I was just looking at some sales numbers from my record label, and I figured out some amazing details. Maybe you’ll be interested in this too. It has to do with making music, selling music, and the way that music is consumed today.
Disclaimer: I do not consider myself to be particularly good at the music business or good at sales, and I’m not a professional when it comes to statistics, but I love making music, being an independent recording artist, and I love thinking about business-related statistical-type things, as it pertains to music that I’m involved with making. I feel really fortunate to be able to see the inner workings of music sales, and to watch the business grow and the music spread. Anyway, I apologize in advance for the shocking language (business speak) that you’re about to hear coming from a “creative-type” musician.
These are pie charts for my record label, U.S.Records, which has released 6 albums to date; 2 under the band name Joe Matzzie Beyond Belief, 2 by the band Mince Pye, 1 as Joe Matzzie and 1 under the artist name, Moat Jumper.
Just to explain, the first pie chart uses the word “units” to refer to any consumption of a piece of music or album. “CD” obviously means 1 person bought 1 album and it was mailed to them. “Stream” includes listens on Spotify, Rhapsody, LastFM, etc.. “Download” is mostly iTunes but also includes Amazon mp3 and CD Baby mp3 downloads, etc.. Whether it’s a whole album downloaded or just a song, I’m calling it a unit. “YouTube” refers to advertising money that comes from videos on YouTube that use the music of the above mentioned artists. This money goes from YouTube/GoogleAds through Rumblefish, through CD Baby, to me the artist/label.
The 2nd pie chart from the left compares income, meaning actual dollars that are paid to U.S.Records by CD Baby.
OK, analysis time:
As you can see, streaming by far reaches the greatest number of customers, however it brought in the smallest percentage of money, only 2% of all money earned in 2012.
CD sales, while being less than 1% of total units, are the 2nd greatest generator of income; 13% of all dollars brought in in 2012. Pretty cool.
Units and Income over 14 years selling music online:
If you’re looking for insight into what’s going on in the music business today, all time units and income (these 2 pie charts) are not a good indicator. They cover a time period of great change in the music industry, from 1998 to 2013.
However the most incredible statistic is in the “Units Sold – All Time” chart on the left. YouTube views, while only existing for 2 years (the relationship between CD Baby and Rumblefish only came into existence in May of 2012) account for 10% of all units EVER! (9.63% actually. I haven’t figured out how to make the pie chart percentage include decimal points). Not a lot of income, but a lot of reaching people.
I’ve been puttering with statistical charts for several years now. I import my monthly CD Baby sales info into a big old spreadsheet, and then use filters to compare the sales numbers from different angles. For a while I had the idea of doing a little presentation and sharing it with friends who might be interested in seeing the numbers. I find this stuff interesting, not enough to follow through, most of the time.
Yesterday something happened and I got inspired. I found myself musing on vinyl LPs, and whether it would be viable for me to manufacture one of my future albums as a 12 inch vinyl LP. I started reading articles about “the return of vinyl” in the music business. The thing that immediately struck me was that everything I read seemed to compare vinyl sales in units, saying that vinyl still represents a small percentage of the way that people consume music. As someone who makes and sells music, this comparison seems absurd.
Sure there are advantages to streaming and YouTube views. I can reach listeners globally with these. I can be open for business around the clock with these. I can maybe even create an online connection with these fans and push information to them if they’ve streamed or viewed. But a physical sale of a CD or LP is a much higher price point. The sale of 1 CD brings in the same amount of money as, um, well a lot of Spotify listens. Hundreds? About 300 listens on Spotify brings in about $10. It’s precisely the un-scalability of vinyl that makes it a great idea for music makers.
