So you're an independent artist and you think you're ready to raise funds for your project on Sellaband, rather than taking the traditional label route? Judging by the artists currently signing up, it's probably fair to say that actually, you're not. So whilst it may not be completely comprehensive, this is my guide to the absolute essentials you need if you're to have any kind of success on Sellaband.
Where are your believers going to come from?
This is the first and most important question you should be asking, and if you can't answer it, then you're not even ready to start thinking about the rest of what this blog post contains.
A common mistake artists make is that they think believers will magically appear from thin air and start throwing money at their Sellaband profile. It does happen occasionally, but at least 999 times out of 1000 you can guarantee it won't. You therefore need to get together a strategy for collecting believers or it's likely you'll remain stuck pretty close to $0.
The most important source of believers you have is your existing fanbase - make use of this. Even if people don't want to spend their $10 now, encourage them to sign up and "follow" you. This doesn't cost any money to do and is in fact no more different to signing up on the likes of Myspace or Facebook. This can have two benefits. Firstly, it shows other people who may be looking at your Sellaband profile that you have a number of other people who are interested in your project. Secondly, it gives you a group of people you can potentially work with at a later date to improve your visibility on the site. The idea here is a simple one. Once you have attracted a certain number of followers, let them know that you now have a a certain number of people who haven't believed yet, and offer them some incentive to do so now. If you get enough interest, you should be able to give yourself a push in the charts and hence get the interest of others who may not have looked at you before.
What do your (potential) believers want?
Having got a rough idea of how many believers you think you can get and from where, you then need to find out what those people are looking for. Again, with people from your existing fanbase this can potentially be quite easy to determine. (You do actually have a mailing list don't you?) Send out a questionnaire asking if they're happy with only a download, or whether they'd be looking for an album. Would they want revenue share? What kind of incentives would encourage them to buy more than one part? Basically get a feel for what is in the heads of your existing fans first to find out how many are genuinely interested. You need these people to show their support for you by buying parts, so be sure to find out what makes them tick! Existing fans who think you are worth supporting and are prepared to demonstrate that fact are a great help in convincing strangers to trust in you too.
In the case of existing believers on Sellaband who are probably encountering you for the first time, you need to do your research. Who actively posts on the forum? Who posts on the pages of other artists in a similar genre to you? (or even follows or believes in those artists) Are these people actually buying parts at this time? Is there any information on their profile page which might be of use? For further hints, you would also do well to read this blog post by another Sellaband believer. If you're really lucky some believers may come to you of their own accord, but to stand the best chance of getting believers already on Sellaband, you have to first learn how active they are and what they're interested in. That should give you some idea of how likely you are to attract believers already on Sellaband to start with. It's also important to remember that not every Sellaband believer is after the same thing, so you need to discover the size of your potential market.
Hint: When was the last time you spent $100 on an artist? When was the last time you spent $100 on an artist you had never heard of before? With any luck you'll realise from the answers to these questions that the incentive area you'll need to put most thought into is the 2-10 parts range as the majority of people who can be tempted into buying more than one part are unlikely to go higher than this unless they are existing die-hard fans.
You'll need all of the information above to help you set up your plan and budget. It sounds like a lot of work (and it is!) but in reality it's only the start of the groundwork you need to do in order to come up with a realistic budget and plan that will make you look interesting to potential believers.
Setting up the budget
Now you've been able to come up with some estimate of where your believers are going to come from, how many parts they might be looking to buy and what incentives will convince them to buy those parts, you have the extra information needed on a fan funding site to start working out your budget.
1. Recording costs
This is probably the easiest to determine for many artists, as it's likely they will have had at least some experience in a studio. Consider where you are going to record, mix and master, who you are going to use as a producer, how many songs you want to record, whether you need session musicians or any special equipment etc. If you're completely inexperienced, Sellaband have some guideline costs on the form you fill in for your artist project, but for a more accurate estimate you would probably be better getting the advice of a similar artist already on Sellaband who has recorded before. Ask around, most active artists are usually more than friendly and willing to share their experiences!
2. Believer costs
If you're looking at sending a CD to every believer, then don't forget to calculate postage costs for this. Additionally you need to consider any incentives which will need posting in this cost e.g. T-shirts, other CDs etc. As a rough guide postage within the same or neighbouring countries is likely to work out to about $2 for one CD or $5 for long-distance/abroad. However, remember that instead of shipping yourself, Sellaband can do some or all of the shipping for you, so it might also be worth investigating this option depending on the location of you and your believers. Depending on the system in use for calculating postage, larger quantities may work out slightly cheaper per unit unless the package is really large.
Hint: Don't forget that on a system of 1 CD per believer, if every believer were to buy two parts instead of just one, you would halve your potential postage costs. This is why getting believers to buy more than one part can be so important!
A hidden cost that many artists forget is one related to revenue share. If you are looking at sharing revenue with believers then you'll need at least basic bookkeeping skills, or preferably be looking to hire an accountant. Sellaband requires accounts to be sent to them every three months once your project is completed and delivered if you are sharing revenue so that they can administer the revenue sharing for believers. Whilst I'd hope that as an independent artist, you already have the services of an accountant for your annual taxes, it's important to remember this Sellaband requirement is likely to produce more work than your accountant would normally be doing.
3. Promotion/marketing costs
Are you planning to use any of the budget for marketing or promoting your project after it's completed? This is especially important to consider if you are sharing revenue - if people don't even know you have a product, how are you going to generate sales and hence that revenue? How many CDs (or extra CDs) are you going to produce as an initial run for your merch stand at shows, or for existing outlets who already sell your CDs? What about promo copies for radio stations etc.? And what about your website - do you already have someone who takes care of that for you, or are you going to be looking for someone to update or redesign it to better promote your project once it's completed?
4. Sellaband cost
Finally, don't forget to add 10% to the figure you've reached so far, as that is the fee Sellaband will take on completion.
Now you've got an initial budget estimate, it's time to run a reality check. For this purpose I'm going to assume you're on the standard $10 per part, but it's possible to adapt the calculation for other part prices. For every $10,000 of budget you are looking to raise, you should be planning to bring at least 100 of your existing friends/family/fans with you to help you get your project funded. Don't forget, Sellaband is a fan funding site - so if you don't have any of these people to call on, you probably shouldn't be looking at using it. If it's looking like the number of fans you need to bring is too high, then you'll need to revise your budget or incentives, or possibly look at funding some of the costs out of your own pocket instead of including them in your Sellaband budget.
Setting up your Sellaband account
Now all the groundwork is laid, you should have a set of incentives, a plan and a budget which gives you a chance of success, so it's finally time to create and set up your Sellaband profile.
1. Use the budget information you've gathered to help you fill in the initial signup form as many of these details are rather hard to get changed later without input from Sellaband.
2. Don't forget to include your biography, photos and preferably more than one song on your page. Links to other sites you appear on (e.g. myspace, your own website etc), videos of you performing or a list of upcoming shows can help too
3. Fill in your plan section. A good plan will generally include all the features I've already got you to consider, such as incentives, what is included in the project and how you plan to market it and a rough budget outline. For a good example check out this one from Aly Cook
4. Fill out the incentives section with the list of incentives you worked out, taking care to check this ties up with any relevant information in your plan. Discrepancies cause questions and too many questions often cause potential believers who have never encountered an artist before to walk away from such a profile without investing.
5. Make sure you have your genres filled in, or your profile will not be visible to people searching for artists on Sellaband.
Hint: Some information such as your plan and incentives section can be changed by Sellaband, even if you can't do so yourself, so contact them if you need to get those last few problems ironed out.
Time to promote
Once your profile is active, it will appear for a short time (generally up to a week) in the "Happening Now" section of the site. After this point, the most effective way to be noticed is to be appearing in the weekly charts or high up on the search. Existing believers are more likely to check out artists who are gaining budget, particularly on a regular basis, so try and get your existing fanbase moving to support you first, and it's likely more believers from Sellaband itself will join in automatically. Making your presence known by participating in discussions or asking questions on the forum can also help you gain some attention, but be very wary of how much self-promotion of your project you do both on the forum and believer/artist walls, as the line between making it known you exist and spamming can get crossed very easily. Basically try not to come across as a walking advert, but rather show your interest in others and what is going on around you and you're more likely to get some kind of positive reaction with a bit of patience.
Don't disappear! You should be looking to add something new to your profile (or change something on it) at least once a month. There are so many artists on Sellaband, that believers will quickly forget about you if you don't do enough to keep their interest, and even existing fans may not be enough to convince people you are still interested in fundraising on Sellaband.
Hint: Many believers on Sellaband are music lovers. That means that unless they get really hooked on your music (i.e. become "real" fans), they're only likely to take a passing interest in you on other sites. So if you don't put the effort in on Sellaband, it's very easy to get stuck or even lose support, unless you can keep convincing new people from outside of Sellaband to join to support you.
Finally, remember that this is only a guideline that can hopefully give you a fighting chance against all the other artists out there. Never forget, some artists can get luckier than others!
Tuesday 22 December 2009
Tuesday 1 December 2009
December 1st 2009 Hatchet Day
It's been a bit of a strange month this time around with some things not working out quite the way I was thinking (or in some cases hoping) they would. And a rather busy month again, so expect another blog post from hell as far as the length goes.
Results from last month
I had a conversation with Aly Cook regarding the postage question I raised in my last post which removed the only slight reservation I had. In fact, I'd have to say that given the response, she's actually got things worked out better on this score than most if not all others I've seen so far, as it appears she already has a kind of mini-distribution system in place which is definitely going to cut the postage costs down.
It looks like I'm going to have to contact Sellaband as it would appear the Paypal payout system doesn't work. I tried a small payout more than a fortnight ago, and so far there's been no change to my Sellaband balance and nothing appearing in my Paypal account either. It appears the problem originates from clicking on the link in the confirmation e-mail you receive from the Sellaband system - I suspected there might be a problem at the time I first tried this, but thought it best to give it a bit of time to see if something actually did happen first. And with another large chunk of money sitting back in my balance after this hatchet day, it's looking even more likely I'm actually going to want to start extracting money out of the system. So watch this space for further developments on this story next time around. Why can't things be easy just for once?...
Transition phase 2 hatchet changes
As I mentioned last month, today is when I've made another large swathe of destruction through my artist list.
Of those I mentioned last month as being particularly under threat MDATA survived by turning up and posting a new plan and budget. Though to be brutally honest, the plan itself looks like it was cobbled together in five minutes over a couple of pints. Chalk another one up for the headache list!
Achilla were the only other artist on the "under threat" list from last month that showed, but they landed up losing the part anyway due to my warning last month about those who hadn't contacted me being given one more month to either do so or put a plan online.
Additionally, I dropped back down to one part in Inge M before she hit her target as she reached the 80% threshold and the plan+incentives still didn't match up despite the warning I'd previously left on her page. I'm willing to bet most people didn't notice me do that though as my removal was around the time when someone else pulled out significantly more parts than me. So, the other artist whose page I left a warning on about plan+incentives not matching at about the same time as I left the warning for Inge should take very good notice of what I've just said.
However I did stay where I was on Civilised Tears after a lot of thought about it. Not 100% happy with the deal for the number of parts I had, but equally it was a borderline case. I did decide however, that it would make it that bit harder for them to get parts from me on their new project should a borderline case occur there also (but more about that later).
Now that the majority of my old artist list has either met the hatchet or gone at least some way towards fitting my comfort zone, the best thing I can probably do is give you a status of what I know about who is left, because to be quite honest there are a lot of artists out there still giving me a headache in one form or another.
Dealing with the special cases first, the contact I've had from Leave is that he will be back on Sellaband properly in March, so that is the earliest any new plan is likely to go live. Whilst the option to remove the part was obviously raised, I've decided to leave it intact until April, when I'll review the situation. Grant Stevens was one of those who nearly left the site as a result of the mess Sellaband made and as a result he's stepped back for a while reviewing options. Again as I only have the one part and the fact he actually contacted me he earns himself a reprieve until February, when I'll look at the situation again (assuming he doesn't make a decision himself first). Marc Supsic currently has no plan to change his plan (he doesn't currently believe there is an option that can work for him), nor any desire to actively chase the old 50K plan, but he still intends to be around for the community aspect and see how things develop. As a result of my conversations with him, I've dropped back down to the one part for now and will see how things with Sellaband and with Marc himself progress over the next few months. I kind of hope he can find something and as he is one of the few remaining on the site with the "curse of the knifelady" I'd actually quite like a #1 CD.
Next we have the artists where I still hold multiple parts. The Jade Diary and The Quahaugs are effectively safe, providing my "inactivity" criteria is met as the extra parts match incentives I've received in the past. Likewise Matthew Ebel is safe, being the only artist so far where I've actually increased the number of parts I originally held. i.e. I currently have no plan to reduce in any of these cases. I've had contact with both Vegas Dragons and Phil Tweed and can therefore confirm that both are effectively "stuck" regarding what exactly to do about a new plan, although in both cases a reduced budget does seem to be top of the list of what they're looking at. But the stalemate will have to break here one way or another some time in January, as I'm not comfortable on the level of parts I have for either while they remain with no plan i.e. currently it's looking like it will be me that breaks that stalemate by reducing parts in January if there's looking like no change in the current situation. In the case of Wetwerks and Blister, I've reduced to 10 parts and 5 parts respectively this month. For Wetwerks, there's been no change since last month, nor does it appear they've been seen in November. Things haven't felt quite the same since the split with Seth, and given how long anything seems to be taking in the Wetwerks camp these days, it leaves me with serious doubts as to whether they'd come anywhere near managing to meet a 12 month deadline after hitting their target. Given also that I've been chasing around to try and find what the situation is with them, the parts drop today is really more of a warning of further parts drop to come, should they not pick up their game. In the case of Blister, the jury is still out. They'll respond to messages left, but there's still no sign of a plan. As a result I've dropped a couple of parts and it looks like this month I'm going to have to go chasing more in that direction to find out what's going on, so expect a strong possibility of further change here. Mount Fabric, MOPI and Devine Soundsystem are all cases where their plan doesn't quite fit with what I'd buy if they were a new artist, but I haven't yet decided whether to change parts or stay where I am. It may be that I even leave that decision until they get nearer to target - I seem to have enough else to still be chasing around at the moment, so it's not top of my priority list. And finally MR-10 and We Love The Underground still have some work to do on the plan vs. incentives issue before they'll convince my parts to stay put in the longer term. Watch this space for further developments on that score.
As for the one-parters I have left, I consider the majority OK, though in many cases it's unlikely they'll recieve any more parts from me due to the nature of their plan. So here's the remainder where the question marks are still around. The Black Doves had changed their plan prior to my last blog post but it took them a few extra days to work out their missing genres were the reason their page wasn't showing up in the artist search. However, having tried a Kickstarter account, it appears that just today they've decided to pursue their funding over there instead. In some ways not surprising given they're showing a wider range of incentives over there, and the fact they've already raised nearly 10 times the amount they currently have in their Sellaband fund probably also has a lot to do with it. What does this tell us about the issue I've mentioned with people not wanting to tie up money for an unknown length of time? - we can say that either they'll reach their budget on Kickstarter within the next 55 days or no money will change hands. So I shall be keeping an eye on that profile over the next month to see what happens. Meg & Mark currently don't have their new plan, but they don't see the point in getting one together until they start to accrue a decent budget. I'm not sure this thought is going to work for them, because there will always be those who don't like what you've got on offer, and leave irrespective of when you put the plan up (and personally I think the sooner you sort something, the better), but for the time being at least I plan to stay put and see how things develop. At least they've thought about how they're going to approach it, rather than being all-at-sea as some others seem to be. Plans for Sunsoma, Ulrik, Cubworld and Conflict in the Sky are not yet finalised, but there is some indication that things are being worked on, so I continue to keep an eye on these. Additionally there are a couple of artists whose plans I'm not 100% happy about, but am merely keeping an eye on at present rather than removing the parts. The Lights plan to only offer an EP rather than a full album and that has me back wobbling on the fence and Lunic I think are being rather ambitious in taking on a 100K plan when all other previous 50K artists who have come back for round two have either gone again or are looking at severely reducing their budgets. With the third party sales from their first album currently only running at one cent per part, that doesn't give me the greatest of confidence either. Also as previously mentioned, MDATA's plan gives me cause for concern through looking like they're lost without a clue and a similar thing applies where Clem is concerned.
So hopefully this gives you some idea of why I say artists are still giving me headaches!
