I know here are some peaple/bands that sell their music on iTunes, Amazon MP3, etc. I'm wondering how much one could earn selling music through these sites (in a year for example). Could you share your experience?
iTunes, Amazon MP3 - how much one could earn?
- Thread starter Urgul
- Start date
Yeah, I know but I would like to get some info from people/bands who sell their music how much they have earned. Just for curiosity.
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
This depends entirely on how much you can actually sell. I can tell you that if you use TuneCore that you'll maybe approximately 70% of each sale.
LeSedna
Mat or Mateo
I'll be using Kunaki for CD's and then itunes and Amazon for mp3s.
It's hilarious. No one gives a shit about our silly little bands. Got new pres? No one cares.
I'm a few months from being finished on my first album. I'm going to release it, send out a 100 for review, I've already shot/produced a video.
I can't wait to press the big red button and release it. Then go and die in a ditch.
Being a one man band, and trying to do it all yourself is soul destroying.
Vent over.
It's hilarious. No one gives a shit about our silly little bands. Got new pres? No one cares.
I'm a few months from being finished on my first album. I'm going to release it, send out a 100 for review, I've already shot/produced a video.
I can't wait to press the big red button and release it. Then go and die in a ditch.
Being a one man band, and trying to do it all yourself is soul destroying.
Vent over.
you need a placement site to place in iTunes, AFAIK. You can't just sign up for itunes and submit music, again, AFAIK.
How much you can make depends entirely on how many people want to listen to your band, and how many know who you are.
IMO, it's probably as easy/easier to use CD Baby over Kunaki at this point, because they can tie in the CD making process into the placement service, and IMO the results would be more consistent than Kunaki...I've heard people have had issues with Kunaki. I use them for making short runs/special orders on my band's first EP that is "out of print" and have had success, but I know others have bought bulk orders of their discs and they are unplayable and Kunaki told them they were SOL. With Discmakers owning CD Baby now, you have at least a well known company making the CD's, and they can tie in the iTunes placement and CDBaby store set up all in one fell swoop. If my band decides to do a limited short run at some point, I'll probably just do it all through CD Baby. For our last disc (2007 and reorders in 08, 09 and 2010), we used DiskFaktory and they have been great. Our latest one came packaged with a DVD, so we used a smaller company that had a complete package we were looking for (2 disc, 6 panel, full color, etc.) rather than the replication places most well known that offer more limited selections.
Aside from that, CD Baby is consistent in their work for us. We get 70 cents per song downloaded and a certain percentage (again, 70%) of digital albums purchased (which is less to buy a full album than the 9 or 10 songs individually). They send us a monthly payment for purchases made the month prior...It's a nice way to have a steady little income for your band (assuming you keep selling every month). For my band, we still make a LOT more in physical sales, but we are small time and don't tour/have national exposure, so physical medium make up about 80% of our sales (shows, mail order, etc.). We make 20-50 off CD Baby a month.
How much you can make depends entirely on how many people want to listen to your band, and how many know who you are.
IMO, it's probably as easy/easier to use CD Baby over Kunaki at this point, because they can tie in the CD making process into the placement service, and IMO the results would be more consistent than Kunaki...I've heard people have had issues with Kunaki. I use them for making short runs/special orders on my band's first EP that is "out of print" and have had success, but I know others have bought bulk orders of their discs and they are unplayable and Kunaki told them they were SOL. With Discmakers owning CD Baby now, you have at least a well known company making the CD's, and they can tie in the iTunes placement and CDBaby store set up all in one fell swoop. If my band decides to do a limited short run at some point, I'll probably just do it all through CD Baby. For our last disc (2007 and reorders in 08, 09 and 2010), we used DiskFaktory and they have been great. Our latest one came packaged with a DVD, so we used a smaller company that had a complete package we were looking for (2 disc, 6 panel, full color, etc.) rather than the replication places most well known that offer more limited selections.
Aside from that, CD Baby is consistent in their work for us. We get 70 cents per song downloaded and a certain percentage (again, 70%) of digital albums purchased (which is less to buy a full album than the 9 or 10 songs individually). They send us a monthly payment for purchases made the month prior...It's a nice way to have a steady little income for your band (assuming you keep selling every month). For my band, we still make a LOT more in physical sales, but we are small time and don't tour/have national exposure, so physical medium make up about 80% of our sales (shows, mail order, etc.). We make 20-50 off CD Baby a month.
LeSedna
Mat or Mateo
Tunecore and CDbaby put you on many sites including iTunes, Deezer, Spotify, etc. You can put your songs yourself on iTunes if you want.
huh, I didn't know that. I thought you always had to use a placement service.
But yeah, the placement services put the music in a lot more places.
Not sure what question the original poster is really asking. What is the split? Many download sites give you up to 70% of your total sales. If you are asking what the average iTunes artist receives, it is probably in the neighborhood of less than $50 (not per month or year...$50 period). No matter how good you are, you have to have strong regular promotion pushing your music (unless you beat million to one odds and it goes viral for some reason) or you won't sell squat. Lots of artists assume if their music is good it will sell itself. Doesn't typically work that way. Even if you want to sell only downloads, you should probably have at least 100 cds manufactured to send out as promos to websites, fanzines, internet radio, etc.
Thank all of you for your input 
Yeah, I am asking how much are you able to receive money selling your music, for example: We have sold XXX copies of our album/songs and earned YYY$ in a year.
I know that I'll receive 70% of the income when I use Tunecore, I know that the sale depends on a lot of factors, etc., but I would like to know exact sums the bands earned. Just for informative purposes...
Yeah, I am asking how much are you able to receive money selling your music, for example: We have sold XXX copies of our album/songs and earned YYY$ in a year.
I know that I'll receive 70% of the income when I use Tunecore, I know that the sale depends on a lot of factors, etc., but I would like to know exact sums the bands earned. Just for informative purposes...
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
I don't think you'll find very many bands willing to share that information, for a lot of reasons.
