I've been thinking for some time about trying to start a music club of my own, a bit like NPGMC but with my own music. I am able to produce the music myself and can do web design, programming and all that stuff. What I'd intend to do is to charge a small subscription fee per year (less than 10 US Dollars, or around 5 GB Pounds) which would enable the member to gain access to downloads of all the tunes I put together over the coming year plus some bonuses perhaps like videos, gig tickets, competitions etc.

Now, I've been thinking this might work quite well, as I've just become self-employed and intend to make far more music this year than ever before - PLUS I gig in a covers duo at least once a week and could give out flyers advertising the website so hopefully should get some new members join every week. Later in the year I might start gigging the original material too.

My question to all you other musicians is what do you think of this idea? Has anyone tried it? Any problems you can see with this?

I'd like to give the music away for free, but I need to look at any ways of making extra money this year and I'm trying to keep the subscription cost low. My outgoings will be minimal as I'll be doing all the web work, plus the hosting will be supplied by myself as well.

Your thoughts?

BP

Ask yourself this: how many sites am I paying to be a member of right now?

My first instinct is to tell you that it wont work, even if you charged a penny.

1. People on the internet don't know you, arent looking for unreleased music to complete their vast library of unreleased Bryan Page songs, etc.

2. Well-established bands are giving away music at their sites after trying the same route you're trying. Music is free on the internet in so many places from so many sources, to try and charge people at this point in your career would be suicide.


So, you wonder, how does Prince succeed? He stopped releasing albums the normal way and said "if you wanna hear it first, you gotta come here and pay. if you wanna find out about shows, etc, you gotta come here and pay", KNOWING FULL WELL that there was a rabid audience of at least 200,000 DYING for anything from the man (all he had to do was to check stats at prince.org).

But if you read the posts in here about the NPGMC, I'd say HALF the folks HERE that are members THERE aren't happy with the way it's turned out.

You'll do better to just sell your CD online and give away two or three songs (like mp3.com does). And/or sell merchandise, like bumperstickers, shirts, etc... but even those better have something extra on them - a funny catch phrase that folks would want on a t-shirt or bumper sticker, or else, again, if they don't know you, why would they buy your shirt?

The internet was full of promise 4 years ago. EVERYONE assumed there was money to be had up on here... it was like the U.S. GOLD RUSH of 1849.

And within 2 years, folks discovered that the only thing that makes money online is PORN. Everthing else requires a lot of work and a LOT of promotion. And THAT is where the Internet CRASH came from. All the money that WAS going into website design dried up. I lost my job, lots others lost theirs too. Luckily, I got another one doing more web stuff, but the other guys in my dept went a YEAR without work because of this crash.

ALL that is just to say, as great as a music club sounds, unless you're selling something that people ALREADY KNOW they want, you're going to have a hard time selling it. Additionally, you'd better be ready to update the site everyday if someone is going to fork over even a ruble... folks expect a lot for a little online, because so much out there is FREE already.

I hope I haven't killed your dreams on this - just trying to give you an insiders perspective - I made a good chunk of money with music online, but that was in 2000.

In 2000, I made $2500 off of CD sales at MP3.com

This year I made $5.

Thanks for your thoughts Otan - I absolutely agree on everything you said.

However, my strategy is not to get people to join the club via the internet - it is to give people who I'm already meeting at gigs a method of getting my new music, i.e. using the internet as a delivery method rather than a promotional one. Sure I could just sell these people a CD at the gig, but this way it is difficult to build a database of "fans", keep in contact with them and hopefully sell them more of my music in the future.

I suppose at the end of the day it's not going to cost me anything to try this so maybe I'll give it a go and let you know what the outcome is!

bryanpage said:

What you're suggesting sounds like a better strategy, except, again, that kind of stuff is available for free from thousands of other artists, so, when you tell folks that you're charging a tiny little fee, you might lose them before you get them.

Go check out soundclick.com - it's the site du jour around here these days for good reason - free, has a mailing list for people to subscribe to, you can post songs up there immediately, etc. It's a pretty powerful site for free.

what you're talking about bryan is a serious business with serious Artists...and this is the only way it can work 4 pay service. This is how cable companies will sell it to you in the future, now even - thru subscription. But...not for a roster of promising, struggling Artists sorry to say.

And it is/will be a Serious business; certainly not one that you could...say...get going on the side.

Ambitious thoughts tho
[This message was edited Sat Oct 4 13:30:20 PDT 2003 by Red]

a radio station however...maybe.

I'm about to give it up for 365. I love some of the stations that iTunes gives me for free - but not enough. Then sometimes they will tease with a new station and just as I'm getting into it...they cut it off. So, for $10 a month to stream all the music I WANT TO HEAR, all the time...is worth it to me.

http://www.cloud9mission..../main.html & click join for details.

Its very easy to do, I use paypal for the transaction & htaccess to add new members. Its not as successful as album sales though because not every one can download a CD but the members area is very profitable as I dont have to pay for manufacturing costs

cloud9mission said:

Cool - I'll sign up to support you once I've got some money!

otan said:

Wow, that's a whole lotta money!

Too bad internet sales have declined. If it was still on the year 2000 level, I would have started selling CD's online immediately!

bryanpage said:

See? You just illustrated why a pay site is a hard sell.
[This message was edited Mon Oct 6 5:05:32 PDT 2003 by otan]

bryanpage said:

thanx man