Oh, boy…another article on how the music industry doesn’t get it. Not exactly an original premise, but, considering the author has made a semi-successful living as a New York City subway busker, it does put an interesting, utilitarian spin on the usual anti-RIAA rant. For example, the author’s take on CD pricing:
When I first started playing in the subways, I experimented with different prices for my albums: $2, $5, $8, $10. I sold slightly more CDs at $2, but far fewer at $8 or $10. The sweet spot seemed to be a price of $5…Now I post a sign saying that my CDs are technically free, but they cost something to make, and people should pay what they want. Occasionally someone will take one for free. Sometimes a passerby will drop $20 into my guitar case. But the mean, median, and mode are all, again, $5. This could merely be the measure of what my music is worth. But my strong sense is that five dollars is what people will pay for a CD they like by a musician that they’ve never heard of.
Now, I know Keith and the gang at Indieheaven might have something different to say about it (something probably involving the term “perceived value”), but this makes sense to me.
So, why am I not going back and lowering all of our CDs to the same price point as Young Man’s Fancy? The only other CD we’ve recorded so far (Prodigal Songs, see link on sidebar) cost way too much to make. We paid a designer and a mastering engineer to try and make it into a decent product, and even though we hand-labeled and home-burned every copy of it, that drove our price to over $5 per piece.
That being said, it’s definitely something I will be consdering for future releases. When I think of all the music I’ve bought recently, sight unseen, most of it was at that same magic price (Scott Andrew & the Walkingbirds’ Where I’ve Been and Dano’s Caedmon’s Call Guild member compilation are two of the best examples).
I’ve always thought that “perceived value” thing was a bunch of bull. It might be true if someone hasn’t heard the music, and they need some other gauge. But how many people buy a CD of music they’ve never heard?
True that. My “sight unseen” comment isn’t exactly true, either…I heard a few of Scott’s MP3s before deciding to buy the Walkingbirds CD. If I hadn’t heard any of it, it would have taken a lot more convincing to pay, regardless of price (especially since the whole CD is available to download from his website). Besides, I don’t know anyone who pays $15 or more for even major label releases anymore – why bother when you can get the same thing much cheaper at half.com?
“But my strong sense is that five dollars is what people will pay for a CD they like by a musician that they’ve never heard of.”
That’s crap, really. They’ve heard the guy, so they’ll pay for it. They may not have heard much, but they have heard some of it.
$5 might be a reasonable price point for self-sold EP’s, though.
Andrew, you’ll be seeing an experiment in non-label distribution soon.
An experiment in non-label distribution, eh? Derek’s live disc? Or are you under a non-disclosure agreement?