As for some of the more interesting of those artists I've completely dropped from my belief list, Toz is still around but his plan no longer contains a CD hence the reason for my change. Chloe Michelle has decided to leave Sellaband as she now has the ability to record a CD herself and has left a message on my page with her contact details for me to get free copies. And given the mutations compared to the original idea of The Collaboration Project plus a 100K plan, I decided to remove the part I had as I don't even view the project as viable on Sellaband at present. Even a "big name" such as Public Enemy has failed to reach 100K so far and their plan requires them to sell somewhat less parts to do so. Should they make some decent progress towards the target, I'll look at TCP again, but given the lack of movement since the plan change, I don't think it's been understood that such a large budget basically requires a large number of believers to be brought in from outside of Sellaband if it's to be financed and so I don't see the sense in hanging around waiting for nothing.
There have also been some interesting reappearances since my last blog post. The Chupacabra profile is still being watched, despite them supposedly having left the site due to being signed. And although I've removed my parts, I'll continue to keep an eye on this profile as a result.
It would also appear that Scrooge has come to Sellaband this year. About a week after I removed my last part in Jon Robert (one of my phase one changes) he turned up and posted a new plan and incentives. I very nearly bought the part back at that point, but instead decided to wait and see what happened first. Jon's new plan is to do a charity Christmas record on behalf of a local hospital, and it's clear from the video he's posted he's looking to do it sooner rather than later i.e. this year. In addition to his own take on traditional Christmas holiday songs, he's also offering an EP of his own music as part of the deal. And there is, of course, no revenue share because all the revenue is for charity. Since his plan went live, he's received a grand total of 3 parts and actually lost one to give a net gain of 2 parts in three weeks. Under the "old" Sellaband, such an action for charity would have been given news coverage as a minimum, or back in the days of the Tribune, there would have been an article written about it. Despite the fact the plan change would have had to have been approved by Sellaband, obviously something like this is no longer seen as important these days, unless you happen to fit the criteria of being a 50K artist or having a custom budget, and so it looks like it's left to me to make the first (and only?) mention of its existence. If there is still a community out there that's interested in proving Thor's tagline wrong, then I'd say this is the time to stand up and be counted, otherwise this just adds more fuel to the fire of the growing idea I have to remove the bulk of my reclaimed money out of the Sellaband system (when the payout actually works). "It's all about the money" is not the reason I signed up on Sellaband and if that's the way we're heading I'd rather spend my money out in the real world where it can actually do some artists some good. So community, it's in your hands whether you want to prove the Scrooge theory or not, and therefore determine whether I buy back into Jon as a result. Seriously, how far have things actually sunk? - I'd say this new reality looks quite shocking for the average artist.
New parts
Only the two new parts this time around, and you'll find out more about why later in this post.
I've bought a part in Gayle Skidmore, as I hinted was likely in last month's post, although things have slowed a bit since the SEAT competition.
Secondly, as can probably be expected I've joined the express train currently known as Hind. Only with the one part at the moment, although I have been tempted to take a second just to be able to see how revenue share compares on "known" artists to the "unknowns" we've had before. The dollar/euro exchange rate makes calculations very easy at the moment as 10 euros is almost exactly equal to 15 dollars. Ironically, the similarities between her plan/incentive levels and the old "Sellaband incentive scheme" (or insultives, as some liked to call it) stand out here. Just most noticeable that the revenue share is slightly lower and the parts 50% more expensive than the change that had so many believers up in arms 12 months ago. Not convinced that even Hind can return $15 worth of revenue to a believer for the break-even on the extra part at this point, but the speed of movement coupled with the number of new believers arriving is tempting me to take a serious look at her numbers. And on that score, I'm also still trying to decide whether the change to the revenue share icon in the incentives section (Sellaband added the word "max") is clear enough in meaning for people to understand it doesn't apply to every believer, even when a project does share some revenue.
I've got a plan
This month, Ariel managed to give an almost perfect demonstration of how not to change a plan. Not particularly because of the plan change itself, but rather for the method of its execution. The change to a 2-4 song download for $10 is such a radical change away from the original concept of getting a physical album for the same money, that merely submitting the plan and effectively leaving it to Sellaband to spring it on believers was always going to be asking for trouble. Rather submitting it to your existing believers first and then getting the feedback before you go anywhere near the idea of sending the plan to Sellaband is the way to go (particularly in cases like this). Even if you still feel you have to go ahead with it, and there's nothing you can alter as a result of the feedback you received, at least you've had the decency to ask what people think rather than giving them (as one person put it) a slap in the face. And from an artist point of view it's good if you do that too, because at least you'll get some idea of who (and how many) will pull out because they don't like your new offer. The wall reaction is likely to be less offputting to new people looking at your profile too! Whilst you can't please all of the people all of the time, it's fair to say that creating a PR disaster of the level achieved here isn't going to win confidence. Here's hoping that now her budget is finally closed there aren't going to be any repercussions later.
This brings me very neatly onto Poppy and The Jezebels. They say there is a very fine line between genius and insanity, and I'm still trying to work out which side of that line this profile falls on. With so many people turning their noses up at spending $10 for 4 downloads on Ariel's plan, the idea of paying $2.50 (and let's not forget, in advance!) to download just one song ought to be considered equally crazy, yet parts have been quite literally flying out the door. Is this proof that the average Sellaband believer now has more interest in revenue than they do in music? Or is it the case that the involvement of SEG International is the key factor here? I'd say the fact that this artist has had more UK music press to date than Sellaband itself has had in its entire life is probably down to this company, so is this the "magic ingredient" that seems to have wowed people into thinking about the "next big thing"? But are things really as attractive as they look at first glance?
We know from the press article that the plan here involves sending you a download code which you use in a (not yet specified) UK retailer in order to make it eligible for the UK charts. But traditionally the music industry as a whole puts a rather large roadblock in the way where downloads are concerned. As someone who loves artists from Finland, I'm getting to the point where I can't count the number of times I've been re-directed away from an online shop to my regional (i.e. UK) variant where the download just doesn't exist. It's extremely frustrating to find something is there but you just cannot legally download it purely because you are deemed to live in the wrong country. (Why do you think I love CDs? They seem to cross borders much more easily!) The sooner the music industry gets its act together and recognises it needs to think and act globally these days, the better as far as your average (and often frustrated) music lover is concerned. We've also seen this principle demonstrated when believers from the Netherlands tried to download Ellie Williams charity single and couldn't. So the question of whether all downloads from Sellaband believers in Poppy will count in the first place towards the UK charts is still open, not to mention whether believers from outside the UK will even be able to use the download code their $2.50 has bought them in the first place. And the question is still unanswered at this point, despite having been asked. Are we looking at a very well kept industry secret or a clear case of "Caveat Emptor" here? After all, let's not forget what section 4.9 in the believers terms and conditions has to say on the subject.
But let's also look at the effect this project could actually have on the UK singles chart. With everyone buying one part each, there would be 10,000 downloads, however with the number opting for revenue share, this figure is likely to come down closer to 1000. Whilst the UK chart company doesn't make sales figures for records generally available, it does provide first week sales figures for many number one singles. Figures in recent years have shown that first week sales figures have been between approx 30,000 to 120,000 units (depending on the week) for the single that reached number one. And OK, that doesn't tell us what you need to reach position 40, but I'd say the difference between 10,000 and 1,000 is significant enough to turn what looks like a real possibility of chart success into a drop in the ocean based on the figures I've seen. It's obvious that the more chart eligible believers the better here, because even without knowing what the net revenue on a single is, I would reckon a minimum of 100,000 units sold will be needed for the break even on the revenue share (and I wouldn't even be surprised to be told that figure needs to be much higher in reality) i.e. I reckon the single would need to go at least top ten and preferably hit the top spot for all you revenue share enthusiasts out there to be looking at getting your money back, never mind turning a profit. So a genius plan or a disaster waiting to happen? I'm genuinely interested to watch what happens with this one. As for me buying parts, if I like the single, there is a good chance you'll get my fraction of a cent contribution towards the revenue when it's released, but I very much doubt you'll see my name on the believer list.
Innovative plan of the month has to go to Grooveduke. I've already been a bit of a fence sitter where he is concerned, but on average have been leaning slightly away rather than slightly towards buying a part in the past based on the music. His new plan, however, has caused me to sit up and take some serious notice. The one part for a download obviously doesn't attract me and given that I'm "fence sitting" a CD for 2 parts doesn't look that appealing either. (If I did go for the 2 parts it would definitely be a late conversion.) Where the interest comes is when we start moving into higher numbers of multiple parts. You see I believe this plan works, at least in principle and providing you are a touring artist who can sell CDs via gigs. If you can believe in the sales figures he says he has had in the past, plus believe that his sales of original material can do as well as sales of known covers, then this definitely looks like a plan which can turn a profit (allbeit a small one) with a little bit of tweaking to the numbers he is currently quoting. And whilst I'm not here for that side of things, it is something I would like to see proved purely to show the rest of the "little guys" out there that there is something you can do to make Sellaband work for you without needing to be a custom artist with a fancy banner. The basic plan to turn a profit requires you to buy a minimum of 16 parts. This gives you 29 CDs, meaning 28 can be sold back to the band at $5.75 a piece (we assume you want one for yourself) giving you $1 of profit (excluding transaction fees effect). But if we take into account the 75 cent transaction fee from Sellaband and the handling fee for depositing that amount of money in the first place, you've actually got to start looking much higher than this for the deal to turn a profit. Depositing 52 parts leads to more than $38 dollars in fees (assuming we use a credit card and not Paypal where the fee is much higher), meaning that the expected $55 dollar profit from the basic plan actually drops to more like $17 once all 100 of the "extra" CDs produced by this number of parts are sold. If you then have to add in the effects of a currency conversion fee as well due to your location this profit then drops further. (as a guideline a 3% currency conversion fee on the cost to deposit 52 parts would bring you back to pretty much break even once the CDs are sold, taking the fees I've previously mentioned into account). Obviously this is a deal that can only work for the bigger believer, or where the believer can sell CDs for more than they can to the band, or where they're not concerned about fees. Essentially the CDs are the revenue share and also treated as an advance that the band will buy back as they sell CDs at shows. Grooveduke has already said he wants an initial stock of 100, meaning that the vast majority of CDs produced as a result of parts already bought are effectively already sold back to the band or taken by believers, meaning anyone jumping in now would likely start seeing their CDs bought as soon as he starts selling CDs at gigs. So I have been sorely tempted to jump in and give things a really serious push, particularly given the number of parts floating in my balance at the moment, but due to questions with the plan and also with his own health, not to mention the fact that even with a push from me it's still not going to be enough to look like closing the budget, I also have to think about who else could possibly take an interest in this. And yes, I am talking to him about it (ball is back in my court at the moment on that score - round hatchet day is always a bad time of the month!), but I am still undecided at present whether to help give this plan the chance I think it deserves to prove itself, despite the fact it means deviating from the way I'm approaching things on Sellaband these days.
So let's move onto the "Help I'm lost" section with just the tiniest of selections from what I've seen out there.
Top of the list this month is DraMatik who is apparently "Working onit!". OOpsNice with "world champion" and Angel Reese with "my plan is to be successful with my career." Although for best effect MrCharles Deluxe surely has to be a winner with "There's no plan!". His words, not mine.
Most amusing plan start has to go to The Tijuana Bibles with "I will spend all the money on alcohol, when I have consumed the requisite amount I wlll commence the creation of the album sleeve which I will paint myself. The music will come to me later on.... it always does.". At least the second half (which I haven't quoted) is a slight improvement over that first half. Although I guess some might not see it that way. Oh and don't forget to check out the Nov 25th blog post on this artist page.
And then of course there's the plan I really shouldn't mention for obvious reasons when you read what it is, but I'm going to anyway. The only thing I will say about it is that obviously it worked. So say hello to ZeroDuo whose plan reads as follows: "We are Zeroduo and we joined the Sellaband community to share our music with you. Our funding target is the lowest possible: we don't need a high budget for our project. We've already set up almost everything we need to get our music online and we're already live on the net: you can find us on youtube, myspace, facebook, bandcamp, reverbnation and soon on iTunes, rhapsody and amazonmp3. Feel free to promote us if you like our music. We're Zeroduo. End of story."
Following
Well I had dreams that my following list was going to explode in size now that I'd started looking for new artists on Sellaband again, but it seems this is not to be the case. On the one hand a lot of artists signing up now are not offering a CD and so that pretty much rules them out of consideration for a part from me. On the other hand, one look through the average plan does nothing to convince me that the artist has any kind of clue. What I see tends to come across as simple as "Oh we sign up, we get money, we make some music" rather than there being any indication of how exactly any of that is going to be achieved. Seriously, give me some rough budget plans, give me some idea of whether you've got studios, producers etc. in mind, or even whether you've actually even recorded before so I can see if you have even the tiniest inkling of what is actually involved with being an independent, rather than being just some random idiot that walked off the street who thinks that things happen magically and automatically! The emphasis is no longer on Sellaband to make sure you know what you're doing - you've got to do that yourself if you want to be an independent artist. So if you want my money you need to convince me of that. Clarification or questions are one thing, but if it feels like I'm having to forcibly extract every single piece of information then it's just not on as far as I'm concerned. I'm not some high powered business executive (my degree is scientific, not anything to do with subjects like business, marketing or accountancy), so let's face it, if you can't get past me then how on earth do you ever expect to attract any kind of serious investor who is surely going to demand something much more comprehensive than I ever will?
So as a result of the above, I find myself following a lot fewer new artists than I was expecting. I'm also putting together a blog post about approaching Sellaband these days (about 70% complete at the moment), because none of the "old rules" or even the tips and tricks Sellaband have come up with go anywhere near far enough in what you need to be able to do to stand even the slightest chance out there.
But back to the topic at hand. Here is the list of who I'm keeping an eye on at the moment.
Civilised Tears are back with a remix project, but with a CD only available for 5 parts, I'm in two minds as to whether to buy in or not. Sure I love the music in its original form, but I need to take a better listen to some of the remixes anyway and I'm still thinking that's a bit steep.
Most of the other stuff I seem to be interested in fits into some kind of rock category this month.
Derek Daisey has a full album's worth of material on his page, so plenty for you to get your teeth into.
Echo Of Souls is one for those of you who like your rock that little bit harder, but if I understand their plan correctly, what they're coming up with is only a 7 song album and their budget is really for completion and marketing of this.
Mystic Traversion have some great music, but the information on their profile is potentially confusing. Their incentives section is showing one CD per believer, but if you look in the incentives, they all refer to "in addition to your album download", making it unclear whether the main deal is for a download only and physical copies will only be sent if you take an incentive level or whether the album download + 1CD per believer refers to a third title to be produced from the budget and the extra physical CD titles mentioned are in addition to this.
Ian Fleming and the Secret Agents have also got some good stuff going on, but without any extra incentives I think they're going to struggle to get any interest in. Plus with only a 15K budget and offering a physical album per believer, this looks unsound from a postage point of view as the plan basically expects 1,500 people to show up wanting a CD.
Ophelia Syndrome appear to be having a good shuffle around with their incentives. I was originally following them, then stopped following them when the CD option was removed and have now started following them again now that it's back (albeit now for 5 parts). In many ways they remind me of a cross between Lunic and Angie Arsenault. I'm still extremely unsure as to whether I'll land up buying in, so will be watching to see which way things go next.
Moving slightly further away from the rock, we have Chris Difford. I'm interested, but the eye-popping part price of $25 is putting me off. Unlike Public Enemy, who have a history of producing albums of a wide range of sizes which therefore retail at a wide range of prices, a quick search on Amazon reveals Chris's previous titles lurking around (and generally under) the £10 mark. And with a quick run past a currency converter to turn that price into dollars, it makes me wonder where the incentive is to buy this one before it's actually released.
And finally we have The Jeffersons, who at the moment look like they might actually be the first to tempt me into buying into a project without a CD. I haven't fallen in love enough to want to part with $20 for one of those, but the fact the download is only $5 does tempt me into considering the download only option. One thing is for sure though, it will be a late belief should I decide to go for this.
Sellaband
It's funny sometimes how things come full circle. When I first signed up to Sellaband, I was expecting to see something more like the way things are heading today. i.e. a collection of known (or semi-known) artists who wanted to do things themselves, trying to raise a budget and widen their fanbase in the process. In that sense, the "custom artists" on Sellaband fulfil the idea of Sellaband I had before I first took a look at the artist pages on the site. In three years, that means Sellaband is finally catching up to where I was the day I had my "vision". Because now is where the bomb drops, and where the danger truly begins, because it was actually looking at the artist pages that changed that original idea I had of Sellaband and, in fact, showed me both a series of dangers behind the way I had been thinking and a new series of possibilities.
