I recently ran across this video...i think he breaks it down very nice...what do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgKAHQ2N4Eo

 

I think the guy is being somewhat a "captain obvious" on this one. But like in any other industry, in the end there is a balance between demand and offer and the whole mechanism is somehow self-regulating. Now days anyone with a computer can try to become a producer - 10-20 years ago only the blessed would have access to quality recording equipment. So it's normal that the revenues are where they are given that the percentage of the music producers has greatly increase over the past years. I don't know where this is going to be in 10 years from now but sure we live very interesting times...

 

Sell hardware stuffs. wil.iam is right on this point ;)
Because even if there are sometimes hardware clones, they are not original. When you copy digital, it is a perfect copy.
As musician.

And as producer, sell your service AND your name.
Don't work for ppl not even naming you on their releases...or sell your service MUCH more to compensate. And they will put your name in front instead

You need to be a BRAND to gain money. That's what Madonna done (she NEVER wrote a single song), Lady Gaga is co-branding with several companies. And much more examples are coming. David Guetta's wife putting him in the light with his own festival (another wil.iam "hardware" example)
A brand selling your own products for YOU.

 

Why the heck does this guy have to yell all the time?
Why does he fall back to this crappy, amateurish kind of presentation? Couldn't his "research team" fix him up with some nice slides? Let alone a decent camera and/or lighting.
Yes there is a market, and yes, there is money to be made. Wow, thank you. We will all be stinkin rich.
Obviously, this revelation didn't help the big shouting guy much.

Indeed, this video is dangerous. Very dangerous. I lol'd so hard I almost spilled my coffee and burnt my lap.


I can only tell how you make your living in the techno scene. It's obvious that you can't live from selling recors any more.
Even if you run a label it's unlikey it will feed your family. The sales are dim - 300-400 sold copies/week will get you into the top50 of the beatport tech-house charts, to be ranked #1 I would guess 2500. The current #1 is sold for 1.56 €, 40% go to beatport, the remaining .94 € go to the label. A usual percentage for the artist would be 4-8%, but that was for cd - when it comes to digital sales the numbers vary vastly. So let's assume you sell 10000-20000 downloads over time - and this would make you a big player in the techno scene, and I mean really big (I'm not talking about the northamerican edm stuff, that's a cashcow and the pop/rock of today) - you'd be lucky to get as much as 2000,- out of it. Over a period of a quarter of a year.

So, selling records is not what makes you money. As a techno producer, you build yourself a brand, a name, that will get you bookings from which, maybe one time, you can make a living. finally.

It's a long way of continously hard work where you will have to invest a lot of time and energy before you see even the first penny. There is not shortcut, and there are (obviously) no dirty secretz.

 

It is the usual "pick and shovel" video
PnS

That's why i prefer Wil.iam vid : he really found gold, not just selling picks and shovels...even if he do, too

 

Yes, I agree. But in our business, you have to find gold first. Nobody will buy your shovels if you don't have a name.

Using your name to sell other products certainly is no secret hint.

It's the most basic business 101, see Ansoff Matrix

 

This guy already got 140K views and 3K likes selling PnS only
Compare with Wil.iam vid and see what i mean with PnS, instead of gold.

There are thousands ppl on the net selling PnS to millions ppl with videos, e-books and such. But those guys know NOTHING in what they sell ...they just sell PnS to other ppl knowing NOTHING too.

Like "producers" selling crap to other ppl knowing even less. May be one day they will release personnal work...one day.

We live in a PnS world. And those ppl make a lot more money than most of us, because they convince others they know something important, whereas they know sh*t.

Conclusion : you don't need to find gold first. You just need to convince others you know what you are talking about and sell your famous recipe