Digital Audio Insider -- blogging the economics of digital music

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September 05, 2007

The Flat Tail
by David Harrell

CD Baby president Derek Sivers posted some interesting numbers about the catalog, as of August 2007:

Total number of albums in CD Baby: 194,385

How many of those have ever sold a CD: 170,379

Percentage of artists who have sold a CD: 87%

Total number of albums in Digital Distribution: 129,014

How many of those have ever earned digital income: 123,168

Percentage of Digital Distribution artists who have earned digital income: 95%

How many artists sold a CD from January to June 2007: 101,648

How many artists had a CD sold in July 2007: 35,701

How many received payments in July 2007: 21,764

How many received two weekly payments in July 2007: 3245

How many received three weekly payments in July 2007: 1282

How many received four weekly payments in July 2007: 513

Here are the scary ones:

How many artists account for 25% of our total sales volume? 280 = 0.1%

How many artists account for 50% of our total sales volume? 1879 = 1%

How many artists account for 90% of our total sales volume? 23,504 = 12%

Given that there's really no barrier to entry to the CD Baby catalog -- you just need some music on a disc (a CD-R is fine!) and to pay the $35 fee -- I suppose these numbers aren't shocking. That is, my guess is that of those 194,385 albums, only a minority of them are from artists and labels who are actively promoting their music. I imagine there are quite a few instances of "hey, let's sell our old four-track demo tape."

Still, I'm a little a surprised that are more than 20,000 CDs in the catalog that have never sold a single copy. In his Long Tail book, Chris Anderson noted that nearly every track in the Rhapsody catalog was downloaded or streamed each month. The big difference here, of course, is that there's no incremental cost for a Rhapsody subscriber to stream a track, which isn't the case for the purchase of a physical CD.

tags: digital music CD Baby CD sales the Long Tail Rhapsody

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The Layaways (my band)

New album: "The Space Between" is now available from eMusic.

"It can't be easy to make something this basically simple sound so fulfilling; it if were, everyone would do it." -- Fingertips

"The Layaways have a unique sound with great drum fills and airy vocals that will make you tap your feet and sing along." -- VIC Radio

Keep It to Yourself - free mp3
All Around the World - free mp3
Come Back Home - free mp3

Download from eMusic, iTunes, Amazon MP3, Lala.com, or CD Baby, listen to free streams at Last.fm and Napster.

"The Layaways make fine indie pop. Hushed vocals interweave with understated buzzing guitars. The whole LP is a revelation from the start." -- Lost Music

"A wonderfully crafted recording built around tasteful songwriting and musicianship..." -- PopMatters

Silence - free mp3
The Long Night - free mp3

Download from eMusic, Amazon MP3, or iTunes, listen to free streams at Last.fm, Napster, or Rhapsody.

"These are songs that you want to take home with you, curl up with, hold them close -- and pray that they are still with you when you wake up." -- The Big Takeover

Let Me In - free mp3
Ocean Blue - free mp3

Download from eMusic, Amazon MP3, or iTunes, listen to free streams at Last.fm, Napster, or Rhapsody.

More Layaways downloads:

the layaways website

Current/Recent Reading and Listening:

Music Supervision: The Complete Guide to Selecting Music for Movies, TV, Games and New Media by Ramsay Adams, David Hnatiuk, and David Weiss

It's written as a how-to guide for those looking to become music supervisors, but I found it to be a good resource for musicians (like me) who are trying to get their music used in movies, TV, etc.