For NEELY and other independent musicians, the Internet has leveled the playing field in the music industry by putting the listener in the driver seat.
“How?” you might ask.
That’s a bold and broad statement after all.
In the case of NEELY, Jeremy & Kaci, they are leveraging a service called Patreon to partner with you, the listener, to create new music and videos while giving you behind the scenes access to not only the process of making music but the music industry in general.
For as little as $1 per month NEELY fans worldwide can come together to collectively help them fund the process. “Folks underestimate the value of a dollar, pound, euro, whatever the currency!” exclaims Jeremy. “If all our family, friends, and fans gave up one soft drink per month we could record a new song, complete with a professional music video, every 3 months. PLUS we would have the funds to properly promote it across social media,” says Jeremy.
Being a Patron of NEELY comes with amazing incentives. Contributors could receive everything from the ability to view the Patreon stream, complete with behind the scenes videos and streaming of new music, all the way up to private House Concerts.
Why is this direction necessary for NEELY and other artists?
Basically, to answer that we have to give you a lesson on the business of music.
The music industry is made up of 3 income streams: Touring, Recording, and Publishing. These can be explored in depth another time. For now, let’s focus on the Recording income stream.
10 years ago it cost between $2,000 – $3,000 to record one radio quality song. Today it costs the same. There has been no change over the last 10 years.
However, 10 years ago artists could put that song (along with others) on a CD and make $15 per CD. If there were 10 songs on an album, generally speaking that would put the value of one song in the $1.50 ballpark.
Between then and now downloads became more popular and gave the listener the “ala carte” option. This means listeners could buy whatever song they wanted from an album for $1 and would not have to buy the whole album. So a song would be valued at $1.
Today, downloading songs is almost non-existent and has been replaced by streaming. Folks subscribe to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime Music, Pandora, etc for their daily dose of music. Now a song is valued at $0.002 or less, depending on the service or the country, or whether it’s the free (ad supported) version or a subscription and so forth. Putting that into perspective, if someone plays a song they really love 50 times before it gets old, that song is worth $0.10. Not much!
Unfortunately, the revenue stream has compressed a song from $1.50 to $.99 to now $.10 (or less if a song gets played less). And yet, recording costs have not changed.
How does an artist pay for recording?
How does an artist make enough from the recording to “recoup”, or pay off, that recording so they can do another?
This is where everyone usually says something to the effect of, “Maybe it will go big on radio,” or “Maybe it will go viral.”
Let’s tackle radio first. To get a single to number one it costs Record Labels roughly $750,000.00
Yes, they know the exact cost. How? Because they control the conduit. They control radio. This is why you only hear certain songs and you hear them over and over. Do you think radio stations are going to bite the hand that feeds them all that money? No way! So in the end, independent musicians have little or no chance.
How about going viral (as in at least 2 million views on YouTube because that’s the only kind of viral that will pay out). If you are talking about it happening organically, well, artists have a better shot at winning the lottery. If you are talking about it happening via ads and promotions: $10,000 – $15,000 and this is also a figure that record labels know.
This is where Patreon gets exciting. By signing up, not only are the supporters of independent artists like NEELY investing in the release of new music, but they are also getting behind the scenes access to learn, first hand, what makes the music business tick.
It puts the fans of independent artists in the drivers seat. THEY are now the record label. And it only costs as little as $1 per month. While this may not seem like anything valuable to the giver, for NEELY, it’s huge!!!
What are some of the goals NEELY has for Patreon?
- Record new music. They have 4 songs ready to go now, one of which we would like to record in England with the artist we co-wrote the song with
- Record new music videos for not only new songs but some of their older works
- Record acoustic music videos
- A UK & European photo shoot (we have two photographers who have offered to do these shoots)
- Write an Autobiography as well as a Musicians Tips book
- Create a Musicians Tips video series
- Combine our touring with our heart for world missions (for an example click here to read an article on how we are doing music missions)
- Do multiple Patron\Fan gatherings around the world each year (this is a long shot “ultimate goal”)
The sky is the limit really.
So why not sign up? You can be a part of making a massive difference, not only to NEELY, but also to communities around the world.
For a quick glance at NEELY’s Patreon page visit: http://www.patreon.com/neelymusic
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