Successful indie artist Zoë Keating shared the details of last years income online. Kirk McElhearn walks us through the numbers. Amazing how much she makes from sales via iTunes, etc. vs how little she makes from streaming.
What indie artists make from sales vs. streaming
I’d be interested to know how much she makes from radio airplay. I see streaming more as an equivalent to radio than to direct sales.
Wow, that’s a lucrative business. Wish I was musically talented.
Doesn’t surprise me – streaming has never been very profitable for artists, and ITMS is a money-pump. (Bandcamp is pretty good, too.)
(Lmd64: Probably almost nothing; I don’t think there’s much radio market for modern-classical cello, is there?)
Hm, Pandora or iTunes Radio, yes… Spotify (or Google Music All Access, mmmmh rolls off the tongue) is not really like radio at all. You can play specific songs, even entire albums, you can use it offline… it is really all-you-can-eat access to all music they have.
In other words, she got paid $6,380.82 to advertise her music, which contributed to $75,341.90 in sales. Not bad.