Sellaband's biggest asset compared to other music funding sites out there has always been its believers. Even back in the early days when believers didn't have a proper profile and inboxes didn't exist, you could still find conversations between one believer and another, an artist and a believer, or even 2 artists taking place on artist walls. Yet this kind of interaction is also the most fragile part of the Sellaband ecosystem. Unlike artists (who are pretty much like buses - it seems there's always another one along shortly), keeping believers happy, involved and interested enough to participate in "the Sellaband experience" as a whole is the biggest challenge if it is not to get as deserted a feel as other funding sites. And as things stand at the moment that's a really big danger for Sellaband, because if it loses its believer interaction completely to become merely just another funding site, then it is immediately at a disadvantage to the competition both because it takes money up front and because projects have no time limit. The site doesn't need artists who turn up with their own believers in tow and then leave again with them. It needs to be able to convince the believers to stay around and interact with other artists and believers on the site if it's to remain healthy and of interest to other artists out there.
So much of the "new" Sellaband reminds me very much of October-November 2006. Parts static in a large number of artists and just a few new or existing acts with some serious forward motion. But the one thing noticeably absent (or at least at a much lower level than back then) is the wall interaction going on. Hind is proving to be the new Nemesea in this regard - so much of the interaction and parts speed is reminiscent of the "parts war", the difference being this time it's a larger number of small believers and not so much of the big believer fight. It will be interesting to see if it continues to develop back to the mass page refreshing and acceleration in both parts and comments as she approaches her target that we saw with Nemesea.
The site has a chance of a new lease of life, but it needs to aggressively capture the new believers, just as it did in the couple of months following Nemesea hitting their target if it's to stand any chance in the longer term. And more importantly, this time it needs to work on keeping them. The next few months will tell if the phoenix can rise from the ashes, or whether the restrictions compared to other funding sites will eventually kill it. There are, after all, other revenue streams potentially more profitable than an escrow account that neither Sellaband nor its competition has made proper use of yet. Can Sellaband still be the first one to work it out? I'm still here, so obviously I'm still living in hope.
November also saw me celebrating what I consider a milestone on Sellaband. The balance credited by Sellaband to my account finally passed the $1,000 dollar mark. i.e. I've now offically got back almost 10% of the money I've put into the system in the first place (yes I know I'm showing less than 1000 parts in artists at the moment, but remember I have money sitting on my balance too and I've also succcessfully requested 2 payouts in the past). I have Second Person to thank for the majority of this (more than 60% in fact) mostly due to the fact that all of my "early part" CDs in them have sold via Sellaband. In fact, if I hadn't participated in the 50K countdown by buying parts, they would officially be the first multi-part artist I'd be in profit on. (As it is I haven't broken even on any yet). Next most noticeable in the list of artists I have parts in has to be Bulletproof Messenger, who are the only artist in my list who have so far created more revenue from the "my music sales" column than the ad revenue column. And by rather a long way too. $40.43 doesn't sound like much when you consider I have 55 parts, but compared to the $6.30 ad revenue, it's a lot, particularly as we're not even a year in. Even artists like Nemesea and Julia Marcell who are mentioned by many as being artists that believers are happy with haven't managed this kind of level of success. Now if only their LE CDs were selling as fast via Sellaband as their sales outside of the place, I'd definitely consider them the most successful Sellaband artist to date. Third on the list for me comes Nemesea for creating more than 13 parts of revenue via Sellaband without me leaving any of their CDs in the Sellaband system. So a big, big thanks from me to these three artists as I consider the faith already repaid.
And Finally
Two reminders. Firstly, the fact that the next proper "hatchet day" won't appear until at least the first week in January as I always put the hatchet away over the Christmas/New Year period. There will however be two posts appear before this one - my set of tips and tricks for Sellaband (hopefully within the next week or so) and the "review of the year" special which will appear some time over the Christmas/New Year period depending on when I get time to write it. Which brings me neatly onto the second reminder that as part of that special I am open to answering a maximum of 10 questions publicly in my blog post, whether that be about myself (be sensible in what you ask!) or my experiences with Sellaband. As I stated last month, you need to send questions to the inbox on my Sellaband profile by December 20th. And don't worry, I won't be revealing who has asked the question (unless the person asking wants me to of course), so that even leaves it open for any curious members of Sellaband staff!
Results from last month
I had a conversation with Aly Cook regarding the postage question I raised in my last post which removed the only slight reservation I had. In fact, I'd have to say that given the response, she's actually got things worked out better on this score than most if not all others I've seen so far, as it appears she already has a kind of mini-distribution system in place which is definitely going to cut the postage costs down.
It looks like I'm going to have to contact Sellaband as it would appear the Paypal payout system doesn't work. I tried a small payout more than a fortnight ago, and so far there's been no change to my Sellaband balance and nothing appearing in my Paypal account either. It appears the problem originates from clicking on the link in the confirmation e-mail you receive from the Sellaband system - I suspected there might be a problem at the time I first tried this, but thought it best to give it a bit of time to see if something actually did happen first. And with another large chunk of money sitting back in my balance after this hatchet day, it's looking even more likely I'm actually going to want to start extracting money out of the system. So watch this space for further developments on this story next time around. Why can't things be easy just for once?...
Transition phase 2 hatchet changes
As I mentioned last month, today is when I've made another large swathe of destruction through my artist list.
Of those I mentioned last month as being particularly under threat MDATA survived by turning up and posting a new plan and budget. Though to be brutally honest, the plan itself looks like it was cobbled together in five minutes over a couple of pints. Chalk another one up for the headache list!
Achilla were the only other artist on the "under threat" list from last month that showed, but they landed up losing the part anyway due to my warning last month about those who hadn't contacted me being given one more month to either do so or put a plan online.
Additionally, I dropped back down to one part in Inge M before she hit her target as she reached the 80% threshold and the plan+incentives still didn't match up despite the warning I'd previously left on her page. I'm willing to bet most people didn't notice me do that though as my removal was around the time when someone else pulled out significantly more parts than me. So, the other artist whose page I left a warning on about plan+incentives not matching at about the same time as I left the warning for Inge should take very good notice of what I've just said.
However I did stay where I was on Civilised Tears after a lot of thought about it. Not 100% happy with the deal for the number of parts I had, but equally it was a borderline case. I did decide however, that it would make it that bit harder for them to get parts from me on their new project should a borderline case occur there also (but more about that later).
Now that the majority of my old artist list has either met the hatchet or gone at least some way towards fitting my comfort zone, the best thing I can probably do is give you a status of what I know about who is left, because to be quite honest there are a lot of artists out there still giving me a headache in one form or another.
Dealing with the special cases first, the contact I've had from Leave is that he will be back on Sellaband properly in March, so that is the earliest any new plan is likely to go live. Whilst the option to remove the part was obviously raised, I've decided to leave it intact until April, when I'll review the situation. Grant Stevens was one of those who nearly left the site as a result of the mess Sellaband made and as a result he's stepped back for a while reviewing options. Again as I only have the one part and the fact he actually contacted me he earns himself a reprieve until February, when I'll look at the situation again (assuming he doesn't make a decision himself first). Marc Supsic currently has no plan to change his plan (he doesn't currently believe there is an option that can work for him), nor any desire to actively chase the old 50K plan, but he still intends to be around for the community aspect and see how things develop. As a result of my conversations with him, I've dropped back down to the one part for now and will see how things with Sellaband and with Marc himself progress over the next few months. I kind of hope he can find something and as he is one of the few remaining on the site with the "curse of the knifelady" I'd actually quite like a #1 CD.
Next we have the artists where I still hold multiple parts. The Jade Diary and The Quahaugs are effectively safe, providing my "inactivity" criteria is met as the extra parts match incentives I've received in the past. Likewise Matthew Ebel is safe, being the only artist so far where I've actually increased the number of parts I originally held. i.e. I currently have no plan to reduce in any of these cases. I've had contact with both Vegas Dragons and Phil Tweed and can therefore confirm that both are effectively "stuck" regarding what exactly to do about a new plan, although in both cases a reduced budget does seem to be top of the list of what they're looking at. But the stalemate will have to break here one way or another some time in January, as I'm not comfortable on the level of parts I have for either while they remain with no plan i.e. currently it's looking like it will be me that breaks that stalemate by reducing parts in January if there's looking like no change in the current situation. In the case of Wetwerks and Blister, I've reduced to 10 parts and 5 parts respectively this month. For Wetwerks, there's been no change since last month, nor does it appear they've been seen in November. Things haven't felt quite the same since the split with Seth, and given how long anything seems to be taking in the Wetwerks camp these days, it leaves me with serious doubts as to whether they'd come anywhere near managing to meet a 12 month deadline after hitting their target. Given also that I've been chasing around to try and find what the situation is with them, the parts drop today is really more of a warning of further parts drop to come, should they not pick up their game. In the case of Blister, the jury is still out. They'll respond to messages left, but there's still no sign of a plan. As a result I've dropped a couple of parts and it looks like this month I'm going to have to go chasing more in that direction to find out what's going on, so expect a strong possibility of further change here. Mount Fabric, MOPI and Devine Soundsystem are all cases where their plan doesn't quite fit with what I'd buy if they were a new artist, but I haven't yet decided whether to change parts or stay where I am. It may be that I even leave that decision until they get nearer to target - I seem to have enough else to still be chasing around at the moment, so it's not top of my priority list. And finally MR-10 and We Love The Underground still have some work to do on the plan vs. incentives issue before they'll convince my parts to stay put in the longer term. Watch this space for further developments on that score.
As for the one-parters I have left, I consider the majority OK, though in many cases it's unlikely they'll recieve any more parts from me due to the nature of their plan. So here's the remainder where the question marks are still around. The Black Doves had changed their plan prior to my last blog post but it took them a few extra days to work out their missing genres were the reason their page wasn't showing up in the artist search. However, having tried a Kickstarter account, it appears that just today they've decided to pursue their funding over there instead. In some ways not surprising given they're showing a wider range of incentives over there, and the fact they've already raised nearly 10 times the amount they currently have in their Sellaband fund probably also has a lot to do with it. What does this tell us about the issue I've mentioned with people not wanting to tie up money for an unknown length of time? - we can say that either they'll reach their budget on Kickstarter within the next 55 days or no money will change hands. So I shall be keeping an eye on that profile over the next month to see what happens. Meg & Mark currently don't have their new plan, but they don't see the point in getting one together until they start to accrue a decent budget. I'm not sure this thought is going to work for them, because there will always be those who don't like what you've got on offer, and leave irrespective of when you put the plan up (and personally I think the sooner you sort something, the better), but for the time being at least I plan to stay put and see how things develop. At least they've thought about how they're going to approach it, rather than being all-at-sea as some others seem to be. Plans for Sunsoma, Ulrik, Cubworld and Conflict in the Sky are not yet finalised, but there is some indication that things are being worked on, so I continue to keep an eye on these. Additionally there are a couple of artists whose plans I'm not 100% happy about, but am merely keeping an eye on at present rather than removing the parts. The Lights plan to only offer an EP rather than a full album and that has me back wobbling on the fence and Lunic I think are being rather ambitious in taking on a 100K plan when all other previous 50K artists who have come back for round two have either gone again or are looking at severely reducing their budgets. With the third party sales from their first album currently only running at one cent per part, that doesn't give me the greatest of confidence either. Also as previously mentioned, MDATA's plan gives me cause for concern through looking like they're lost without a clue and a similar thing applies where Clem is concerned.
So hopefully this gives you some idea of why I say artists are still giving me headaches!
As for some of the more interesting of those artists I've completely dropped from my belief list, Toz is still around but his plan no longer contains a CD hence the reason for my change. Chloe Michelle has decided to leave Sellaband as she now has the ability to record a CD herself and has left a message on my page with her contact details for me to get free copies. And given the mutations compared to the original idea of The Collaboration Project plus a 100K plan, I decided to remove the part I had as I don't even view the project as viable on Sellaband at present. Even a "big name" such as Public Enemy has failed to reach 100K so far and their plan requires them to sell somewhat less parts to do so. Should they make some decent progress towards the target, I'll look at TCP again, but given the lack of movement since the plan change, I don't think it's been understood that such a large budget basically requires a large number of believers to be brought in from outside of Sellaband if it's to be financed and so I don't see the sense in hanging around waiting for nothing.
There have also been some interesting reappearances since my last blog post. The Chupacabra profile is still being watched, despite them supposedly having left the site due to being signed. And although I've removed my parts, I'll continue to keep an eye on this profile as a result.
It would also appear that Scrooge has come to Sellaband this year. About a week after I removed my last part in Jon Robert (one of my phase one changes) he turned up and posted a new plan and incentives. I very nearly bought the part back at that point, but instead decided to wait and see what happened first. Jon's new plan is to do a charity Christmas record on behalf of a local hospital, and it's clear from the video he's posted he's looking to do it sooner rather than later i.e. this year. In addition to his own take on traditional Christmas holiday songs, he's also offering an EP of his own music as part of the deal. And there is, of course, no revenue share because all the revenue is for charity. Since his plan went live, he's received a grand total of 3 parts and actually lost one to give a net gain of 2 parts in three weeks. Under the "old" Sellaband, such an action for charity would have been given news coverage as a minimum, or back in the days of the Tribune, there would have been an article written about it. Despite the fact the plan change would have had to have been approved by Sellaband, obviously something like this is no longer seen as important these days, unless you happen to fit the criteria of being a 50K artist or having a custom budget, and so it looks like it's left to me to make the first (and only?) mention of its existence. If there is still a community out there that's interested in proving Thor's tagline wrong, then I'd say this is the time to stand up and be counted, otherwise this just adds more fuel to the fire of the growing idea I have to remove the bulk of my reclaimed money out of the Sellaband system (when the payout actually works). "It's all about the money" is not the reason I signed up on Sellaband and if that's the way we're heading I'd rather spend my money out in the real world where it can actually do some artists some good. So community, it's in your hands whether you want to prove the Scrooge theory or not, and therefore determine whether I buy back into Jon as a result. Seriously, how far have things actually sunk? - I'd say this new reality looks quite shocking for the average artist.
New parts
Only the two new parts this time around, and you'll find out more about why later in this post.
I've bought a part in Gayle Skidmore, as I hinted was likely in last month's post, although things have slowed a bit since the SEAT competition.
Secondly, as can probably be expected I've joined the express train currently known as Hind. Only with the one part at the moment, although I have been tempted to take a second just to be able to see how revenue share compares on "known" artists to the "unknowns" we've had before. The dollar/euro exchange rate makes calculations very easy at the moment as 10 euros is almost exactly equal to 15 dollars. Ironically, the similarities between her plan/incentive levels and the old "Sellaband incentive scheme" (or insultives, as some liked to call it) stand out here. Just most noticeable that the revenue share is slightly lower and the parts 50% more expensive than the change that had so many believers up in arms 12 months ago. Not convinced that even Hind can return $15 worth of revenue to a believer for the break-even on the extra part at this point, but the speed of movement coupled with the number of new believers arriving is tempting me to take a serious look at her numbers. And on that score, I'm also still trying to decide whether the change to the revenue share icon in the incentives section (Sellaband added the word "max") is clear enough in meaning for people to understand it doesn't apply to every believer, even when a project does share some revenue.
I've got a plan
This month, Ariel managed to give an almost perfect demonstration of how not to change a plan. Not particularly because of the plan change itself, but rather for the method of its execution. The change to a 2-4 song download for $10 is such a radical change away from the original concept of getting a physical album for the same money, that merely submitting the plan and effectively leaving it to Sellaband to spring it on believers was always going to be asking for trouble. Rather submitting it to your existing believers first and then getting the feedback before you go anywhere near the idea of sending the plan to Sellaband is the way to go (particularly in cases like this). Even if you still feel you have to go ahead with it, and there's nothing you can alter as a result of the feedback you received, at least you've had the decency to ask what people think rather than giving them (as one person put it) a slap in the face. And from an artist point of view it's good if you do that too, because at least you'll get some idea of who (and how many) will pull out because they don't like your new offer. The wall reaction is likely to be less offputting to new people looking at your profile too! Whilst you can't please all of the people all of the time, it's fair to say that creating a PR disaster of the level achieved here isn't going to win confidence. Here's hoping that now her budget is finally closed there aren't going to be any repercussions later.
