From nin.com

"We offer the entire record free (as in totally free to the visitor - we pay bandwidth costs) as 192 MP3s, or for $5 you can choose higher fidelity versions and feel good about supporting the artist directly. We offer all major CCs and PayPal as payment options.
Here's what I was thinking: Fans are interested in music as soon as it's available (that's a good thing, remember) and usually that's a leak from the label's manufacturing plants. Offering the record digitally as its first appearance in the marketplace eliminates that problem. I thought if you offered the whole record free at reasonable quality - no strings attached - and offered a hassle free way to show support that clearly goes straight to the artists who made it at an unquestionably low price people would "do the right thing". I know, I know...
Well, now I DO know and you will too.

Saul's previous record was released in 2004 and has sold 33,897 copies.

As of 1/2/08,
154,449 people chose to download Saul's new record.
28,322 of those people chose to pay $5 for it, meaning:
18.3% chose to pay."

20 per cent paying customers is a very high rate, but does this model really any sense?

I think Radiohead are right :
Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has described the idea of releasing the band's In Rainbows exclusively on the net as "stark raving mad", and insists that fans want a tangible "object" - a reference to Monday's physical release of the album. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We didn't want it to be a big announcement about 'everything's over except the internet, the internet's the future', 'cause that's utter rubbish. And it's really important to have an artefact as well, as they call it, an object."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/02/yorke_net_release/

15 hard core fans paid 99,99 pounds for the download on the bands website.

Read the whole post and my thoughts are that considering there was no airplay, no marketing and no preview of the album the amount of sales converted is quite high, 18.3% is pretty good odds.

SO people will buy music if they are presented with the opportunity to do so and if there is some kind of a push.

Will it work for a new artist ? Or for a one hit wonder ?

Re;the fifteen fans that paid 99.99 for the Radiohead album, I personally am not going to let history forget that one of those fifteen is the bloke that runs Limewire.
History loves irony.

Pay What You Want Concerts?
---------------------------

Our gigs here are mainly free,with a minor amount of free merch and funded with the help of the odd small event ,(ie New Years Eve)being deliberately overpriced. This obviously cannot continue,as it`s costly, but its working for the music and we will continue with the policy with as many acts we book for as long as possible.
I strongly believe the next step, is pay what you want to come in to a lower division/showcase gig.
The currently "not interested " customers are the ones that are required, particularly at the bottom of the live ladder.

DJKZ wrote:
Read the whole post and my thoughts are that considering there was no airplay, no marketing and no preview of the album the amount of sales converted is quite high, 18.3% is pretty good odds.

SO people will buy music if they are presented with the opportunity to do so and if there is some kind of a push.

Will it work for a new artist ? Or for a one hit wonder ?
I like your attitude and believe in the premise: that music does actually have a value to people. It's up to us to find ways to find where that value lies.