A musician must earn real! 5 points "on the pencil."

Guys. There is an opinion that “the artist must be hungry” in order to create. Maybe so, but a musician is not an artist (I don’t have anything against artists, of course,). :) Especially a professional musician who earns music for bread. However, the majority of my colleagues on the stage (non-promoted colleagues) hardly make ends meet.

Once, our group VIA CHAPPA # 1 was in this position, but we and our leader and marketer, st_patrice Patrick, slightly “revised the rules of the game” and began to earn 5-6 times more by selling the same amount of CDs as before.

I am sure that the experience of our group will be useful for independent musicians, so I decided to write about him here. In this case, we consider the sales scheme of copyright audio CDs and the possibility of extracting greater profits from these sales:
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1. Classical CD sales are carried out according to the chain: “right holder -> label-indie (independent producer) -> wholesale seller (label major, sometimes not always) -> major distributor -> small wholesale warehouse -> retailer” . At the same time, the right holder (musician) "on the contract" receives only 10-15% of the retail price of 100-150 rubles, which the final buyer pays.

2. Even if the sales volumes are small, the profit can be easily raised by 200-400% , if you change the model of the chain (see the blue arrows in the figure). And you can even dictate the final price and dump, shortening the chain, for example, to "the copyright holder -> retailer -> end customer . " I see that freeloaders will be less, and profits will be higher. For example, with the purchase price for stores 60rub per CD, it can be painlessly reduced to 55-45rub, thereby increasing the attractiveness of the offer for the retailer.

3. By the way, and 700% of the "contract" fees - is also not a great problem. To do this, you just need to cut the chain to the “copyright holder -> end customer” (green arrow). In this case, you can not even lower the price, but only to confirm it, to add a CD with a bonus - for example, an autograph.

4. IMMEDIATELY BIG SPACE !!! Chain reduction is possible with:
but). Knowledge of your market
b). Local nature of sales or
at). Trade in copyright CDs over the Internet

5. This model was tested in 2004. and it still works with each CD of the VIA CHAPPA # 1 group of 65 rubles , which is 5.42 times more than the “contract” deductions.

PS Guys, if anyone is interested, the application of this model can be viewed in detail here and in the comments (the full alignment of Via Chappe).

PPS By the way, after discussing this article in Habré, Patrick is now developing a model of self-selling digital content with regard to Russian realities. I hope all independent musicians and creators in other areas it will be a great help!