This brings me very neatly onto Poppy and The Jezebels. They say there is a very fine line between genius and insanity, and I'm still trying to work out which side of that line this profile falls on. With so many people turning their noses up at spending $10 for 4 downloads on Ariel's plan, the idea of paying $2.50 (and let's not forget, in advance!) to download just one song ought to be considered equally crazy, yet parts have been quite literally flying out the door. Is this proof that the average Sellaband believer now has more interest in revenue than they do in music? Or is it the case that the involvement of SEG International is the key factor here? I'd say the fact that this artist has had more UK music press to date than Sellaband itself has had in its entire life is probably down to this company, so is this the "magic ingredient" that seems to have wowed people into thinking about the "next big thing"? But are things really as attractive as they look at first glance?
We know from the press article that the plan here involves sending you a download code which you use in a (not yet specified) UK retailer in order to make it eligible for the UK charts. But traditionally the music industry as a whole puts a rather large roadblock in the way where downloads are concerned. As someone who loves artists from Finland, I'm getting to the point where I can't count the number of times I've been re-directed away from an online shop to my regional (i.e. UK) variant where the download just doesn't exist. It's extremely frustrating to find something is there but you just cannot legally download it purely because you are deemed to live in the wrong country. (Why do you think I love CDs? They seem to cross borders much more easily!) The sooner the music industry gets its act together and recognises it needs to think and act globally these days, the better as far as your average (and often frustrated) music lover is concerned. We've also seen this principle demonstrated when believers from the Netherlands tried to download Ellie Williams charity single and couldn't. So the question of whether all downloads from Sellaband believers in Poppy will count in the first place towards the UK charts is still open, not to mention whether believers from outside the UK will even be able to use the download code their $2.50 has bought them in the first place. And the question is still unanswered at this point, despite having been asked. Are we looking at a very well kept industry secret or a clear case of "Caveat Emptor" here? After all, let's not forget what section 4.9 in the believers terms and conditions has to say on the subject.
But let's also look at the effect this project could actually have on the UK singles chart. With everyone buying one part each, there would be 10,000 downloads, however with the number opting for revenue share, this figure is likely to come down closer to 1000. Whilst the UK chart company doesn't make sales figures for records generally available, it does provide first week sales figures for many number one singles. Figures in recent years have shown that first week sales figures have been between approx 30,000 to 120,000 units (depending on the week) for the single that reached number one. And OK, that doesn't tell us what you need to reach position 40, but I'd say the difference between 10,000 and 1,000 is significant enough to turn what looks like a real possibility of chart success into a drop in the ocean based on the figures I've seen. It's obvious that the more chart eligible believers the better here, because even without knowing what the net revenue on a single is, I would reckon a minimum of 100,000 units sold will be needed for the break even on the revenue share (and I wouldn't even be surprised to be told that figure needs to be much higher in reality) i.e. I reckon the single would need to go at least top ten and preferably hit the top spot for all you revenue share enthusiasts out there to be looking at getting your money back, never mind turning a profit. So a genius plan or a disaster waiting to happen? I'm genuinely interested to watch what happens with this one. As for me buying parts, if I like the single, there is a good chance you'll get my fraction of a cent contribution towards the revenue when it's released, but I very much doubt you'll see my name on the believer list.
Innovative plan of the month has to go to Grooveduke. I've already been a bit of a fence sitter where he is concerned, but on average have been leaning slightly away rather than slightly towards buying a part in the past based on the music. His new plan, however, has caused me to sit up and take some serious notice. The one part for a download obviously doesn't attract me and given that I'm "fence sitting" a CD for 2 parts doesn't look that appealing either. (If I did go for the 2 parts it would definitely be a late conversion.) Where the interest comes is when we start moving into higher numbers of multiple parts. You see I believe this plan works, at least in principle and providing you are a touring artist who can sell CDs via gigs. If you can believe in the sales figures he says he has had in the past, plus believe that his sales of original material can do as well as sales of known covers, then this definitely looks like a plan which can turn a profit (allbeit a small one) with a little bit of tweaking to the numbers he is currently quoting. And whilst I'm not here for that side of things, it is something I would like to see proved purely to show the rest of the "little guys" out there that there is something you can do to make Sellaband work for you without needing to be a custom artist with a fancy banner. The basic plan to turn a profit requires you to buy a minimum of 16 parts. This gives you 29 CDs, meaning 28 can be sold back to the band at $5.75 a piece (we assume you want one for yourself) giving you $1 of profit (excluding transaction fees effect). But if we take into account the 75 cent transaction fee from Sellaband and the handling fee for depositing that amount of money in the first place, you've actually got to start looking much higher than this for the deal to turn a profit. Depositing 52 parts leads to more than $38 dollars in fees (assuming we use a credit card and not Paypal where the fee is much higher), meaning that the expected $55 dollar profit from the basic plan actually drops to more like $17 once all 100 of the "extra" CDs produced by this number of parts are sold. If you then have to add in the effects of a currency conversion fee as well due to your location this profit then drops further. (as a guideline a 3% currency conversion fee on the cost to deposit 52 parts would bring you back to pretty much break even once the CDs are sold, taking the fees I've previously mentioned into account). Obviously this is a deal that can only work for the bigger believer, or where the believer can sell CDs for more than they can to the band, or where they're not concerned about fees. Essentially the CDs are the revenue share and also treated as an advance that the band will buy back as they sell CDs at shows. Grooveduke has already said he wants an initial stock of 100, meaning that the vast majority of CDs produced as a result of parts already bought are effectively already sold back to the band or taken by believers, meaning anyone jumping in now would likely start seeing their CDs bought as soon as he starts selling CDs at gigs. So I have been sorely tempted to jump in and give things a really serious push, particularly given the number of parts floating in my balance at the moment, but due to questions with the plan and also with his own health, not to mention the fact that even with a push from me it's still not going to be enough to look like closing the budget, I also have to think about who else could possibly take an interest in this. And yes, I am talking to him about it (ball is back in my court at the moment on that score - round hatchet day is always a bad time of the month!), but I am still undecided at present whether to help give this plan the chance I think it deserves to prove itself, despite the fact it means deviating from the way I'm approaching things on Sellaband these days.
So let's move onto the "Help I'm lost" section with just the tiniest of selections from what I've seen out there.
Top of the list this month is DraMatik who is apparently "Working onit!". OOpsNice with "world champion" and Angel Reese with "my plan is to be successful with my career." Although for best effect MrCharles Deluxe surely has to be a winner with "There's no plan!". His words, not mine.
Most amusing plan start has to go to The Tijuana Bibles with "I will spend all the money on alcohol, when I have consumed the requisite amount I wlll commence the creation of the album sleeve which I will paint myself. The music will come to me later on.... it always does.". At least the second half (which I haven't quoted) is a slight improvement over that first half. Although I guess some might not see it that way. Oh and don't forget to check out the Nov 25th blog post on this artist page.
And then of course there's the plan I really shouldn't mention for obvious reasons when you read what it is, but I'm going to anyway. The only thing I will say about it is that obviously it worked. So say hello to ZeroDuo whose plan reads as follows: "We are Zeroduo and we joined the Sellaband community to share our music with you. Our funding target is the lowest possible: we don't need a high budget for our project. We've already set up almost everything we need to get our music online and we're already live on the net: you can find us on youtube, myspace, facebook, bandcamp, reverbnation and soon on iTunes, rhapsody and amazonmp3. Feel free to promote us if you like our music. We're Zeroduo. End of story."
Following
Well I had dreams that my following list was going to explode in size now that I'd started looking for new artists on Sellaband again, but it seems this is not to be the case. On the one hand a lot of artists signing up now are not offering a CD and so that pretty much rules them out of consideration for a part from me. On the other hand, one look through the average plan does nothing to convince me that the artist has any kind of clue. What I see tends to come across as simple as "Oh we sign up, we get money, we make some music" rather than there being any indication of how exactly any of that is going to be achieved. Seriously, give me some rough budget plans, give me some idea of whether you've got studios, producers etc. in mind, or even whether you've actually even recorded before so I can see if you have even the tiniest inkling of what is actually involved with being an independent, rather than being just some random idiot that walked off the street who thinks that things happen magically and automatically! The emphasis is no longer on Sellaband to make sure you know what you're doing - you've got to do that yourself if you want to be an independent artist. So if you want my money you need to convince me of that. Clarification or questions are one thing, but if it feels like I'm having to forcibly extract every single piece of information then it's just not on as far as I'm concerned. I'm not some high powered business executive (my degree is scientific, not anything to do with subjects like business, marketing or accountancy), so let's face it, if you can't get past me then how on earth do you ever expect to attract any kind of serious investor who is surely going to demand something much more comprehensive than I ever will?
So as a result of the above, I find myself following a lot fewer new artists than I was expecting. I'm also putting together a blog post about approaching Sellaband these days (about 70% complete at the moment), because none of the "old rules" or even the tips and tricks Sellaband have come up with go anywhere near far enough in what you need to be able to do to stand even the slightest chance out there.
But back to the topic at hand. Here is the list of who I'm keeping an eye on at the moment.
Civilised Tears are back with a remix project, but with a CD only available for 5 parts, I'm in two minds as to whether to buy in or not. Sure I love the music in its original form, but I need to take a better listen to some of the remixes anyway and I'm still thinking that's a bit steep.
Most of the other stuff I seem to be interested in fits into some kind of rock category this month.
Derek Daisey has a full album's worth of material on his page, so plenty for you to get your teeth into.
Echo Of Souls is one for those of you who like your rock that little bit harder, but if I understand their plan correctly, what they're coming up with is only a 7 song album and their budget is really for completion and marketing of this.
Mystic Traversion have some great music, but the information on their profile is potentially confusing. Their incentives section is showing one CD per believer, but if you look in the incentives, they all refer to "in addition to your album download", making it unclear whether the main deal is for a download only and physical copies will only be sent if you take an incentive level or whether the album download + 1CD per believer refers to a third title to be produced from the budget and the extra physical CD titles mentioned are in addition to this.
Ian Fleming and the Secret Agents have also got some good stuff going on, but without any extra incentives I think they're going to struggle to get any interest in. Plus with only a 15K budget and offering a physical album per believer, this looks unsound from a postage point of view as the plan basically expects 1,500 people to show up wanting a CD.
Ophelia Syndrome appear to be having a good shuffle around with their incentives. I was originally following them, then stopped following them when the CD option was removed and have now started following them again now that it's back (albeit now for 5 parts). In many ways they remind me of a cross between Lunic and Angie Arsenault. I'm still extremely unsure as to whether I'll land up buying in, so will be watching to see which way things go next.
Moving slightly further away from the rock, we have Chris Difford. I'm interested, but the eye-popping part price of $25 is putting me off. Unlike Public Enemy, who have a history of producing albums of a wide range of sizes which therefore retail at a wide range of prices, a quick search on Amazon reveals Chris's previous titles lurking around (and generally under) the £10 mark. And with a quick run past a currency converter to turn that price into dollars, it makes me wonder where the incentive is to buy this one before it's actually released.
And finally we have The Jeffersons, who at the moment look like they might actually be the first to tempt me into buying into a project without a CD. I haven't fallen in love enough to want to part with $20 for one of those, but the fact the download is only $5 does tempt me into considering the download only option. One thing is for sure though, it will be a late belief should I decide to go for this.
Sellaband
It's funny sometimes how things come full circle. When I first signed up to Sellaband, I was expecting to see something more like the way things are heading today. i.e. a collection of known (or semi-known) artists who wanted to do things themselves, trying to raise a budget and widen their fanbase in the process. In that sense, the "custom artists" on Sellaband fulfil the idea of Sellaband I had before I first took a look at the artist pages on the site. In three years, that means Sellaband is finally catching up to where I was the day I had my "vision". Because now is where the bomb drops, and where the danger truly begins, because it was actually looking at the artist pages that changed that original idea I had of Sellaband and, in fact, showed me both a series of dangers behind the way I had been thinking and a new series of possibilities.
Sellaband's biggest asset compared to other music funding sites out there has always been its believers. Even back in the early days when believers didn't have a proper profile and inboxes didn't exist, you could still find conversations between one believer and another, an artist and a believer, or even 2 artists taking place on artist walls. Yet this kind of interaction is also the most fragile part of the Sellaband ecosystem. Unlike artists (who are pretty much like buses - it seems there's always another one along shortly), keeping believers happy, involved and interested enough to participate in "the Sellaband experience" as a whole is the biggest challenge if it is not to get as deserted a feel as other funding sites. And as things stand at the moment that's a really big danger for Sellaband, because if it loses its believer interaction completely to become merely just another funding site, then it is immediately at a disadvantage to the competition both because it takes money up front and because projects have no time limit. The site doesn't need artists who turn up with their own believers in tow and then leave again with them. It needs to be able to convince the believers to stay around and interact with other artists and believers on the site if it's to remain healthy and of interest to other artists out there.
So much of the "new" Sellaband reminds me very much of October-November 2006. Parts static in a large number of artists and just a few new or existing acts with some serious forward motion. But the one thing noticeably absent (or at least at a much lower level than back then) is the wall interaction going on. Hind is proving to be the new Nemesea in this regard - so much of the interaction and parts speed is reminiscent of the "parts war", the difference being this time it's a larger number of small believers and not so much of the big believer fight. It will be interesting to see if it continues to develop back to the mass page refreshing and acceleration in both parts and comments as she approaches her target that we saw with Nemesea.
The site has a chance of a new lease of life, but it needs to aggressively capture the new believers, just as it did in the couple of months following Nemesea hitting their target if it's to stand any chance in the longer term. And more importantly, this time it needs to work on keeping them. The next few months will tell if the phoenix can rise from the ashes, or whether the restrictions compared to other funding sites will eventually kill it. There are, after all, other revenue streams potentially more profitable than an escrow account that neither Sellaband nor its competition has made proper use of yet. Can Sellaband still be the first one to work it out? I'm still here, so obviously I'm still living in hope.
November also saw me celebrating what I consider a milestone on Sellaband. The balance credited by Sellaband to my account finally passed the $1,000 dollar mark. i.e. I've now offically got back almost 10% of the money I've put into the system in the first place (yes I know I'm showing less than 1000 parts in artists at the moment, but remember I have money sitting on my balance too and I've also succcessfully requested 2 payouts in the past). I have Second Person to thank for the majority of this (more than 60% in fact) mostly due to the fact that all of my "early part" CDs in them have sold via Sellaband. In fact, if I hadn't participated in the 50K countdown by buying parts, they would officially be the first multi-part artist I'd be in profit on. (As it is I haven't broken even on any yet). Next most noticeable in the list of artists I have parts in has to be Bulletproof Messenger, who are the only artist in my list who have so far created more revenue from the "my music sales" column than the ad revenue column. And by rather a long way too. $40.43 doesn't sound like much when you consider I have 55 parts, but compared to the $6.30 ad revenue, it's a lot, particularly as we're not even a year in. Even artists like Nemesea and Julia Marcell who are mentioned by many as being artists that believers are happy with haven't managed this kind of level of success. Now if only their LE CDs were selling as fast via Sellaband as their sales outside of the place, I'd definitely consider them the most successful Sellaband artist to date. Third on the list for me comes Nemesea for creating more than 13 parts of revenue via Sellaband without me leaving any of their CDs in the Sellaband system. So a big, big thanks from me to these three artists as I consider the faith already repaid.
And Finally
Two reminders. Firstly, the fact that the next proper "hatchet day" won't appear until at least the first week in January as I always put the hatchet away over the Christmas/New Year period. There will however be two posts appear before this one - my set of tips and tricks for Sellaband (hopefully within the next week or so) and the "review of the year" special which will appear some time over the Christmas/New Year period depending on when I get time to write it. Which brings me neatly onto the second reminder that as part of that special I am open to answering a maximum of 10 questions publicly in my blog post, whether that be about myself (be sensible in what you ask!) or my experiences with Sellaband. As I stated last month, you need to send questions to the inbox on my Sellaband profile by December 20th. And don't worry, I won't be revealing who has asked the question (unless the person asking wants me to of course), so that even leaves it open for any curious members of Sellaband staff!
Sunday 1 November 2009
November 1st 2009 Hatchet Day
With the changes to the Sellaband website and particularly its terms and conditions it's time to have a proper weed of all the dead wood that's been floating around since June. Hence hatchet day returns in record-breaking size. In this particular issue I'm going through the reasoning behind my parts changes, so you can perhaps get an idea of what has actually happened in the whirlwind of decimation you will have seen if you have visited my profile. I'm also going to give you some of my own thoughts on how I view the changes, but I suspect you'll have to wait for further postings before you get the full picture of what's been going on in my head.
