Tuesday 22 December 2009

So you think you're ready for Sellaband?

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 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!