How An Indie Musician Made $19,000 In 10 Hours Using Twitter | Hacker News Reader

How An Indie Musician Made $19,000 In 10 Hours Using Twitter

mikeking.berkleemusicblogs.com

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.

"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.

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?

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.

Sounds like bullet.

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.

Advances run from 10k to millions, depending on how many albums the music executives believe you will sell, and how badly they want to distribute your album.

I know more about the book publishing industry than the music one, but I'd guess that to get million dollar advances you'd have to be a band with a track record, or at least one in a bidding war between labels.

Its actually probably because the cost of making and distributing an album like hers is pretty high. Shes probably just not even close to breaking even on the costs she owes the record label.

The fact that it was ben folds produced leads me to believe that it probably cost quite a bit.

So shes right, shes probably made nothing and is in fact probably still in the hole.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Likewise, here story about a coffee shop which uses Twitter place to go orders.

http://blog.mrtweet.net/twitter-to-go-how-one-local-coffee-s...

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.

Exactly. I'd never play down the countless hours of work it takes to make a living from the music business - but doesn't being connected with a major label imply that you're no longer "indie?"

So all you need is 10 hours, Twitter and a massive army of super-dedicated fans (340,000 listeners on last.fm alone)

Disclosure: I work for an independent record label.

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."

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.

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

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