Firstly, what has prompted such changes? Basically the clauses in the Terms and Conditions which now basically remove Sellaband from any liability when it comes to artists making offers on its site. Secondly, the fact that a Limited Edition CD is no longer guaranteed (indeed, there's no guarantee of a CD at all) which is a fundamental move away from the reason I signed up to the site in the first place. As far as I'm concerned, there now needs to be a reason for me to buy into a project. i.e. if I will get exactly the same thing at the same price or cheaper after the project is complete, then where's the reason for me to tie up money now? The limited edition CD for its price was the original draw into the site for me, and whilst it didn't quite perhaps work as intended due to believer shops etc. meaning those CDs were still on sale to people who waited, the original idea that the LE CD would only be available to people who bought parts was enough of a reason to want to buy into a project rather than wait. I already buy albums from all over the world so I have a very good idea of the cost of getting something after release. As a result, I'm basically not interested in artists who only offer a download option. Downloads to me are something you pay for and get now, not something you pay for and then wait an unknown amount of time to receive. It also doesn't take much effort to work out how many tracks are required at 99 cents a track for it to be preferable to paying 10 dollars. And remember one track has usually been offered for free via the Sellaband shop!
As a result, I've had 3 main priorities - to check that artists are still out there, to check what's going on with regards to them putting a plan online and to see how their plan fits with my view on how I'll be spending money in future. As a plan is required under the terms and conditions, I am automatically very uncomfortable about leaving even one part in any artist which does not have one.
However I'm also very aware that such a change in the site has also caused many artists to re-think their plans. No more waiting until the budget is reached and then deciding what you need to be doing. One month since the site went live isn't necessarily enough time to get all the details sorted. As a result I'm having a phased hatchet process between now and the end of January.
This hatchet day has been the first phase and changes have taken place based on how artists responded to the message I left on their page in the first week of October. A more detailed breakdown of this follows.
Artists who didn't respond at all
Where I received no response of any kind from the artist, then I looked first at 2 criteria - the number of parts I owned and the "last seen" date of the artist.
1. For artists where the last seen date was "unknown"
If I owned one part it was removed. If I owned more than one part, then the number of parts in the artist was reduced to 1.
2. For artists with a last seen date
Profile was then checked for existence of anything in the plan or blog section. If nothing there and the artist hasn't been seen that recently, then the actions outlined in 1 were taken. For artists where I found something to tell me they're still about e.g. a blog entry which says they're working on the new plan, they've escaped this time around, but I won't be so generous next month if there's been no obvious progress. In a couple of cases I've decided to try chasing up with a PM to see if I can get any response. I really don't like removing parts from artists and if an artist is still around but basically considering their options, I'd rather know and give them that bit more time.
Artists who responded
If I only own one part and the artist responded then it's been a case of no change for now. Next hatchet day is when I'll look more closely at these. The exception to this is mooncrow where he is unsure if he is even going to continue with the site, so I've withdrawn the part for now as he requested in his post to me. Where I own more than one part, it's been a case of looking at the plan that has been posted and I have reduced parts in some cases already. I do have a number of artists that did respond that are working on plans, so in those cases it's a case of no change this time around.
I have a few artists giving me a headache in terms of their plan changes, as they don't quite fit with what I'm after, but the case is borderline rather than an obvious case where I'd radically change the number of parts I've got. So even if you've changed your plan already, there's still a chance of a small parts adjustment in the pipeline over the next month, when I've stopped scratching my head on the do-I-or-don't-I-change-parts that's the case now.
It also looks like I may need to make some upwards re-adjustments now the majority of the "weeding" process is done. There are some artists in my list of belief where I've received incentives in the past for buying parts. Having thought about it, as long as they don't break the 3 month "last seen" date rule I've set, then I feel it's only fair that I maintain the parts corresponding to the incentive I received in the past, even if it doesn't match an incentive they're currently offering. So apologies in advance to anyone who is currently on less parts than they really ought to be, and I promise it will be sorted by next hatchet day or you're quite welcome to chase after me with a knife then!
The artists who didn't respond at all but where I still own parts basically now have one more month to contact me and/or put their plan on the Sellaband website. Never let it be said that I don't give people second chances!
Phase 2 is when I deal with the remaining non-responders and start to take some more preliminary decisions regarding plans posted. This will take place on December 1st.
Phase 3 will take place early in January when I will be removing parts from any artist who still doesn't have a plan available and/or who can't be found in the search/listings, and making a decision regarding any plans that haven't been dealt with in phase 2.
The alarm bells will also go off if an artist reaches 80% of the budget they are currently showing as target on Sellaband. If the plan, incentives and/or budget still don't tie up properly for the level of parts I have by then, there's a good chance I'll be reducing or even possibly removing all parts in that artist, until such time as the situation is rectified or I have written confirmation from Sellaband themselves (direct, not forwarded) to confirm the artist's plans have been agreed differently to what is shown in the incentives section. Artists can get this information changed if they contact Sellaband, so there is no excuse. It's already happened in several other cases and in one case I've even landed up following an artist I would otherwise have ignored as a result. If you are an artist, take this warning very seriously. There is a principle here. I wouldn't buy a part in a new artist I'd never heard of before if their plan and incentives didn't match, so why should I treat artists I already hold parts in any differently?. The view I hold on this is actually being reinforced by some of the plans I'm seeing out there (more about this later). Even if I've got to know the artist to the point I feel I can trust them, the chances are the discrepancy will put other potential believers off (just as it does for me when the artist is new to me), so it's actually in the artist's own interest to ensure this is right anyway. You should have seen from the havoc in my profile today that I'm quite prepared to follow through on this. And if you missed it - over 100 artists removed from my following list and more than 50 artists removed from my belief list, should give you some idea of the scale we're talking about.
Particular warning bells for next month have to be ringing in the direction of a number of artists where I've reduced to one part, as a result of them not being visible in the search or because their "last seen" date is unknown. Black Jack, MDATA, Heartshine, Silverimage, Tarek Sidani, Achilla and Six Eyes Lost are among those.
New parts
As you can probably work out from the above, rather a lot of money has been freed up back into my balance. I've found a new home for some of it already, but I'm now actively looking for places to spend it, so expect my following list to start exploding in size again. Best get my interest fast though, because it's likely I'll be attempting a payout some time between now and Christmas if my balance stays where it is and as the money now goes to Paypal, that means I'll be buying some things I've been putting off buying because there were no funds of the correct currency in my account and the exchange rate has not been favourable. But before my profile gets deluged with comments to listen, you better make sure you've read the "About Me" section on my Sellaband profile and acted accordingly. The basic rules are as follows:
1. Do I like your music? I only buy parts in artists whose music I like. There are people around Sellaband who can testify to the fact I've even turned down gift parts if I didn't like the music enough.
2. Are you only offering a download? Sorry, I'm looking for a Limited Edition album. If I'm interested enough in your music I might buy a download after it's available, but you'll need something pretty special to get me to buy parts in any project which doesn't offer a CD. I need a reason to tie up my money for an unknown length of time if all I am going to get is exactly the same as those who wait for you to finish your project and then buy. Unless it's love at first listen, I'll be looking at things such as likely price to buy afterwards or what else is within the incentives if the CD you're offering is not a limited edition or of shorter length than an album.
3. What incentives are you offering? In general I'm looking to only buy one part, but if I find your incentives interesting enough to me there is a chance I'll buy more. I'll need to have become absolutely, irreversibly hooked on your music to even start looking higher than a 10 part incentive though.
4. As far as revenue share is concerned, I don't care. I've done the numbers and I've also got a large selection of "already funded" artists and all the evidence suggests no more than a few cents. If a miracle happens and you are offering revenue share then I'll probably love you forever, but I think my chances of winning the lottery are better. I'll therefore buy parts irrespective of whether you offer revenue or not.
5. What's your last seen date? If I ever spot this date as being "unknown" or more than 3 months old, you haven't sent me a message/visited my page and I don't recall seeing you elsewhere on the site (e.g. the forum) either, then you can expect to be visited by my hatchet day.
6. Can you be found if I type your artist name into the search? Does your plan look at least halfway reasonable or does it give the impression you don't have a clue? If you're giving a bad first impression, or indeed can't be found at all by others, then where's the point of me spending my money on you?
So having been forced to sit through reading everything I've written in this section, now to the bit you're really interested in. Where have I actually bought parts and why?
The first "new era" part I bought isn't really a purchase but just a straight move of the part I had in MAYHEM to Mysti Mayhem's new profile. The main thing bothering me at the moment is that her plan is stating a CD for every part you buy, but this isn't reflected by the incentives panel. (and the CD icon = 1 CD per believer, not per part). I've met Mysti in real life so I'd say I have more trust in her than on average over the artists I believe in, she's nowhere near the 80% threshold yet and with only the one part anyway at the moment, I'm prepared to let this problem go for now. But Sellaband really need to do something about this to make it easier. I've seen they will change things if asked (Gayle Skidmore for instance recently had her "1 cd per believer" activated where it wasn't before, and I started following as a result) but it's surely a lot of work for Sellaband (never mind hassle for the artist) if artists have to keep asking until it gets done right.
Matthew Ebel becomes the first artist where I've actually increased the number of parts I had already. I said back at the beginning of the year when he joined the site that he was, for me, the best discovery of 2009 so far. It's looking like it won't be long before I can remove those last two words, unless there's a last minute surprise. This is one case where I've officially crossed the border from music lover to fan (and fast seeing as I'd never even heard of him before he joined Sellaband). I'd actually been planning to buy a subscription to his site if I landed up paying money out into Paypal, so for me this is really a case of having your cake and eating it too, as his lower level incentives (5,10 and 15 parts) basically amount to getting a year's subscription (at the relevant level) plus the album. He does a live concert online pretty much every Tuesday night, so if you really want to check for yourselves if he's the real deal I say he is, then this is probably the best place to do it.
Aly Cook finally gets a part, having been sat on my wishlist while the site was in chaos and I wasn't buying parts. Her incentive is extremely tempting, but I also am left wondering if she's realised just how much the postage cost (of which there's no mention anywhere in her plan) is going to work out to be, particularly if she gets a lot of believers from outside NZ.
John C Fraser turned out to be the returned part I was left wondering about in my previous blog post. He's come back with a 20K budget and the part has gone back in as a result.
The more I see Epyllion, the more I find myself liking them. As well as the music, I think they've got a lot of the "artist spirit" we had back in the early days of Sellaband that seems to have been so lacking recently. A weekly video diary, the fact they actually spotted I'd started following them and sent me a message (even before I bought a part) and the way they've been trying to get involved with the forum, are all things which stand out in this regard. The plan to use Sellaband as a boost to help them finish what they've already got a lot of the funds for and are already working on is something I also think is quite smart, as it means there should be less of a wait between the funds being raised and the album actually recorded, due to the fact they've started recording already. i.e. instead of waiting at least 6 months to a year, I'd say this one is more likely to be nearer a month or two after reaching their target as a result. It's also noticeable that they seem to have a big backer buying a certain number of parts every week, so if things keep up at their current rate, I'm currently expecting them to be somewhere around halfway to their target at Christmas, which should be about the right time for all you late "sheep" to start thinking about spending your Xmas money on them. I'm already convinced this is one artist that will definitely reach their target on Sellaband and probably within the first quarter of next year, unless anyone out there wants to prove me wrong and make it happen faster.
Particular near misses who didn't get parts this time around come in the form of Chris Jones and The Silence.
In the case of the former, a combination of relatively low budget increase and page attendance after the first couple of days of "hype" and the fact the budget is in euros rather than dollars is putting me off. Whilst there's no doubt that 10 euros is still a good deal for me (a lot of the time I pay nearer to 20 including postage if I have to order direct from Europe), it's unclear as to how the transaction change is handled. e.g. if the price converts to 15 dollars to be taken from your balance and you later remove the part, do you get 15 dollars back or whatever it converts to at the time instead? At the moment I have no doubt I'll be buying a part if he stays on the site long enough to raise his budget, but it's looking more likely I'll be a late believer as a result.
In the case of The Silence things are pretty much turned around due to the fact he's not offering a CD if you buy just one part. The 5 part deal is the thing looking most tempting for me - 3 CDs for $50 looks reasonable, particularly when you consider one is a copy of previous work, meaning you're left with one for yourself and only one to either give away as a present or potentially sell in order to get some of the money back. Although the deal itself looks interesting that then leaves the question of the music, and I already know it's very likely there's going to be some on there I won't like due to his inclusion of Maitreya and the fact I don't like rap. Until I get a better feel for the project, you're therefore going to find me sitting on the fence, as there's not enough either attracting me or chasing me off at the moment.
I've got a plan
Here's a section I suspect is going to become a regular feature of hatchet day from now on. In this section I'll be selecting a few artists and taking a look at some of the plans and incentives on offer. And in true knifelady style, not just ones I consider good, but also some of the more entertaining, amusing and even downright strange ones as well.
TheLights are giving me a dilemma at the moment. Whilst they've dropped their budget, they now only plan to record a 6 song mini-album, and as they're based just around the corner from me anyway, I find myself torn between the urge to support a very talented band now and the urge to wait until afterwards. Whilst I'll be waiting a bit longer before making a final decision on that one, the main reason for including them here is to tell you about the incentive you've missed out on. For a mere 2000 parts, you too could sleep with a band member of your choice, but as that equates to their total budget, they already have sold parts and it's meant jokingly anyway, it would appear you're just that little bit too late.
One of the more innovative plans around has to come from Allen Thompson For a certain minimum number of parts (could be 8, could be 15 depending on whether you believe the plan or incentives) he will come round to your house and play a concert. For larger numbers of parts he'll "upsize" and bring his band as well, so effectively you get to pick what level of concert you want e.g. acoustic or full band, depending on the number of parts you buy. Each concert gets recorded and the album produced for believers is basically made up of the "best bits" of those concerts. That's the basics but you'll find a much more detailed explanation in his blog post. There are obvious questions, such as what would happen if I was to go and buy 15 parts (he's in the States and I'm in the UK), and at what kind of point would you feel comfortable having an artist into your own home, but otherwise I find the idea a very interesting one. Whilst it's obvious from his wording he intended this for his existing fanbase, it's also interesting to note his current budget raised is $0 despite the fact he's already been on the site a fortnight. Just not attractive to his existing fans (and he didn't ask beforehand), or something about Sellaband putting people off? I think the answer to this one could be very useful information.
Band Without Borders is one of the new custom projects out there. As someone not interested in revenue share who finds the music interesting, I've been half tempted to buy a part for the CD, but the way things stand at the moment the project itself doesn't make sense once you think about it. For starters, if the idea of the revenue share does appeal, there's rather a lot of holes in the plot. You see, the project itself requires $250,000 to be raised but instead of trying to raise it all in one go, they've decided to split it into 5 phases of $50,000 and that's where the problems start. Firstly the text on the first $50,000 project states a 10% revenue share whereas the incentive icon is stating 15%. We also know the revenue share is meant to apply to the $250,000 which actually means that only 3% of the total revenue will apply to each $50,000 chunk, (assuming it is 15% for the total project). These differences mean you'd better be very good at mathematics if you're interested in the revenue, because it's extremely easy to get misled with the way the information is presented on the profile. There are also other questions to be raised such as the fact the revenue share depends on them being able to sell the project to TV (and that doesn't seem to have happened yet), and the question of how you get people to buy into the second (and subsequent) $50,000 project chunks, which would obviously be an ideal situation to raise money fast - you can't very well offer the same thing to the same people second time around because most (if not all) won't be interested. And if you are going to be offering the same thing, where is the next set of interested people going to come from? All in all, I'd therefore say this is one project which is a great idea, but very badly thought out.
Another confusing custom profile comes in the form of Nylon Pink, who are the only artist not offering a CD that seems to be doing fairly well to date. But is this because potential believers are getting confused? If you're not offering a CD, yet you get your name in the CD booklet for 10 parts, this seems rather strange unless there is actually going to be a CD available for sale later. None of the incentives listed actually say that believers will receive a CD if they buy multiple parts, but how many are going to be fooled into thinking they'll get a CD because of the wording in the incentives section? Or indeed, is a CD actually available for multiple parts, but the information is missing?
