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Monday, March 10, 2008 The Patronage Model Via Online Fandom, I just learned about Jill Sobule's stunningly successful pledge drive to raise $75,000 to cover the cost of recording and promoting her next album. She's doing it public-television style, with various goodies for each donation level:$10 - Unpolished Rock (but with potential) Level: A free digital download of the album, when it's released.She actually exceeded her initial goal, raising more than $80,000 from 552 contributors. And that includes 14 donations for $1,000 or more, with one at the $10,000 level. A few thoughts: First, this is far different from Sellaband and similar concepts for "investor-based" musician fundraising. There's no promise of shared profits for the backers -- you get the various goodies listed for each donation level, but that's it. Second, getting paid before hand is a LOT better than hoping for donations after the fact. From the first CD/download sold, Sobule's in the black. Plus, she'll have cash to promote the record from day one, making it far more likely to actually sell. But beyond the financial success of the fundraising campaign, it also means that Sobule's going to have an incredibly motivated street team when the album comes out. That is, many of those 552 contributors will call their friends and e-mail every person in their address books, urging them to buy the new disc, see her in concert, etc. So she's getting a benefit far beyond the actual cash windfall -- the pledge process is far better for her than, say, inheriting the same amount of money (or even more) from a long-lost relative. Obviously, Sobule's not the first artist to do this sort of thing. Scott Andrew, for example, recently partially funded a record via pledges. His pledge total was substantially less, though given a lower profile (Sobule is former major-label artist), perhaps as impressive. For artists that have an existing audience, I can't see any real downside to this type of financing. The question is -- does the model have legs? If more and more musicians do it, the novelty factor will disappear and the success of such appeals seems likely to diminish. And how many times can an artist go to the well -- will those same fans be willing to finance Sobule's follow-up release? tags: digital music the patronage model Jill Sobule link 3 comments e-mail this post Digg this post |
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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. |