Digital Sales Talk with Musicadium

I first heard of Musicadium when they posted a link to our Gen-Y Rock Stars Tool Kit last week. Once I looked into what they do I wanted to chat with them and see what they were all about and help to educate you guys on Digital Sales, one of the most vital aspects to your music marketing efforts.

What this lead to was a brief interview to learn more about their services, what contributes to successful sales and differences in global sales and sites.

First a quick intro on what Musicadium does:

Musicadium is a digital distributor located in Brisbane, Australia - yup all the way across the globe. What they do is place your music on top digital download stores like iTunes, Amazon and eMusic.

The services cost:

• Distribution fee to one store - $39 (AUD)
• Distribution to 2 stores - $69 (AUD)
• Distribution to 3 stores - $79 (AUD)
• Annual renewel fee - $20 (AUD)

Here is the chat I had with Tim Price, the Promotions and Development Manager at Musicadium.

GYRS: So, we are an American based company and the majority of action happening here in regards to Digital Downloads is still iTunes. Can you talk about some of the differences or similarities to consumer habits in Australia and other parts of the world through Digital Distribution services?

Tim: iTunes is the big one around the world really (except I see, in the UK, where Amazon has caught up and passed iTunes in the short time it’s been there). Australia isn’t an exception, people love iTunes here. We have a few online stores that aren’t anywhere else in the world, like Optus Zoo and Bigpond Music, which are attached to major telcos here in Australia. Nokia Music is establishing a presence. Legal Music Downloading is beginning to really take hold here in Australia and CD sales are down.

GYRS: What kind of success stories are you hearing from bands that are using your service and how did they achieve those successes?

Tim: We hear a lot of success stories from bands who use their online tools well to drive sales of the music digitally.

First and foremost, it is assumed you are writing the best music you can possibly be writing, you have identified the market that you are going for and you are marketing yourself appropriately and playing shows to the right crowd. We are proud to have been associated with bands such as Ellington, Hungry Kids of Hungary and Here Come the Birds, both who have leveraged great digital sales from playing amazing live shows and using their fan connection tools well i.e. MySpace, Facebook, email lists and instant messaging.

GYRS: Can you chat about any averages? Indie bands all too often get lost in the crowd on services like iTunes and we see bands that sell 20 songs a year. What does a typical Musicadium user see in terms of average sales?

Tim: While we can’t release exact numbers, it is important to note that the averages for our bands are going up and up. We are beginning to see artists who are starting to sell a really decent amount of albums and tracks. Indie bands can’t get lost in the crowd if they are driving fans directly to their part of the iTunes store or whatever outlets they are on. If they are making genuine fans by playing great live shows or connecting one-on-one with their fans online through e-mail marketing or proper use of social media, then chances are people will WANT to go looking for you.

GYRS: How important is it to keep full control of your music in this Internet heavy industry? One of your major selling points is that there is an upfront fee, but after that, the artist makes 100%. Why is this important to an indie musician?

Tim: I would say that control isn’t the word. Management is more what I think of when I think of what artists need to do with their music on the internet.

They need to manage exactly who they are sending their music to.

In terms of their copyright entitlements, they need to ensure that they own all the rights to the music that they put up through Musicadium. It’s in our distribution agreement.

In terms of our business model of an upfront fee to get started with us and then returning 100% royalties, we believe that it is the most artist friendly method. For an artist, as little as $39 AUD (even better with the current exchange rate for American and UK people!!) is not a great deal to recoup, rather than the thousands of dollars on physical product. It is approximately 40 singles or about 6 albums sold to be at break-even point. After that, it’s pure profit that doesn’t need to be re-pressed and another run done. Another point to our business model is that there is no term-based contract. We do not lock an artist into a period of time or amount of albums. This low-cost alternative is all-important to an indie artist. We do not lock artists in to an exclusive deal either. So, if they gain enough exposure to get a deal with a label or publisher, we only require 30 days notice via email to be released from our contract. We believe we are an extremely artist-friendly distributor.

GYRS: For an artist that is looking for a specific release date, how do you mange that through all of your partner sites - is that even possible? Is there a solution for this?

Tim: Yes, Artists are able to specify a street date for release. This is easy to manage – there is a maximum of 6 weeks turnaround to get onto the various outlets, so we encourage artists to ensure that they get their albums to us in plenty of time for release dates to be met. We can rush things through sometimes, but it is entirely in the hands of the outlet, so we can’t promise anything. It really does depend on the preparedness of the artist, as to whether they have a set goal to have their music available and work towards it. If a band has got it together and they are on the ball, physical and digital product will hit the streets on the same day, no problems at all.

I want to thank Tim for taking some time out of his day to enlighten us on some of the things they are up to. He brings up some good points with the exchange rates and also opens the door to international sales. Let’s not forget that the world is bigger than the states and some regions have more pocket money than us right now.

To learn more about Musicadium visit them online or start a chat with them on Twitter.

-Greg Rollett