Friend of mine writes fantasy novels full-time. Lots of titles in print, huge backlist. A few years back, one of her publishers (Baen) tried an experiment: put e-book versions in several formats of select backlist stories online for free (typically, these would be the first book in a trilogy/series). There were also CD-ROMs bundled with new hardcover books that had e-book versions of even more stories, with a sort of Creative Commons sharing license encouraging people to share the e-books with their friends, just don’t charge for them.
There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth that this was going to destroy publishing as the industry knew it, lead to rampant piracy (neat trick: pirate something that was released for free in the first place), etc.
What’s funny, though, is that my friend started checking her royalty statements, and she noticed that whenever she released a title into the Baen Free Library, hardcopy sales of that title (and both hardcopy and e-book sales of the rest of the series it was associated with) would increase. The other authors, as far as I know with very limited exception, noticed the same thing.
Same with some musicians. Zoe Keating, Marian Call, MC Frontalot all use BandCamp or similar services to allow listeners to stream whole songs for free… but charge for the download. BandCamp uses an interesting “minimum price or more” setup — you can pay the bare-bones minimum the artist selects, but you can also become a bit of Le Patron and pay *more* for it if you want. I know Zoe said she’s had people pay $100 or more for an album download.
Marian set up a Donor’s Circle (sort of a home-brewed Kickstarter) to fund the recording and initial production of her upcoming (Real Soon Now!) double album “Something Fierce”. The folks who donated at various levels got increasing perks as donation level went up, but more to the point, we got to see some music we really like from an artist we really like evolve from scratch demos to finished tracks to an entire album. And yeah, we knew up front that some of the money we donated would be going to things like food & shelter (necessary if the artist is going to be able to produce anything, after all), car repairs on her 49>50 Tour, health insurance (I know of a few folks who contributed specifically for that reason!) and the occasional visit to Waffle House (for extra Kid Rock ambiance). But here’s the point: NONE, as far as I know, of the Donor’s Circle contributors were surprised or even remotely offended by this. Want art? Gotta feed the artist. It’s not like she’s living in a mansion — she shares a small rented (and barely insulated) cottage in Anchorage with a roommate and drives a Subaru that’s on its 3rd or 4th windshield and has done the AlCan Highway (twice!!).
But the point — and even Amanda Palmer has been saying this — is that art is worth compensation to the artist. The “New Model” of the independent artist, like Jonathan, Frontalot, Marian, Zoe, Paul & Storm, AFP, and others too numerous to mention, is using the near-universal reach of the internet to find people who enjoy and appreciate the art you produce, and are willing to part with some variable amount of money for it. Will it sell out Wembley Stadium? Probably not. But I’ve seen w00tstock 2.10 put a few hundred in the Paramount Theater in Austin, Zoe Keating fill up the House of Blues Houston’s Bronze Peacock Room, and Marian’s filled many a coffee shop, comics store, recital hall, small club, or even a living room or back yard for a house concert. And, most importantly, it’s a model that works for these artists. They’re able to make a living making art, without the overhead or constraint of a corporate record label.
As patrons of these artists, I’m sure that many, like me, are working stiffs, not trust-fund babies, and the *directness* of our contributions allows us to see that our small contributions are efficiently used to fund the art, not lost in a maze of accountants, A&R types, ad campaigns, etc. that comes with conventional-business-model music and contributes little to the quality of the end product. It’s that efficiency — and okay, maybe a little “sticking it to The Man” — that allows us to feel like we’re contributing to something valuable and worthwhile.
I don’t care that Jonathan grossed $500K last year. I’m sure his net was not much more than 20% of that (and very probably less than 20%) after travel, recording expense, overhead for merch, taxes, etc. I know how small mom & pop businesses work and how slim the margins are, and what we’re talking about here is the musical equivalent of the corner mom & pop store. It’s an entrepreneurial model. What you hope for in this kind of business is a steady stream of repeat customers and a small but steady growth of new customers, and you try to keep your overhead low-low-low. And a lot of times, after you pay everyone who needs to be paid, there’s little to nothing left to pay yourself. Seen it. Hell, lived it. But you keep doing it because people like it, and your customers keep coming back for more.