Bench Grinder have traditionally been one of the quietest artists on Sellaband, but their changed budget could be of interest to those looking at revenue share. Their plan involves 100% of revenue from their physical sales (yes, you heard right - that's the lot and not a mistype adding an extra 0) and they won't need all of the CDs they are producing to cover believers either. Unfortunately their "extra incentives" section is activated but blank at the moment which means it looks like there's still a bit of work to do there.
I've also seen a number of plans that can best be described as "Help I'm Lost", but I'll leave you to decide whether that statement refers to me or the artist in question.
One such example is Davizion whose plan proudly states "Have one number one hit song". And... well... that's actually all there is to it. Personally I'd consider that more an ambition than a plan. I'm also wondering if the fact there's just a single song in the profile has some relevance here.
We also have Champ with "I Am Trying To Go To School For Audio Engineering So I Can Change Things From Witthin Music Labels"... soo.. I'm actually paying for your college fund? Or..? If you like your rap/hip-hop, he's actually got about 2 albums worth of material posted on his page, so there's actually plenty to check out, and hence might be a shame to see him passed by for want of a decent plan.
As a late edit just as I'm about to post this, I also see we have a new arrival in Steven Marr with "blah blah blah, who really wants to read that". No comment from me on that one - I'll leave you to decide what you think.
I'd also love to know how any of the last 3 artists I've mentioned manages to meet condition 5.5 in the fundraising terms and conditions. Anyone got any ideas? I'm completely lost on that score.
So whilst I have seen some such profiles deleted (such as the artist who was going to spend 50% of the budget on food and drink and the other 50% on booking shows so you could watch them eat that food and drink), I'd say the fact that there's no real regulation going on out there is something that bothers me. Νεφελοκοκκυγία is the first word that comes to mind, because whilst some out there might be very good at music, it's clear they're missing the knowledge, access to advice and often just plain logic required to even sound as if they know what they're doing. And if Sellaband have experts on board, then why aren't they helping to close that gap, rather than just letting these plans slide out there?
Add to this the question of how far you bend the rules, or even what exactly the rules are in the first place and the whole "plan" idea is, quite frankly, a mess. But what do I mean by that previous sentence? Well if you take a look at the fundraising agreement you'll see that 3 types of music project are identified. However if you look at the "how it works" slideshow for artists you'll see on the 7th slide that there is a star in the top right corner which says "Want a bigger budget? Want to raise funds for touring or promotion? Go custom". So are options b) and c) in the fundraising agreement meant to apply to custom projects only? And if touring or promotion/marketing are meant to be custom budgets only, then why the large number of standard artists with plans stating their budget is for these activities?
This whole area needs clarification by Sellaband, and preferably yesterday, otherwise the place is rapidly going to gain a reputation as the funding platform without a clue.
Following
As part of hatchet day I've also taken a big clearout of my following list and removed all artists I don't hold parts in where the last seen date is either "unknown" or more than three months ago. This rule will continue to apply on future hatchet days. I've also removed all artists on my following list on $0 who signed up prior to 2009, as I think it's very unlikely there will be any change in their status. Like many other parts of the site, the following list also has bugs with artists whose profiles have been removed from Sellaband still showing, and it's not possible to stop following them, so I do still have a couple of those lurking in there.
I follow artists for one of several reasons. I automatically follow artists where I own parts. If I own parts and I'm not following as well, do give me a prod! In general I start to follow artists before I actually buy parts though, so this isn't usually a problem. Other artists on my following list are usually there because I am planning to buy parts, am sitting on the fence and want to hear more before I decide whether to buy parts, or I'm thinking about including them in a hatchet day post for some reason.
Of particular interest this month are Phil Tweed and We Love the Underground. Neither have posted plans yet, although Phil has sent several mails my way to gauge my reaction and Brad has mentioned the kind of thing he's thinking of, which resulted in me posting a response to him in this thread on the forum, which many artists will probably find useful as it gives a good idea of the reality of just how far (and fast) postage costs can spiral if you're looking at sending CDs to your believers and there's a move towards one-parters rather than multi-part believers.
Along with Matthew Ebel, these two are the artists currently fundraising on Sellaband where I officially consider myself having crossed that border from liking the music into a real fan, so I'm extremely interested in what they come up with, as it will have a heavy influence on the parts I have in them. Both have also recently posted new tunes. "A few good men" from Phil is up with the best songs I've ever heard from him and could well become my new favourite song of his. At a time when I'm going to have to make some pretty hard decisions regarding parts, it's given me rather an emotional reminder of why I landed up buying so heavily in the first place. "Afire" from We Love the Underground is less commercial than the previous track but also gives me a better feel for where Brad is heading with this project relative to the ones we've heard before. (Niki Thunders/Skitzo Calypso)
There are also a number of artists already added to my following list since the site changes that I'll be keeping an eye on.
My father likes jazz, but my mother doesn't. This simple fact is what led to me gaining an appreciation of it many years ago as my father used to play his tapes in the car when taking me to chess matches in the evening - about the only time he'd get a chance to listen without my mother being around. Whilst I've never been a big fan of the genre as a whole (and there is a wider range to it than most people realise), Abram Wilson therefore becomes of interest, as his particular style matches that of my father's favourite. Even with a relatively modest budget of $30,000 I'd say he's got his work cut out for him on Sellaband though, so I will be interested to see how things develop.
The Esoteric Gender look to be keeping it quite simple. With an 11 song album planned, no extra incentives and a 50% revenue share it looks like something to appeal both to the 1 parters who want the music and anyone who does want to go nuts if they think the revenue is going to be there. I'd actually recommend checking out the video first (home of the whale), which has a very Celtic feel to it.
Gayle Skidmore was an artist I originally passed by because she wasn't offering a CD to believers. That's now changed, and consequently there's a good chance she'll attract a part from me some time soon.
Josianne is looking interesting, but with only the one song at the moment, it's not yet enough to make me jump off the fence.
Modern Day Ruin need to do some work on their profile. There isn't a biography at the moment, but they've got some decent (although not outstanding) songs and tick the boxes on CD and revenue share that most believers seem to be after one (or both) of, so I'm slightly surprised they don't seem to have picked up any interest yet.
Elio Cagnizi also has some nice music going on, but is probably suffering from a combination of no plan and both his music and biography being in Italian. Well worth checking out, and I know people have bought parts in similar artists before.
And finally, here's an interesting one for those who are also on thesixtyone. As well as Loom that I see a lot of you have already noticed, am I the only one to spot that Kashmere Hakim came over at about the same time as well? Popular over there, but seemingly not so popular over here.
Sellaband
It's fair to say that the rules of the believing game have changed. Where it was only necessary for you to trust in Sellaband before, now a large portion of that trust has been shifted direct to the shoulders of the artist. In my opinion this is a very bad thing for artists unless they already have a decent fanbase willing to support them. From a believer point of view, you no longer have one "unknown" (i.e. Sellaband itself) in which there needs to be trust, but 5 or 10 or 20 (or however many different artists you believe in) instead. It's also a case that there is no simple "Buy one part and get a LE CD" rule any more. Believers now have to take the time to check each profile and understand exactly what's on offer, and, let's face it, how many are going to be bothered or even have the time to do that? Privacy also has the potential to become an issue. As artists can now choose to distribute themselves rather than everything being done through Sellaband, this means information you originally needed to provide only to Sellaband will need to be passed on by them in order for you to receive albums or other incentives.
The changes allowing artists to set their own budget are good, as it means in theory that more should be able to reach the target faster (and then hopefully come back with a slightly larger budget next time around) and not everyone is at the same level of musical development anyway, however just because the budget it smaller, it doesn't mean it is going to be any easier to get believers, because the changes introduced have actually made it harder for music lovers. Much harder.
Considering an average time of 6 months to a year to reach the goal, plus a further year while you wait for the outcome, more and more the question has to be asked - why should I tie up money now? I've already stated in my case it has been the LE CD that answered that question for me originally, but now it's no longer a guarantee, I too am largely looking for a reason to believe early. Unlike other funding sites, Sellaband takes your money now and basically holds onto it indefinitely (or at least until you ask for it back), whereas in other places there is a set time to pledge money - if the target is reached in time the money is taken, but if it isn't it has stayed in your own bank account earning money. A lot of people already won't make the jump to believe early as a result of this simple difference, even if something is only available if they do.
And that's where the problem starts. If even the music lovers who traditionally have believed early to try and give someone a boost (after all, someone has to get the ball rolling) are now sat wondering where the reason is that they should buy parts early, we rapidly start heading towards a point where only those who get a big sponsor on board (whether that be an existing big believer who gets interested or e.g. an indie label willing to buy a large number of parts in advance) are going to make any progress away from the $0 mark and have any chance of reaching their target.
Add to that the move away from community for believers rather than any attempt to foster it and help it grow, and from a music lover point of view, the site is holding less and less appeal.
There was originally an outcry when the listening sessions for believers were removed from the site, and it looks very much to me as if Sellaband may have very quietly found a way to remove them again. As we've now reached a case where it is "the artist's" album rather than a "Sellaband" album, are there going to be listening sessions for the albums any more, once the ones currently in production from the old era have been made? Indeed, what does it mean for the Sellaband shop, now that Sellaband will no longer be producing standard copies of the albums? Will any of the new albums be available for sale there? Will the free download of one track even continue? Add to this the relegation of the forum into the depths of the footer section of the site and it appears that even the few things remaining to attempt to keep people on the site rather than the idea of "visit once and go away" are slowly disappearing.
Sellaband's mission statement has traditionally made a point of saying they are there to break down the fences in the music industry, however with this latest set of changes it looks very much to me as if they'd rather still keep some of them in place instead. The site that will revolutionize the music industry first has to be able to educate and advise new artists coming along, otherwise the fences between those who have the connections and those who do not will remain firmly in place. And it also has to provide an environment that music lovers want to hang around on, form friendships and share in a way that makes the "sheep" realise that actually, this is something great to get involved with.
At the moment there is still time to redress the balance, but it won't be long before I see Sellaband heading down a path from which there will be no return.
And Finally
As you may be aware if you've been around the site for any length of time I usually hold off on the hatchet over the Christmas/New Year period and do something else instead. Last year that was a "review of the year" style post. This year, I'll be giving you the new top 10s as usual, but I'm also looking to do something slightly different.
This is your chance to get to know the "hatchet lady" and ask any burning questions you have lurking in the back of your mind. I am willing to answer a maximum of 10 question publicly in my blog post over the Xmas/New Year period. In the event of too many questions submitted the most popular ones will get answered first, and in the event of a tie it will be the questions asked first that count. Keep it sensible - I'm obviously not going to put personal information like my home address publicly, but otherwise the door is open for whatever you want to ask, whether that be about me or my views/experiences on Sellaband and I promise they will be answered truthfully. The questions themselves must be submitted via PM at my Sellaband profile in order to be considered and you have until December 20th to do so, so get creative!
Firstly, what has prompted such changes? Basically the clauses in the Terms and Conditions which now basically remove Sellaband from any liability when it comes to artists making offers on its site. Secondly, the fact that a Limited Edition CD is no longer guaranteed (indeed, there's no guarantee of a CD at all) which is a fundamental move away from the reason I signed up to the site in the first place. As far as I'm concerned, there now needs to be a reason for me to buy into a project. i.e. if I will get exactly the same thing at the same price or cheaper after the project is complete, then where's the reason for me to tie up money now? The limited edition CD for its price was the original draw into the site for me, and whilst it didn't quite perhaps work as intended due to believer shops etc. meaning those CDs were still on sale to people who waited, the original idea that the LE CD would only be available to people who bought parts was enough of a reason to want to buy into a project rather than wait. I already buy albums from all over the world so I have a very good idea of the cost of getting something after release. As a result, I'm basically not interested in artists who only offer a download option. Downloads to me are something you pay for and get now, not something you pay for and then wait an unknown amount of time to receive. It also doesn't take much effort to work out how many tracks are required at 99 cents a track for it to be preferable to paying 10 dollars. And remember one track has usually been offered for free via the Sellaband shop!
As a result, I've had 3 main priorities - to check that artists are still out there, to check what's going on with regards to them putting a plan online and to see how their plan fits with my view on how I'll be spending money in future. As a plan is required under the terms and conditions, I am automatically very uncomfortable about leaving even one part in any artist which does not have one.
However I'm also very aware that such a change in the site has also caused many artists to re-think their plans. No more waiting until the budget is reached and then deciding what you need to be doing. One month since the site went live isn't necessarily enough time to get all the details sorted. As a result I'm having a phased hatchet process between now and the end of January.
This hatchet day has been the first phase and changes have taken place based on how artists responded to the message I left on their page in the first week of October. A more detailed breakdown of this follows.
Artists who didn't respond at all
Where I received no response of any kind from the artist, then I looked first at 2 criteria - the number of parts I owned and the "last seen" date of the artist.
1. For artists where the last seen date was "unknown"
If I owned one part it was removed. If I owned more than one part, then the number of parts in the artist was reduced to 1.
2. For artists with a last seen date
Profile was then checked for existence of anything in the plan or blog section. If nothing there and the artist hasn't been seen that recently, then the actions outlined in 1 were taken. For artists where I found something to tell me they're still about e.g. a blog entry which says they're working on the new plan, they've escaped this time around, but I won't be so generous next month if there's been no obvious progress. In a couple of cases I've decided to try chasing up with a PM to see if I can get any response. I really don't like removing parts from artists and if an artist is still around but basically considering their options, I'd rather know and give them that bit more time.
Artists who responded
If I only own one part and the artist responded then it's been a case of no change for now. Next hatchet day is when I'll look more closely at these. The exception to this is mooncrow where he is unsure if he is even going to continue with the site, so I've withdrawn the part for now as he requested in his post to me. Where I own more than one part, it's been a case of looking at the plan that has been posted and I have reduced parts in some cases already. I do have a number of artists that did respond that are working on plans, so in those cases it's a case of no change this time around.
I have a few artists giving me a headache in terms of their plan changes, as they don't quite fit with what I'm after, but the case is borderline rather than an obvious case where I'd radically change the number of parts I've got. So even if you've changed your plan already, there's still a chance of a small parts adjustment in the pipeline over the next month, when I've stopped scratching my head on the do-I-or-don't-I-change-parts that's the case now.
It also looks like I may need to make some upwards re-adjustments now the majority of the "weeding" process is done. There are some artists in my list of belief where I've received incentives in the past for buying parts. Having thought about it, as long as they don't break the 3 month "last seen" date rule I've set, then I feel it's only fair that I maintain the parts corresponding to the incentive I received in the past, even if it doesn't match an incentive they're currently offering. So apologies in advance to anyone who is currently on less parts than they really ought to be, and I promise it will be sorted by next hatchet day or you're quite welcome to chase after me with a knife then!
The artists who didn't respond at all but where I still own parts basically now have one more month to contact me and/or put their plan on the Sellaband website. Never let it be said that I don't give people second chances!
Phase 2 is when I deal with the remaining non-responders and start to take some more preliminary decisions regarding plans posted. This will take place on December 1st.
Phase 3 will take place early in January when I will be removing parts from any artist who still doesn't have a plan available and/or who can't be found in the search/listings, and making a decision regarding any plans that haven't been dealt with in phase 2.
The alarm bells will also go off if an artist reaches 80% of the budget they are currently showing as target on Sellaband. If the plan, incentives and/or budget still don't tie up properly for the level of parts I have by then, there's a good chance I'll be reducing or even possibly removing all parts in that artist, until such time as the situation is rectified or I have written confirmation from Sellaband themselves (direct, not forwarded) to confirm the artist's plans have been agreed differently to what is shown in the incentives section. Artists can get this information changed if they contact Sellaband, so there is no excuse. It's already happened in several other cases and in one case I've even landed up following an artist I would otherwise have ignored as a result. If you are an artist, take this warning very seriously. There is a principle here. I wouldn't buy a part in a new artist I'd never heard of before if their plan and incentives didn't match, so why should I treat artists I already hold parts in any differently?. The view I hold on this is actually being reinforced by some of the plans I'm seeing out there (more about this later). Even if I've got to know the artist to the point I feel I can trust them, the chances are the discrepancy will put other potential believers off (just as it does for me when the artist is new to me), so it's actually in the artist's own interest to ensure this is right anyway. You should have seen from the havoc in my profile today that I'm quite prepared to follow through on this. And if you missed it - over 100 artists removed from my following list and more than 50 artists removed from my belief list, should give you some idea of the scale we're talking about.
Particular warning bells for next month have to be ringing in the direction of a number of artists where I've reduced to one part, as a result of them not being visible in the search or because their "last seen" date is unknown. Black Jack, MDATA, Heartshine, Silverimage, Tarek Sidani, Achilla and Six Eyes Lost are among those.
