Just a quick question. Has anyone tried or had any luck selling their physicals on ebay ?

In this day and age i think its a good idea to sell your music in 4 easy steps.

1. Digitals - Itunes et all.

2. First edition custom made limited edition vinyl with a gold reference disc thrown in for audiophile quality.

3. Sell to the masses online from ebay. Reason being mention ebay and your press interest would soar rather than just on your own website and of course there are trust issues with website ecommerce.

4. Licence to the majors for physicals in shops. OR a straight forward marketing and distribution deal.

Your thoughts on this is appreciated.

KZ

Um, there are quite a few DIY artists on eBay... and there's even been a few of those "buy a share in me" schemes on there.

It's probably worth being on there because it's one of the places people search for "hard to find" stuff.

We sell downloads on our own site, but have never sold anything at all on E-Bay. We tried it, and nothing happened.
I agree with your vinyl idea though KZ, the album in which you contributed to, is download only currently, and we intend to do a 10" vinyl release as well, I`m just waiting to see how the release goes when the press adverts start , which is about now I think.
I`d love a major on board with my projects, and they are very polite, but have not bitten yet.(Year plan already written out methinks)

1. Digitals - yes. Great way to distribute music.

2. Custom vinyl - costly and unless it's for DJs I'd think it is a very limited market.
Or your music is the kind audiophiles like so they can listen to their system (They don't seem to listen to music).

3. Ebay - don't think it's all that newsworthy anymore.
For instance a link was posted here for some bloke selling a line of a song. Didn't hear anything elsewhere but I may have missed it.

4. Letting the pros get on with it... yeah sounds good to me. They take a cut but do the work of selling.

I have to agree Zooloo.The last thing I want to do when I`ve finished a project is work on selling it, as I am far more interested in getting on with the next one. I have started on my project for next year already, and it is as daft as my ones I have done this year, you will be pleased to note.
Leave the creative work to artists, and creative selling to marketeers.
On the E-bay subject, I actually bought my only number one(video), from it yesterday, and before you ask, no, I actually did not own a copy previously. That shows a serious gap in myself between creativity and product, one of my best friends had a UK number one recently, and he was sent some copies down, and I noticed last week that they still sit where they arrived!

I absolutely agree; most of us simply don't have enough creativity to waste any on the promotion, sales and marketing sides.

So where are the geniuses of those areas?

I've had to remove my "creative music" hat in so many projects (Who Let The Dogs Out? for example) to put on my "sales, exposure, promotion" hat to ensure it was the hit I always believed it to be.

Took me ages - years, in fact.

If (as, sadly, in my case) the hits I hear tend NOT to be the obvious, "fit the current trend" ones, breaking them is such a hard task that I had to take off my artistic hat and replace it with my business one (which does not fit comfortably but is SO needed).

Take Orson. The track was always a hit but nobody would believe that for 8 years.
It took me to find it and promote it here on the Tipsheet board. Then other like minded (and eared) people picked up on it. Eventually the men with money heard it (or, rather, were drawn attention to it by the fuss we were making) and signed them.

It was no more or less a hit than it had been for 8 years.

Just nobody noticed it (why not?) or bothered to push it.

We desperately need someone with the spirit, energy and enthusiasm to take hits and future stars and organise (for a nice profit, why not?) all the rest of the circus whilst we go and write, produce, find, make and discover more hits and stars for them to ENJOY breaking efficiently.

Come forward please!

Doesn't this bring us round to an earlier post, I.e. There's a lull right now?

Maybe the people are out there ready to break the artists/songs, but the artists/songs are not?

I think not Kev; if someone bright, intelligent and on the ball started a really efficient Viral Marketing/Sales/Promotion/Distribution outfit they would clear up in my opinion.

if someone bright, intelligent and on the ball started a really efficient Viral Marketing/Sales/Promotion/Distribution outfit they would clear up in my opinion.Isn't that already happening? Arctic Monkeys, Sandi Thom, Gnarls.

