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Re: First Sale!!!
Posted by **travis** on Aug 31, 2013 at 7:25:11 AM:
In Reply to: Re: First Sale!!! posted by **Johnny D** on Aug 31, 2013 at 1:15:15 AM:
****If it's who I think it is, it's someone here. Thank you. I hope you like it.
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***Hi Tommy! Thanks for finally letting us know your name! You're not black or a monk! hahaha. You're Tommy Stevens! (Or that may be a cool stage name)! Either way, cool names in both of them!
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***Ok, (some caring info here for ya):
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***Respectfully of course, why are you selling it? Don't you want to grow a fan base? To hopefully sell more units in the long run and have more fans in the long run? Do you realize how many artists are online? When putting a product up for sale, you are saying you are entering the business of competing with other artists in your genre, and some in crossover genres. Not a smart move to put your first tracks up for sale. That is a business move, not for an ego move. And business dictates to get a fan base going before having them pay for your start up campaign. That expense is yours all the way.
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***Now, if you get downloads from offering the respected and smart FREE mp3 downloads, then keep chart of those stats. Over a few months, see how many you have. That number will be greatly more than if having for-sale tracks or CD's. If the free downloads are low for your liking for any month, imagine what the sales would be? (Much less of course). And, LESS people would be hearing your music because of your need to sell product now, so early in your venture. NOT a good thing no matter how you look at it.
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***Being in music for most of my life, and have helped to educate hundreds on the same issue and many other issues in music on the largest songwriting networking site in the world, Just Plain Folks, I strongly suggest to quickly change all your songs for free downloads. That will "encourage", (not chase), people to download your songs and give you a listen. People's time and money is very limited! To compete for sales is insane unless you have a great following of about 1000 fans already. THEN, you could launch songs for sale, or a CD for sale (rare these days though), as single song downloads has become the way. Time and money, remember! People just don't have much of either.
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***There are over a million artists of all levels selling product! Trust me, you want to JUST get people to listen to you and get to love your songs before asking them to buy into your first project. It is one of those beginner things that are mistakenly done, sorry to have to say, But, you should know the ways of being a songwriter/producer, if wanting even just some personal success of any kind.
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***GET MORE PEOPLE to HEAR YOU! That is what you could be asking. Then, later, if it looks promising, make the HUGE jump to selling your songs as downloads. That is when the fans hit the fans or not! :)
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***Best wishes!
***Johnny D
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**The way Bandcamp is set up, people can listen to the songs for free. I'm not sure the ability to download them would make much difference. If someone downloads my songs, they probably download a lot of other material and I'd get lost in the crowd after a day or so. From my own experience, of all the people I've discovered through free downloads, there are only one or two that I didn't forget about soon afterwards. Usually, what happens is that I'll like something when I first hear it, then I won't listen to it again until I come across it cleaning up files or something. I'll probably put a couple of songs elsewhere so that I'm more visible, but that's the real problem, free or for sale, I have to get people to listen to it first. They can listen for free, but I have to work on spreading the word and that will involve chasing people.
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**Thanks for your suggestions.
*
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*OOOHHH GOOD then! They CAN listen before deciding to buy?! COOL!
*I was under the impression the opposite, and just wrote a rant about it all to Murray in a newer thread! LOL...I wasted my and his time I guess! But good info there anyway, from experience, so do try to read some of that might pertain to you in some way, if time permits. I got carried away AGAIN with relative info.
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*Yeah, marketing to get people to just go your page is a very tough thing to accomplish, for there are tons of people, very bad to very good and all in between doing the same thing! ALL over the world too! Everybody's a songwriter since the Web! Every age, every style! Massive amount of people and much more songs than that of course!
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*I suggest to join networking sites, such as Just Plain Folks, (free to sign up). You can check it out first without signing up, but signing up is just a cool thing to do there, for we all try to be buddy buddy and open and honest with everything form our real names to what it is we actually want out of our playing and writing. I know the founder personally, Brian Austin Whitney. he is relentless is supporting the indie musician, writer, photographer, whatever! There are over 52,000 members of all types from most countries, just trying to help each other in any way, through comments and even at showcases, which I did one eastern US tour with Brian. I closed a few showcases, (which was actually just my choice to do that, as I wanted people to sing along with it and maybe remember it as they leave). LOL FUN!
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*Justplainfolks.org
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*All you need to sign up is your email addy and to fill out the short form there. You can not included anything if you prefer, although not helpful to you and others. Keep in mind, it is called just plain folks for a reason. It was built u by Brian traveling around the US meeting other songwriters and exchanging playing songs and getting bites to eat before he moved along. Then once he got a 100 people who signed up his free site, it took off. I was number 100 something. I met him at a meeting in PA, then at the first showcase I signed for, which then had me go to others after that one! All the way up to New Hampshire, from South Jersey, where I live. All but the last two were separate trips! To play ONE song,,,for FREE! LOL...
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*That helped me to get other things going that led to my band, that led to recording music with the two great producers, Mike Caro and Mike Appel, (Springsteen's first manager and producer up to Born To Run). ALL from doing stuff for FREE! :) Sacrificing too. For ONE 2 minute song! LOL...People say, John, why don't you just do music for the love of it and not keep trying to get into the music business? LOL.....For the LOVE of it? Duh! I already have been doing that all along, since age 7 ! When did I stop doing it for the love of it?! I also live doing it for MORE love and some earnings, so I can LOVE doing it more and more without having to do other things I may not love as much! I hate that saying,,,"Why don't you do it for the love of it?! LOL
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*Best wishes! If you go to Just Plain Folks,,,look around at ALL the forums! Wow! Many topics! And he is building a new site soon too. Mention me when or if you email him upon signing up. Tell him John Daubert sent you. Hope that doesn't hurt your reputation!
*
I see where BM is coming from. I have downloaded stuff for free and it does generally tend to get a bit lost (to me), even if it's by a famous, or relatively famous, artist. It's one of the reasons I've gone back to buying LPs and CDs.
Followup Messages:
- Re: First Sale!!! - **Johnny D** - Aug 31, 2013 at 10:53:04 PM
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Last updated on Aug 31, 2013