I know many artist don't sell enough records to make money from album sales. Rather, they make money from their contracts, advances, touring, etc.

Most artist have breach to the top 20 billboard charts before they start making money off the actual sales.

It's my understand Prince doesn't fit in this category.
He could have what is considered a 'dud' by the biz but still recoup his money off album sales alone, right?

Where Justin T. or Britney Spears make a dollar per CD (or less), I would imagine Prince is making at least half of the CD's purchase price (approx 5 to 7 dollars per purchase).

I saw a clip where Prince once said "90/10--that's employment. Now 50/50--that's a partnership" referring to what artists make off a sell of a CD.
This seems to imply he gets at least half of an album's sales.

I see alot of folks wigging out over whether Prince is going to breach #1 on the charts or not, but even if he ends up selling 150 thousand CDs in a week, and Keith Urban sells 160 thousand, wouldn't Prince's share of the sales of CDs dwarf the percentage Urban makes?


lotusMuffin cost about 12 bucks per CD. If Prince made half of the sell of a CD, 150 thousand units means he made nearly a million dollars (not including his ridiculously overpriced 77 dollar membership sales) in a single week.
If he keeps the momentum up, he could score millions of dollars off the CD.

Am I oversimplifying things?

Imago said:

I can't answer on the particulars but he probably makes his share off the wholesale price and not the retail price, correct? I mean, his share no doubt comes from what Target paid him for stock and not for what actually sells at retail *this week*... or at least that's what makes sense to me. The only way he'd make more is when Target orders additional copies down the road.

jtfolden said:

Some classics never go out of style.

I'm sure he's making quite a bit this time around. He doesn't have to pay anyone. He did the cd printing all himself now. He may make 6 or so off of each cd. I'm sure he and Target worked it out where they get a nice chunk of change...especially considering the packaging is cheap.

Couldn't CarrieMPLS tell us more about the 'buy-in' price of the new album. It's quite apparent that Prince's model for selling his music is extremely profitable and eclipses the percentage points made by label artists.

I recall him saying he made $16 'a pop' on crystal ball way back when.

I think Prince summarised the meaning of chart positions' when he said "charts are accounting, they are an accounting of an occurence". Its the lowest way to assess somethings success. Just because i sold more units doesn't make me more of a success if i'm making less money than the guy with the number 10 cd. the accounting says 'you're number 1, you sold the most' but the businss model says 'hey, your a dick'.

I'm curious as to whether or not Prince comes up with his business ideas for music distrubution. IF so, He's had some remarkable ideas, even if not all of them were ever fully realised.

The guys doing his thing. Good luck to him.
[Edited 4/3/09 1:56am]