New parts
As you can probably work out from the above, rather a lot of money has been freed up back into my balance. I've found a new home for some of it already, but I'm now actively looking for places to spend it, so expect my following list to start exploding in size again. Best get my interest fast though, because it's likely I'll be attempting a payout some time between now and Christmas if my balance stays where it is and as the money now goes to Paypal, that means I'll be buying some things I've been putting off buying because there were no funds of the correct currency in my account and the exchange rate has not been favourable. But before my profile gets deluged with comments to listen, you better make sure you've read the "About Me" section on my Sellaband profile and acted accordingly. The basic rules are as follows:
1. Do I like your music? I only buy parts in artists whose music I like. There are people around Sellaband who can testify to the fact I've even turned down gift parts if I didn't like the music enough.
2. Are you only offering a download? Sorry, I'm looking for a Limited Edition album. If I'm interested enough in your music I might buy a download after it's available, but you'll need something pretty special to get me to buy parts in any project which doesn't offer a CD. I need a reason to tie up my money for an unknown length of time if all I am going to get is exactly the same as those who wait for you to finish your project and then buy. Unless it's love at first listen, I'll be looking at things such as likely price to buy afterwards or what else is within the incentives if the CD you're offering is not a limited edition or of shorter length than an album.
3. What incentives are you offering? In general I'm looking to only buy one part, but if I find your incentives interesting enough to me there is a chance I'll buy more. I'll need to have become absolutely, irreversibly hooked on your music to even start looking higher than a 10 part incentive though.
4. As far as revenue share is concerned, I don't care. I've done the numbers and I've also got a large selection of "already funded" artists and all the evidence suggests no more than a few cents. If a miracle happens and you are offering revenue share then I'll probably love you forever, but I think my chances of winning the lottery are better. I'll therefore buy parts irrespective of whether you offer revenue or not.
5. What's your last seen date? If I ever spot this date as being "unknown" or more than 3 months old, you haven't sent me a message/visited my page and I don't recall seeing you elsewhere on the site (e.g. the forum) either, then you can expect to be visited by my hatchet day.
6. Can you be found if I type your artist name into the search? Does your plan look at least halfway reasonable or does it give the impression you don't have a clue? If you're giving a bad first impression, or indeed can't be found at all by others, then where's the point of me spending my money on you?
So having been forced to sit through reading everything I've written in this section, now to the bit you're really interested in. Where have I actually bought parts and why?
The first "new era" part I bought isn't really a purchase but just a straight move of the part I had in MAYHEM to Mysti Mayhem's new profile. The main thing bothering me at the moment is that her plan is stating a CD for every part you buy, but this isn't reflected by the incentives panel. (and the CD icon = 1 CD per believer, not per part). I've met Mysti in real life so I'd say I have more trust in her than on average over the artists I believe in, she's nowhere near the 80% threshold yet and with only the one part anyway at the moment, I'm prepared to let this problem go for now. But Sellaband really need to do something about this to make it easier. I've seen they will change things if asked (Gayle Skidmore for instance recently had her "1 cd per believer" activated where it wasn't before, and I started following as a result) but it's surely a lot of work for Sellaband (never mind hassle for the artist) if artists have to keep asking until it gets done right.
Matthew Ebel becomes the first artist where I've actually increased the number of parts I had already. I said back at the beginning of the year when he joined the site that he was, for me, the best discovery of 2009 so far. It's looking like it won't be long before I can remove those last two words, unless there's a last minute surprise. This is one case where I've officially crossed the border from music lover to fan (and fast seeing as I'd never even heard of him before he joined Sellaband). I'd actually been planning to buy a subscription to his site if I landed up paying money out into Paypal, so for me this is really a case of having your cake and eating it too, as his lower level incentives (5,10 and 15 parts) basically amount to getting a year's subscription (at the relevant level) plus the album. He does a live concert online pretty much every Tuesday night, so if you really want to check for yourselves if he's the real deal I say he is, then this is probably the best place to do it.
Aly Cook finally gets a part, having been sat on my wishlist while the site was in chaos and I wasn't buying parts. Her incentive is extremely tempting, but I also am left wondering if she's realised just how much the postage cost (of which there's no mention anywhere in her plan) is going to work out to be, particularly if she gets a lot of believers from outside NZ.
John C Fraser turned out to be the returned part I was left wondering about in my previous blog post. He's come back with a 20K budget and the part has gone back in as a result.
The more I see Epyllion, the more I find myself liking them. As well as the music, I think they've got a lot of the "artist spirit" we had back in the early days of Sellaband that seems to have been so lacking recently. A weekly video diary, the fact they actually spotted I'd started following them and sent me a message (even before I bought a part) and the way they've been trying to get involved with the forum, are all things which stand out in this regard. The plan to use Sellaband as a boost to help them finish what they've already got a lot of the funds for and are already working on is something I also think is quite smart, as it means there should be less of a wait between the funds being raised and the album actually recorded, due to the fact they've started recording already. i.e. instead of waiting at least 6 months to a year, I'd say this one is more likely to be nearer a month or two after reaching their target as a result. It's also noticeable that they seem to have a big backer buying a certain number of parts every week, so if things keep up at their current rate, I'm currently expecting them to be somewhere around halfway to their target at Christmas, which should be about the right time for all you late "sheep" to start thinking about spending your Xmas money on them. I'm already convinced this is one artist that will definitely reach their target on Sellaband and probably within the first quarter of next year, unless anyone out there wants to prove me wrong and make it happen faster.
Particular near misses who didn't get parts this time around come in the form of Chris Jones and The Silence.
In the case of the former, a combination of relatively low budget increase and page attendance after the first couple of days of "hype" and the fact the budget is in euros rather than dollars is putting me off. Whilst there's no doubt that 10 euros is still a good deal for me (a lot of the time I pay nearer to 20 including postage if I have to order direct from Europe), it's unclear as to how the transaction change is handled. e.g. if the price converts to 15 dollars to be taken from your balance and you later remove the part, do you get 15 dollars back or whatever it converts to at the time instead? At the moment I have no doubt I'll be buying a part if he stays on the site long enough to raise his budget, but it's looking more likely I'll be a late believer as a result.
In the case of The Silence things are pretty much turned around due to the fact he's not offering a CD if you buy just one part. The 5 part deal is the thing looking most tempting for me - 3 CDs for $50 looks reasonable, particularly when you consider one is a copy of previous work, meaning you're left with one for yourself and only one to either give away as a present or potentially sell in order to get some of the money back. Although the deal itself looks interesting that then leaves the question of the music, and I already know it's very likely there's going to be some on there I won't like due to his inclusion of Maitreya and the fact I don't like rap. Until I get a better feel for the project, you're therefore going to find me sitting on the fence, as there's not enough either attracting me or chasing me off at the moment.
I've got a plan
Here's a section I suspect is going to become a regular feature of hatchet day from now on. In this section I'll be selecting a few artists and taking a look at some of the plans and incentives on offer. And in true knifelady style, not just ones I consider good, but also some of the more entertaining, amusing and even downright strange ones as well.
TheLights are giving me a dilemma at the moment. Whilst they've dropped their budget, they now only plan to record a 6 song mini-album, and as they're based just around the corner from me anyway, I find myself torn between the urge to support a very talented band now and the urge to wait until afterwards. Whilst I'll be waiting a bit longer before making a final decision on that one, the main reason for including them here is to tell you about the incentive you've missed out on. For a mere 2000 parts, you too could sleep with a band member of your choice, but as that equates to their total budget, they already have sold parts and it's meant jokingly anyway, it would appear you're just that little bit too late.
One of the more innovative plans around has to come from Allen Thompson For a certain minimum number of parts (could be 8, could be 15 depending on whether you believe the plan or incentives) he will come round to your house and play a concert. For larger numbers of parts he'll "upsize" and bring his band as well, so effectively you get to pick what level of concert you want e.g. acoustic or full band, depending on the number of parts you buy. Each concert gets recorded and the album produced for believers is basically made up of the "best bits" of those concerts. That's the basics but you'll find a much more detailed explanation in his blog post. There are obvious questions, such as what would happen if I was to go and buy 15 parts (he's in the States and I'm in the UK), and at what kind of point would you feel comfortable having an artist into your own home, but otherwise I find the idea a very interesting one. Whilst it's obvious from his wording he intended this for his existing fanbase, it's also interesting to note his current budget raised is $0 despite the fact he's already been on the site a fortnight. Just not attractive to his existing fans (and he didn't ask beforehand), or something about Sellaband putting people off? I think the answer to this one could be very useful information.
Band Without Borders is one of the new custom projects out there. As someone not interested in revenue share who finds the music interesting, I've been half tempted to buy a part for the CD, but the way things stand at the moment the project itself doesn't make sense once you think about it. For starters, if the idea of the revenue share does appeal, there's rather a lot of holes in the plot. You see, the project itself requires $250,000 to be raised but instead of trying to raise it all in one go, they've decided to split it into 5 phases of $50,000 and that's where the problems start. Firstly the text on the first $50,000 project states a 10% revenue share whereas the incentive icon is stating 15%. We also know the revenue share is meant to apply to the $250,000 which actually means that only 3% of the total revenue will apply to each $50,000 chunk, (assuming it is 15% for the total project). These differences mean you'd better be very good at mathematics if you're interested in the revenue, because it's extremely easy to get misled with the way the information is presented on the profile. There are also other questions to be raised such as the fact the revenue share depends on them being able to sell the project to TV (and that doesn't seem to have happened yet), and the question of how you get people to buy into the second (and subsequent) $50,000 project chunks, which would obviously be an ideal situation to raise money fast - you can't very well offer the same thing to the same people second time around because most (if not all) won't be interested. And if you are going to be offering the same thing, where is the next set of interested people going to come from? All in all, I'd therefore say this is one project which is a great idea, but very badly thought out.
Another confusing custom profile comes in the form of Nylon Pink, who are the only artist not offering a CD that seems to be doing fairly well to date. But is this because potential believers are getting confused? If you're not offering a CD, yet you get your name in the CD booklet for 10 parts, this seems rather strange unless there is actually going to be a CD available for sale later. None of the incentives listed actually say that believers will receive a CD if they buy multiple parts, but how many are going to be fooled into thinking they'll get a CD because of the wording in the incentives section? Or indeed, is a CD actually available for multiple parts, but the information is missing?
Bench Grinder have traditionally been one of the quietest artists on Sellaband, but their changed budget could be of interest to those looking at revenue share. Their plan involves 100% of revenue from their physical sales (yes, you heard right - that's the lot and not a mistype adding an extra 0) and they won't need all of the CDs they are producing to cover believers either. Unfortunately their "extra incentives" section is activated but blank at the moment which means it looks like there's still a bit of work to do there.
I've also seen a number of plans that can best be described as "Help I'm Lost", but I'll leave you to decide whether that statement refers to me or the artist in question.
One such example is Davizion whose plan proudly states "Have one number one hit song". And... well... that's actually all there is to it. Personally I'd consider that more an ambition than a plan. I'm also wondering if the fact there's just a single song in the profile has some relevance here.
We also have Champ with "I Am Trying To Go To School For Audio Engineering So I Can Change Things From Witthin Music Labels"... soo.. I'm actually paying for your college fund? Or..? If you like your rap/hip-hop, he's actually got about 2 albums worth of material posted on his page, so there's actually plenty to check out, and hence might be a shame to see him passed by for want of a decent plan.
As a late edit just as I'm about to post this, I also see we have a new arrival in Steven Marr with "blah blah blah, who really wants to read that". No comment from me on that one - I'll leave you to decide what you think.
I'd also love to know how any of the last 3 artists I've mentioned manages to meet condition 5.5 in the fundraising terms and conditions. Anyone got any ideas? I'm completely lost on that score.
So whilst I have seen some such profiles deleted (such as the artist who was going to spend 50% of the budget on food and drink and the other 50% on booking shows so you could watch them eat that food and drink), I'd say the fact that there's no real regulation going on out there is something that bothers me. Νεφελοκοκκυγία is the first word that comes to mind, because whilst some out there might be very good at music, it's clear they're missing the knowledge, access to advice and often just plain logic required to even sound as if they know what they're doing. And if Sellaband have experts on board, then why aren't they helping to close that gap, rather than just letting these plans slide out there?
Add to this the question of how far you bend the rules, or even what exactly the rules are in the first place and the whole "plan" idea is, quite frankly, a mess. But what do I mean by that previous sentence? Well if you take a look at the fundraising agreement you'll see that 3 types of music project are identified. However if you look at the "how it works" slideshow for artists you'll see on the 7th slide that there is a star in the top right corner which says "Want a bigger budget? Want to raise funds for touring or promotion? Go custom". So are options b) and c) in the fundraising agreement meant to apply to custom projects only? And if touring or promotion/marketing are meant to be custom budgets only, then why the large number of standard artists with plans stating their budget is for these activities?
This whole area needs clarification by Sellaband, and preferably yesterday, otherwise the place is rapidly going to gain a reputation as the funding platform without a clue.
Following
As part of hatchet day I've also taken a big clearout of my following list and removed all artists I don't hold parts in where the last seen date is either "unknown" or more than three months ago. This rule will continue to apply on future hatchet days. I've also removed all artists on my following list on $0 who signed up prior to 2009, as I think it's very unlikely there will be any change in their status. Like many other parts of the site, the following list also has bugs with artists whose profiles have been removed from Sellaband still showing, and it's not possible to stop following them, so I do still have a couple of those lurking in there.
I follow artists for one of several reasons. I automatically follow artists where I own parts. If I own parts and I'm not following as well, do give me a prod! In general I start to follow artists before I actually buy parts though, so this isn't usually a problem. Other artists on my following list are usually there because I am planning to buy parts, am sitting on the fence and want to hear more before I decide whether to buy parts, or I'm thinking about including them in a hatchet day post for some reason.
Of particular interest this month are Phil Tweed and We Love the Underground. Neither have posted plans yet, although Phil has sent several mails my way to gauge my reaction and Brad has mentioned the kind of thing he's thinking of, which resulted in me posting a response to him in this thread on the forum, which many artists will probably find useful as it gives a good idea of the reality of just how far (and fast) postage costs can spiral if you're looking at sending CDs to your believers and there's a move towards one-parters rather than multi-part believers.
Along with Matthew Ebel, these two are the artists currently fundraising on Sellaband where I officially consider myself having crossed that border from liking the music into a real fan, so I'm extremely interested in what they come up with, as it will have a heavy influence on the parts I have in them. Both have also recently posted new tunes. "A few good men" from Phil is up with the best songs I've ever heard from him and could well become my new favourite song of his. At a time when I'm going to have to make some pretty hard decisions regarding parts, it's given me rather an emotional reminder of why I landed up buying so heavily in the first place. "Afire" from We Love the Underground is less commercial than the previous track but also gives me a better feel for where Brad is heading with this project relative to the ones we've heard before. (Niki Thunders/Skitzo Calypso)
There are also a number of artists already added to my following list since the site changes that I'll be keeping an eye on.
My father likes jazz, but my mother doesn't. This simple fact is what led to me gaining an appreciation of it many years ago as my father used to play his tapes in the car when taking me to chess matches in the evening - about the only time he'd get a chance to listen without my mother being around. Whilst I've never been a big fan of the genre as a whole (and there is a wider range to it than most people realise), Abram Wilson therefore becomes of interest, as his particular style matches that of my father's favourite. Even with a relatively modest budget of $30,000 I'd say he's got his work cut out for him on Sellaband though, so I will be interested to see how things develop.
The Esoteric Gender look to be keeping it quite simple. With an 11 song album planned, no extra incentives and a 50% revenue share it looks like something to appeal both to the 1 parters who want the music and anyone who does want to go nuts if they think the revenue is going to be there. I'd actually recommend checking out the video first (home of the whale), which has a very Celtic feel to it.
Gayle Skidmore was an artist I originally passed by because she wasn't offering a CD to believers. That's now changed, and consequently there's a good chance she'll attract a part from me some time soon.
Josianne is looking interesting, but with only the one song at the moment, it's not yet enough to make me jump off the fence.
Modern Day Ruin need to do some work on their profile. There isn't a biography at the moment, but they've got some decent (although not outstanding) songs and tick the boxes on CD and revenue share that most believers seem to be after one (or both) of, so I'm slightly surprised they don't seem to have picked up any interest yet.
