January 26, 2007

Amie Street

January 26, 2007

Amie Street, as reported on techcrunch, seems to be taking the high road in mp3 sales.  This is an amazing system designed to help independent bands sell their mp3′s.  Here’s how it works:

-Upload your songs
-Encourage people to download them for free
-As your tracks (hopefully) gain in popularity your prices are driven higher (with a 99cent cap).
-You get featured with other popular indie bands as your popularity grows even more.
-You keep 70% of revenues after the first $5, which is more than even the most popular bands get via record sales OR iTunes (though I think as an indie band, my band makes more like 60% from iTunes).

The greatest part about all this is that these are DRM-free mp3′s, which means you can upload to and play them on anything (unlike those pesky iTunes mp3′s, which only work on your iPod and start at 99cents).  I’m a firm believer in this, and so are most indie bands (we want that whole “viral” thing to work for our music…it’s not worth 99cents to deny someone that).

This isn’t to say that I don’t love my iPod nano. My band has it’s songs on iTunes; it’s where the business is. Do we get many purchases that way? No. This system definetly has potential. Will I put Monsters are not Myths‘ tracks on Amie Street? Not yet.
I think this is a great system, but for a very small and independent band like mine, I’m worried that our tracks never reach a popularity/price where we can make a profit. And with that alternative, we’ll get 0 downloads on iTunes. The alternative is selling mp3s on MySpace, which kind of makes me feel dirty inside (considering that MySpace is notoriously unstable and unsafe).

I’m not happy with our current situation, but I’m not convinced Amie Street is right for me (though I think it’ll be great for a bunch of indie musicians). I will be keeping a close eye on Amie Street and MySpace and returning to this debate in time.

-Evan

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  • http://www.myspace.com/toknblak Dwizzle

    When it comes to your tracks reaching popularity it all comes down to what the people listenging think. As for seeling your Mp3′s on myspace , you have to utilize myspace as an advertisaing tool.Im sorry to say but if you sell your song to an Axe murder or to a nun, them buying your music has nothing to do with your music. Amie Street also gives you the tools to use myspace in Conjunction to your myspace page or anywhere else you can put html code. IF your worried about not getting any exposer well thats up to you you beleive your music is good and you put in the footwork like everyone else people will take their time to listen. Also sound quality does have a major factor with how it sells. You should try it out. Upload a few songs. If they arent selling your not losing anything. Your gonna have to put it out their sometime am I right?

  • http://www.myspace.com/toknblak Dwizzle

    When it comes to your tracks reaching popularity it all comes down to what the people listenging think. As for seeling your Mp3′s on myspace , you have to utilize myspace as an advertisaing tool.Im sorry to say but if you sell your song to an Axe murder or to a nun, them buying your music has nothing to do with your music. Amie Street also gives you the tools to use myspace in Conjunction to your myspace page or anywhere else you can put html code. IF your worried about not getting any exposer well thats up to you you beleive your music is good and you put in the footwork like everyone else people will take their time to listen. Also sound quality does have a major factor with how it sells. You should try it out. Upload a few songs. If they arent selling your not losing anything. Your gonna have to put it out their sometime am I right?

  • http://www.myspace.com/toknblak Dwizzle

    When it comes to your tracks reaching popularity it all comes down to what the people listenging think. As for seeling your Mp3′s on myspace , you have to utilize myspace as an advertisaing tool.Im sorry to say but if you sell your song to an Axe murder or to a nun, them buying your music has nothing to do with your music. Amie Street also gives you the tools to use myspace in Conjunction to your myspace page or anywhere else you can put html code. IF your worried about not getting any exposer well thats up to you you beleive your music is good and you put in the footwork like everyone else people will take their time to listen. Also sound quality does have a major factor with how it sells. You should try it out. Upload a few songs. If they arent selling your not losing anything. Your gonna have to put it out their sometime am I right?

  • http://www.evanhamilton.com admin

    Hey Dwizzle,
    I mostly agree. We’ve been promoting via MySpace for a few years now and had great success. Our songs have had some downloads via the online venues we’re currently on. My question is how visible we would be initially on Amie Street. If we were sending large numbers of our existing fans to Amie street, we might get some downloads that would push us further in the ranking. But considering our album is more than a year old and has already been consumed by our audience, how do we get the initial plays that will get us noticed by non-fans?

    That’s very interesting about the Amie St MySpace options, I’ll have to check that out. This also might be something, considering my above concerns, that we launch into after we get our next album out.

    Thanks for the thoughts!

    -Evan

  • http://www.evanhamilton.com admin

    Hey Dwizzle,
    I mostly agree. We’ve been promoting via MySpace for a few years now and had great success. Our songs have had some downloads via the online venues we’re currently on. My question is how visible we would be initially on Amie Street. If we were sending large numbers of our existing fans to Amie street, we might get some downloads that would push us further in the ranking. But considering our album is more than a year old and has already been consumed by our audience, how do we get the initial plays that will get us noticed by non-fans?

    That’s very interesting about the Amie St MySpace options, I’ll have to check that out. This also might be something, considering my above concerns, that we launch into after we get our next album out.

    Thanks for the thoughts!

    -Evan

  • http://www.evanhamilton.com admin

    Hey Dwizzle,
    I mostly agree. We’ve been promoting via MySpace for a few years now and had great success. Our songs have had some downloads via the online venues we’re currently on. My question is how visible we would be initially on Amie Street. If we were sending large numbers of our existing fans to Amie street, we might get some downloads that would push us further in the ranking. But considering our album is more than a year old and has already been consumed by our audience, how do we get the initial plays that will get us noticed by non-fans?

    That’s very interesting about the Amie St MySpace options, I’ll have to check that out. This also might be something, considering my above concerns, that we launch into after we get our next album out.

    Thanks for the thoughts!

    -Evan

  • http://www.amiestreet.com/users/elias Elias

    Hey Evan, awesome post man. I work at Amie Street and I’d be happy to hook your band up with some promo codes, so you could invite your existing fans to buy up your tracks on Amie Street and get your buzz going that way. Feel free to email me any time.

  • http://www.amiestreet.com/users/elias Elias

    Hey Evan, awesome post man. I work at Amie Street and I’d be happy to hook your band up with some promo codes, so you could invite your existing fans to buy up your tracks on Amie Street and get your buzz going that way. Feel free to email me any time.

  • http://www.amiestreet.com/users/elias Elias

    Hey Evan, awesome post man. I work at Amie Street and I’d be happy to hook your band up with some promo codes, so you could invite your existing fans to buy up your tracks on Amie Street and get your buzz going that way. Feel free to email me any time.

  • http://www.amiestreet.com/users/elias Elias

    Hey Evan, awesome post man. I work at Amie Street and I’d be happy to hook your band up with some promo codes, so you could invite your existing fans to buy up your tracks on Amie Street and get your buzz going that way. Feel free to email me any time.

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