hopefully this will facilitate the emergence of the median middle class musician who may never grace the cover of Rolling Stone yet be able to support a family and normal lifestyle.
Its certainly a beautiful notion..
Commentors site: http://coliebrice.com |
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9lies's comment posted January 9th @ 6:50 PM:
Blog comments like this and the people behind them are exactly why the big labels are on the run, and shows how what the public listen to no longer has to be force fed by old school dino's in grey suits talking millions.
The change in the music industry has already happened. We have democracy now. We just need to spread the word to those who havent heard!
Long live indie, indie artists and iSound!
Commentors site: http://www.9lies.net/venafestivallodz07.html |
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