I agree with the Ebay idea, I'd be intrigued to hear from artists who have tried it and succeeded/failed.

I believe the Artic Monkeys did the North East circuit building up their support in the good old fashioned way.

The Myspace thing was marketing/publicity and not their breakthrough. It was hype after the event.

Sandi Thorn got her viewers after an article in the Observer. Again slick marketing but still after going along traditional lines.

Gnarls... no idea.

I believe the Artic Monkeys did the North East circuit building up their support in the good old fashioned way. The Myspace thing was marketing/publicity and not their breakthrough. It was hype after the event.Myspace was a fabrication, or mis-understanding but I thought there was more to it than gigging. Viral marketing, whether the company initiated it or not came from sources such as Email, Mobile Phones, YouSendIt etc. etc. Sources that cannot (easily?) be tracked.

Gnarls is an interesting one. I remember hearing it on Zanes show in November and there was an Mp3 knocking around at the time. The rumour is that there was never an official mail-out to radio, just this one Mp3 Emailed, not sure how true that is.

Of course it could be the case that the song was great and didn't get over played/over distributed and so the demand was high when it eventually came out. Hard to believe though isn't it?

You mean you need a good manager then!

Thats the problem JK the creative person to sell the music has left the building. Why would they work in an industry where the main players have no vision.

Napster>Itunes>myspace>youtube> and so on. We all saw it coming. I did anyway and im sure many on here did too.

These sites proving that there are humans in cyberspace, making money for those with vision and the drive to create new ideas.

YOU cannot break hits on the net... Maybe but you can make a lot of money trying. As myspace has proven.

The problem as far as a new kid on the block is concerned is that if they ever went to the majors with their savvy ideas, they would be laughed out of the building or bogged down in copyright red tape that it is not worth their while to bother to set this up legally. So they set renegade illegal or semi legal sites.

By the time there is money to be made, the creative person with the savvy knowledge has (quite rightly) flogged the shell to a corporate entity who then goes out of their way to screw it up (myspace ??).

The solution lies in those of us in the industry who cannot afford for some other person to screw our product up.

The future is automation, automation, automation.

A transparent sales system that you can operate in your sleep. It already exists in other industries and the only reason the music industry cannot do it is because of the over dependence on the antiquated chart system tied in to certain retailers, radio stations and so on.

Once we wean ourselves off this old system can we move into a new era where new rules, new charts and a new system can be born and developed.

To illustrate my point picture this.

Ok im in good old Australia, i want to listen to music that i love (80s synth pop and anything from the uk in this decade). I turn on the tv ?? Nothing
I go to cable TV ?? nothing. I search on the net for legal Australia sites endorsed by all the majors and indies ?? Nothing.

I come on tipsheet and find out about a possibly legal/semi legal site but it does not have all the videos i want or the music i want to listen to. Nevertheless it has a simple interface, some dodgy adult ads which i ignore (at least for now) and a text link to all the songs, half of which dont work because of, i suspect, cease and desist emails.

Result: Frustration !!!!!!!!!!!!
Major labels take note. Own goal of Massimo Taibi proportions scored. I spent a good hour watching videos on this site and not yours why ???

Napster>Itunes>myspace>youtube> and so on. We all saw it coming.Did we?! Napster blew me away but I could see it paving the way for a paid for version. Myspace I wouldn't have expected to work after the demise of Mp3.com, Besonic etc. YouTube is an obvious progression from Myspace.

YOU cannot break hits on the net... You sound very sure. Marketing and exposure breaks hits, why not do it on the net?

The problem as far as a new kid on the block is concerned is that if they ever went to the majors with their savvy ideas, they would be laughed out of the building or bogged down in copyright red tape that it is not worth their while to bother to set this up legally. So they set renegade illegal or semi legal sites.Agreed.

A transparent sales system that you can operate in your sleep. It already exists in other industries and the only reason the music industry cannot do it is because of the over dependence on the antiquated chart system tied in to certain retailers, radio stations and so on. Isn't this I-Tunes etc? They're tied into the charts aren't they?