Elio Cagnizi also has some nice music going on, but is probably suffering from a combination of no plan and both his music and biography being in Italian. Well worth checking out, and I know people have bought parts in similar artists before.
And finally, here's an interesting one for those who are also on thesixtyone. As well as Loom that I see a lot of you have already noticed, am I the only one to spot that Kashmere Hakim came over at about the same time as well? Popular over there, but seemingly not so popular over here.
Sellaband
It's fair to say that the rules of the believing game have changed. Where it was only necessary for you to trust in Sellaband before, now a large portion of that trust has been shifted direct to the shoulders of the artist. In my opinion this is a very bad thing for artists unless they already have a decent fanbase willing to support them. From a believer point of view, you no longer have one "unknown" (i.e. Sellaband itself) in which there needs to be trust, but 5 or 10 or 20 (or however many different artists you believe in) instead. It's also a case that there is no simple "Buy one part and get a LE CD" rule any more. Believers now have to take the time to check each profile and understand exactly what's on offer, and, let's face it, how many are going to be bothered or even have the time to do that? Privacy also has the potential to become an issue. As artists can now choose to distribute themselves rather than everything being done through Sellaband, this means information you originally needed to provide only to Sellaband will need to be passed on by them in order for you to receive albums or other incentives.
The changes allowing artists to set their own budget are good, as it means in theory that more should be able to reach the target faster (and then hopefully come back with a slightly larger budget next time around) and not everyone is at the same level of musical development anyway, however just because the budget it smaller, it doesn't mean it is going to be any easier to get believers, because the changes introduced have actually made it harder for music lovers. Much harder.
Considering an average time of 6 months to a year to reach the goal, plus a further year while you wait for the outcome, more and more the question has to be asked - why should I tie up money now? I've already stated in my case it has been the LE CD that answered that question for me originally, but now it's no longer a guarantee, I too am largely looking for a reason to believe early. Unlike other funding sites, Sellaband takes your money now and basically holds onto it indefinitely (or at least until you ask for it back), whereas in other places there is a set time to pledge money - if the target is reached in time the money is taken, but if it isn't it has stayed in your own bank account earning money. A lot of people already won't make the jump to believe early as a result of this simple difference, even if something is only available if they do.
And that's where the problem starts. If even the music lovers who traditionally have believed early to try and give someone a boost (after all, someone has to get the ball rolling) are now sat wondering where the reason is that they should buy parts early, we rapidly start heading towards a point where only those who get a big sponsor on board (whether that be an existing big believer who gets interested or e.g. an indie label willing to buy a large number of parts in advance) are going to make any progress away from the $0 mark and have any chance of reaching their target.
Add to that the move away from community for believers rather than any attempt to foster it and help it grow, and from a music lover point of view, the site is holding less and less appeal.
There was originally an outcry when the listening sessions for believers were removed from the site, and it looks very much to me as if Sellaband may have very quietly found a way to remove them again. As we've now reached a case where it is "the artist's" album rather than a "Sellaband" album, are there going to be listening sessions for the albums any more, once the ones currently in production from the old era have been made? Indeed, what does it mean for the Sellaband shop, now that Sellaband will no longer be producing standard copies of the albums? Will any of the new albums be available for sale there? Will the free download of one track even continue? Add to this the relegation of the forum into the depths of the footer section of the site and it appears that even the few things remaining to attempt to keep people on the site rather than the idea of "visit once and go away" are slowly disappearing.
Sellaband's mission statement has traditionally made a point of saying they are there to break down the fences in the music industry, however with this latest set of changes it looks very much to me as if they'd rather still keep some of them in place instead. The site that will revolutionize the music industry first has to be able to educate and advise new artists coming along, otherwise the fences between those who have the connections and those who do not will remain firmly in place. And it also has to provide an environment that music lovers want to hang around on, form friendships and share in a way that makes the "sheep" realise that actually, this is something great to get involved with.
At the moment there is still time to redress the balance, but it won't be long before I see Sellaband heading down a path from which there will be no return.
And Finally
As you may be aware if you've been around the site for any length of time I usually hold off on the hatchet over the Christmas/New Year period and do something else instead. Last year that was a "review of the year" style post. This year, I'll be giving you the new top 10s as usual, but I'm also looking to do something slightly different.
This is your chance to get to know the "hatchet lady" and ask any burning questions you have lurking in the back of your mind. I am willing to answer a maximum of 10 question publicly in my blog post over the Xmas/New Year period. In the event of too many questions submitted the most popular ones will get answered first, and in the event of a tie it will be the questions asked first that count. Keep it sensible - I'm obviously not going to put personal information like my home address publicly, but otherwise the door is open for whatever you want to ask, whether that be about me or my views/experiences on Sellaband and I promise they will be answered truthfully. The questions themselves must be submitted via PM at my Sellaband profile in order to be considered and you have until December 20th to do so, so get creative!
Monday 21 September 2009
A musical interlude
Whilst I'm on Sellaband sabbatical, watching the latest fun of a hacker having a go at the site, waiting for the (finally and hopefully correct) calculated revenues to be credited and wondering both where that part that came back to my balance came from and whether I ought to start bets on how many years it will be before the housekeeping is back to where it was before the site update in June, I've been spending most of my music listening time round thesixtyone as one of the commenters on my last blog post successfully managed to work out.
Impressions of thesixtyone so far are that it provides the first stage that Sellaband is missing. I've mentioned before that part of what I see as the future of music is that artists need to be able to get enough people interested before they go ahead for that album, and one of the ideas I came up with was a 2-tier system where artists could build up a certain degree of popularity before converting their account into a "raise 50K" one. Thesixtyone provides a popularity index by means of voting on songs and some complex wizardry in the background which determines what is popular enough to hit the homepage. Additionally there is the feature for users to download existing songs (whether for free or a nominal fee) or even to just donate some cents to an artist - the kind of thing that both believers and artists have been asking for on Sellaband for a while. All you'd have to do is come up with some wizard formula based on number of hearts given and number of different people giving the hearts, and bingo you'd have the basis for deciding whether someone was ready to head up to the "tier2" of trying to raise the 50K. Food for thought?
So in celebration of more than 2600 plays over there since the sabbatical started, here's a roundup of some of the must-listen music I've discovered in my time away.
First on the list are Paul and Storm. A kind of guilty pleasure and a modern day Flanders and Swann, both in terms of the storytelling and the often "interesting" (for want of a better word) lyrics. A couple of tunes to watch out for are "The captain's wife's lament" which simultaneously features both an amusing and potentially embarassing play on words and "Cruel, cruel moon" in which a young man describes the dilemma he's going to be facing come sundown. Having a bad day? This is just the place to stop off for a listen and a laugh.
Back to the more conventional we have Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden. Every so often an artist comes along where you just go "wow" on first listen and this is no exception. Plenty to discover here, but for me the pick of the tracks is still the haunting "In Your Dreams". I challenge you to listen to this one and not get goosebumps.
There's also been a number of signups hiding in with the large quantities of junk on the site where I've either managed to get in on the ground floor and discover a tune, or very shortly after. Most noticeable of these is probably Annie Brooks, who has some charming little tunes and a very distinctive voice to boot.
Shannon Corey provides what's probably my best discovery to date of those who have just signed up to the site, and is currently looking likely to provide the second of my discoveries (or first blood, as the site calls it) to hit the front page.
Hot off the press for you, being brand new on the site today, is an Icelandic folk band called Árstíðir. They have one song in English and one in Icelandic on their page at the moment and both are well worth a listen.
And if you don't mind covers, there's an absolutely awesome acapella group called Duke Out of the Blue. My favourite is their cover of "Black horse and the cherry tree"
Finally, we hit the headscratching section. It's quite true that country isn't a very popular genre on the site, but I'm still at a loss to explain why "Something to do with you" by Patrick Brealey still has so few hearts, given some of the other country music others rate highly. The only explanation I have so far is that he's male.
I also piled in early to the first song of Aussie rock band Into the Night. Not a hard decision given the production quality and my liking for rock to start with. Like most of the other rock acts on the site though things have ground to a halt as far as getting new listeners seems to be concerned. Just like Sellaband it appears thesixtyone is populated mostly by lovers of the poppy/folky styles of music and/or female fronted acts. A real shame to be honest as these guys have quite a varied style, and a definite quality feel compared to most artists on the site so it's well worth checking out their other tracks even if the first one you listen to doesn't appeal.
In addition to these artists, there have been some very interesting songs which grabbed me though the artists providing them haven't done so (yet?). here's a few for you to check out.
Morgan Page - Fight for You
Yonder Mountain Studio - Complicated
Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers - Shady Esperanto and the Young Hearts
Santiago - A place and a face
Andrew Morris - Dust
At the Stars - When words won't come
If you haven't visited me on the sixtyone yet, then here's a few interesting bits of information for you. Firstly, I pick out 3 tracks and feature them on my page every Monday. Generally these are songs which a) haven't hit the front page yet b) the artist is fairly new to the site and c) I've searched through everything I've hearted to try and bring you what I consider some of the best (not always easy considering I try to provide a range in musical genres every week!). So if you've only got 15 minutes a week to spare, late Monday (or any other day of the week) is probably the best time to find out some new music. Since I started the 3 songs every week feature, at least one of the 3 songs I've picked has hit the homepage within a couple of days (last week 2 out of 3 of my featured songs went to the homepage during the week I featured them), so if you want to be just ahead of the popularity push, maybe I'm one to watch?
Secondly, keep an eye on my tags. "Discovery" hosts every song I've managed to get a first heart on. "Favourite" contains only those songs I've genuinely fallen in love with, so it should make it easier for you to pick them out from all those I have a moderate liking for or where I've hearted because I think they show potential. And you know, a couple of people may just get an unexpected surprise from that list. "sellaband" should be pretty obvious, but I've been a bit of a slacker there and may not yet have every song from a Sellaband artist that I've hearted on that list yet. So when you've got a spare hour or two, click on a tag to get that playlist up and then take a listen to what I've got there, if you want a wider selection than just my 3 featured songs.
Thirdly, if you listen to my radio, it should contain every song I've hearted to date (as well as a few I haven't got around to yet) so you really can expect a mixed bag there (though pretty much rap/hip-hop-free due to my own music taste) that'll keep you occupied for days already should you so choose.
Away from thesixtyone, musically I find myself still waiting to hear Phil Tweed's new tune. There was originally meant to be a rough version up back at the end of June, but like so much else the Sellaband website got in the way. He has however uploaded a few more tracks that have been up before but were swapped out as a result of the old 3 song limit.
I also am looking out for the new Skitzo Calypso track on 27th September. Don't know if my dropping a kudos on Brad's blog was what prompted him to wake up and post about this on Sellaband, but I'm also wishing he'd post a new "We love the underground" track on Sellaband. The curses of sideprojects though I guess.
And finally as late breaking news - just as I'm writing this blog, one of my 3 featured songs for this week hits the homepage on thesixtyone, keeping my record intact for another week.
Impressions of thesixtyone so far are that it provides the first stage that Sellaband is missing. I've mentioned before that part of what I see as the future of music is that artists need to be able to get enough people interested before they go ahead for that album, and one of the ideas I came up with was a 2-tier system where artists could build up a certain degree of popularity before converting their account into a "raise 50K" one. Thesixtyone provides a popularity index by means of voting on songs and some complex wizardry in the background which determines what is popular enough to hit the homepage. Additionally there is the feature for users to download existing songs (whether for free or a nominal fee) or even to just donate some cents to an artist - the kind of thing that both believers and artists have been asking for on Sellaband for a while. All you'd have to do is come up with some wizard formula based on number of hearts given and number of different people giving the hearts, and bingo you'd have the basis for deciding whether someone was ready to head up to the "tier2" of trying to raise the 50K. Food for thought?
So in celebration of more than 2600 plays over there since the sabbatical started, here's a roundup of some of the must-listen music I've discovered in my time away.
First on the list are Paul and Storm. A kind of guilty pleasure and a modern day Flanders and Swann, both in terms of the storytelling and the often "interesting" (for want of a better word) lyrics. A couple of tunes to watch out for are "The captain's wife's lament" which simultaneously features both an amusing and potentially embarassing play on words and "Cruel, cruel moon" in which a young man describes the dilemma he's going to be facing come sundown. Having a bad day? This is just the place to stop off for a listen and a laugh.
Back to the more conventional we have Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden. Every so often an artist comes along where you just go "wow" on first listen and this is no exception. Plenty to discover here, but for me the pick of the tracks is still the haunting "In Your Dreams". I challenge you to listen to this one and not get goosebumps.
There's also been a number of signups hiding in with the large quantities of junk on the site where I've either managed to get in on the ground floor and discover a tune, or very shortly after. Most noticeable of these is probably Annie Brooks, who has some charming little tunes and a very distinctive voice to boot.
Shannon Corey provides what's probably my best discovery to date of those who have just signed up to the site, and is currently looking likely to provide the second of my discoveries (or first blood, as the site calls it) to hit the front page.
Hot off the press for you, being brand new on the site today, is an Icelandic folk band called Árstíðir. They have one song in English and one in Icelandic on their page at the moment and both are well worth a listen.
And if you don't mind covers, there's an absolutely awesome acapella group called Duke Out of the Blue. My favourite is their cover of "Black horse and the cherry tree"
Finally, we hit the headscratching section. It's quite true that country isn't a very popular genre on the site, but I'm still at a loss to explain why "Something to do with you" by Patrick Brealey still has so few hearts, given some of the other country music others rate highly. The only explanation I have so far is that he's male.
I also piled in early to the first song of Aussie rock band Into the Night. Not a hard decision given the production quality and my liking for rock to start with. Like most of the other rock acts on the site though things have ground to a halt as far as getting new listeners seems to be concerned. Just like Sellaband it appears thesixtyone is populated mostly by lovers of the poppy/folky styles of music and/or female fronted acts. A real shame to be honest as these guys have quite a varied style, and a definite quality feel compared to most artists on the site so it's well worth checking out their other tracks even if the first one you listen to doesn't appeal.
In addition to these artists, there have been some very interesting songs which grabbed me though the artists providing them haven't done so (yet?). here's a few for you to check out.
Morgan Page - Fight for You
Yonder Mountain Studio - Complicated
Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers - Shady Esperanto and the Young Hearts
Santiago - A place and a face
Andrew Morris - Dust
At the Stars - When words won't come
If you haven't visited me on the sixtyone yet, then here's a few interesting bits of information for you. Firstly, I pick out 3 tracks and feature them on my page every Monday. Generally these are songs which a) haven't hit the front page yet b) the artist is fairly new to the site and c) I've searched through everything I've hearted to try and bring you what I consider some of the best (not always easy considering I try to provide a range in musical genres every week!). So if you've only got 15 minutes a week to spare, late Monday (or any other day of the week) is probably the best time to find out some new music. Since I started the 3 songs every week feature, at least one of the 3 songs I've picked has hit the homepage within a couple of days (last week 2 out of 3 of my featured songs went to the homepage during the week I featured them), so if you want to be just ahead of the popularity push, maybe I'm one to watch?
Secondly, keep an eye on my tags. "Discovery" hosts every song I've managed to get a first heart on. "Favourite" contains only those songs I've genuinely fallen in love with, so it should make it easier for you to pick them out from all those I have a moderate liking for or where I've hearted because I think they show potential. And you know, a couple of people may just get an unexpected surprise from that list. "sellaband" should be pretty obvious, but I've been a bit of a slacker there and may not yet have every song from a Sellaband artist that I've hearted on that list yet. So when you've got a spare hour or two, click on a tag to get that playlist up and then take a listen to what I've got there, if you want a wider selection than just my 3 featured songs.
Thirdly, if you listen to my radio, it should contain every song I've hearted to date (as well as a few I haven't got around to yet) so you really can expect a mixed bag there (though pretty much rap/hip-hop-free due to my own music taste) that'll keep you occupied for days already should you so choose.
Away from thesixtyone, musically I find myself still waiting to hear Phil Tweed's new tune. There was originally meant to be a rough version up back at the end of June, but like so much else the Sellaband website got in the way. He has however uploaded a few more tracks that have been up before but were swapped out as a result of the old 3 song limit.
I also am looking out for the new Skitzo Calypso track on 27th September. Don't know if my dropping a kudos on Brad's blog was what prompted him to wake up and post about this on Sellaband, but I'm also wishing he'd post a new "We love the underground" track on Sellaband. The curses of sideprojects though I guess.
And finally as late breaking news - just as I'm writing this blog, one of my 3 featured songs for this week hits the homepage on thesixtyone, keeping my record intact for another week.
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