Mike Moran Music

Every show I have done over the last few years some one has asked me what the difference is between buying a CD at a show or going home and buying it on Itunes or another digital download site. Well I have finally nailed it down for myself, so for those who are interested in how it all works I am going to give you an example who pays what.

I am an Itunes advocate, they do things the right way. They seem to be the fairest and communicate to the artists the best. For every 99 cent download the artist receives 63 cents. The same goes for Amazon digital, but Amazon has a tendency to not let you know that they are putting some of your tracks on sale or your entire album. Some days you can get my albums on Amazon for $2.99.  When you make your first order of hard copy CDs through a duplication company you tally in the cost of recording, artwork, distribution, etc… it normally averages to be $11 to $12 dollars for one cd. Once you sell out of your first order you are normally back to even, and your re-orders is where you start to make a profit.

So here are some other digital sites, they don’t really give you a specific number because it varies every day but here is what they sent me.

Itunes 63 cents a song

Itunes UK 63 cents

Amazon 63 cents

Recently someone downloaded 7 songs on Napster for those 7 songs artist received 03 cents

Rhapsody pays 11 cents an album!

Last.FM pays not even 1 cent a song

And my favorite is Spotifly which pays like .00000010 of a cent a song

The remainder of the digital download sites average around the same as the last three, but I have never heard of them.

Now I am an advocate of free music, and a lot of you know that I have handed out over 24,000 free cds at my show across the country, but sometimes you have to wonder where the other 98 cents goes. I try to chalk it up to promotion and advertising and focus on doing the best you can at writing good songs, performing well, and connecting with fans at shows. For me thats the way it’s always going to be done, the digital download stuff is for fun, kind of like going to the casino or playing the lottery.

You can’t win if you don’t play.

So play hard my fellow citizens