Heartland

What a lovely blogpost, and a clear sign that music sales ain't dead yet, you just have to make it easily available!

Bandcamp blog wrote:A few months ago, we began tracking the starting point of every sale that happens on Bandcamp. In the course of looking at the data (which we’re using to help us plan out what to do next), we’ve noticed something awesome: every day, fans are buying music that they specifically set out to get for free.

For example, just this morning someone paid $10 for an album after Googling “lelia broussard torrent.� A bit later, a fan plunked down $17 after searching for “murder by death, skeletons in the closet, mediafire.� Then a $15 sale came in from the search “maimouna youssef the blooming hulkshare.� Then a fan made a $12 purchase after clicking a link on music torrent tracker What.CD. Then someone spent $10 after following a link on The Pirate Bay, next to the plea “They sell their album as a download on their website. You can even choose your format (mp3, ogg, flac, etc). Cmon, support this awesome band!�

Read the full blog here: http://blog.bandcamp.com/2012/01/03/cheaper-than-free/


Which reminds me: OUR Bandcamp page is http://forgreatergood.bandcamp.com

Not that you guys didn't sponsor already, I think half of the sales for the moment come from HeartLanders! x1000

IZ.

i still prefer physical format

Bartek wrote:i still prefer physical format

And understandably so. But for some independent musicians, a physical release can be prohibitively expensive. I know a guy who has put out 4 or 5 records digitally, and the first of those also had a physical release. He's got crateloads. The digital stuff keeps selling, though. For an independent musician, it is cheaper to go digital than to make a physical record, no matter how much he/she/they might want to make the physical artifact.

some "albums" i like listening to, some i like to own.

in the past i used to like to own everything, hence i have a stupidly large cd and vinyl collection that quite frankly just gets in the way

but these days it's a mark of a pretty astonishing album (to my ears) if i go out and buy the physical cd.

the last one i bought was lykke li's "wounded rhymes". the last one before that? i forget, it was such a long time ago

i do like to posses CD- i'm ripping CD onto digital format right after they're in da house (i still don't have proper audio equipment to listen muzak, so collection is waiting to be listen- ripping is kind of proctection).

i went through a process of ripping all the cds i owned a few years ago.

since i bought an appleTV, that has all the >300gb of mp3s on it and is connected to the tv and stereo, i can browse my collection using the appletv intreface on my tv, or using my iphone or ipad remote app, while listening to the output on my stereo.

fwiw, my amp and speakers combined cost me about £600, and i use really good quality interconnects and always rip at 320, so barring the fact that it's mp3-based i would say i'm fairly audiophillic without being too insane about it all, and it all sounds lovely to me

when i do buy a new cd, i rip it to appletv and then stick in with the rest in one of the cardboard boxes in the spare room

realistically, physical format means nothing to me anymore. the only reason i bought the lykke li cd is because a part of me is still clinging to the old idea of "owning" something tangible, rather than embracing the music as transient and insubstantial thing it actually is.

Mr Q wrote:ealistically, physical format means nothing to me anymore. the only reason i bought the lykke li cd is because a part of me is still clinging to the old idea of "owning" something tangible, rather than embracing the music as transient and insubstantial thing it actually is.

Same here i guess that i'm at least 7 years to old (my 7 years younger brother don't have single one CD even that he listen to a lot of hip-hop)

Bandcamp is simple and great. One don't need to register there in order to buy anything or install any crappieces of software/downloader/browser plug-ins. Also very nice: Customers can choose between all relevant lossy and lossless audio formats after purchase.

DocSommer wrote:Bandcamp is simple and great. One don't need to register there in order to buy anything or install any crappieces of software/downloader/browser plug-ins. Also very nice: Customers can choose between all relevant lossy and lossless audio formats after purchase.

Also, as someone posted as a comment on the blogpost:

"It’s easy to understand why. People who search for “band name torrent� aren’t really looking to get the music *free*; they are looking to get it *conveniently*, and they think piracy is the way to achieve that because most music-sales systems suck so badly. Provide a service that’s as convenient as piracy, and people will be happy to pay for it."

So very true... make it easy for people to find you, preferably in 1 or 2 clicks, and you're three-quarters there.

What we also find with our recent download, ad a "or pay as you please" option with a minimum of 1 euro. Not a free PAYP, because then people might think it us just a cheap album, not worthy of their attention. But 1 euro, or pay as you please, gets their interest, and most of them pay 5 or even 10 euro for the download...

IZ.

Yeah I think that's how I stumbled over bandcamp as well a few month ago since I banned/deleted all MP3s and start collecting music "lossless only".

This one time, at band camp....