Kickstarter / Bandcamp / etc - C or D?

i love bandcamp. a lot of my favorite bands are on it, i've discovered new bands through it, and i'm putting my own stuff there instead of myspace.

So, if you were going to do something anyway with your own money, why not get a Kickstart thing, get some peeps to donate $, then donate to your 'goal' yourself if you're short and you'll be less out of pocket in the short term?

― The Jolly Roget's Thesaurus (S-), Monday, December 20, 2010 1:12 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you can't donate to your own project (at least not with your own name/bank account -- obviously you can have a middleman or something)

i like Band Camp a lot too btw, a lot of the local acts i cover have taken to it and it's become a really nice to way to keep track of artists who previously i had to go on goddamn MySpace to hear new stuff from

bandcamp is great.

i'm deeply suspicious of bands raising money to make albums via kickstarter though. maybe i'm just being a hater, but there's something weird about wanting your friends & fans pay for the entirety of your recording + mixing + mastering + duplication.

the other angle is that the band kickstarters that i've seen present it as "recording is expensive!". while i'm all about keeping studios in business, it seems like asking people to pay for your studio time is the easy way out when everyone else is buying some gear of their own, learning how to use it, and becoming at least somewhat self-sufficient.

But a lot of the Kickstarter projects I've looked at will promise you a copy of the final product with your donation, so it's essentially like paying a few extra bucks above the cost of the cd to see that the cd gets made in the first place.

I'm in for Marissa Nadler's new album through Kickstarter. Was in the I Like Trains pledgemusic one too, but Marissa's seems better value.

yeah...w/ music projects i think using Kickstarter treads a fine line. because either you have a fanbase and probably don't NEED to ask for the money (or wouldn't if you'd managed your career a little better or had slightly better luck), or you have no substantial fanbase and you're just kind of asking family and friends to help you make a CD they probably won't listen to. my project was a research-intensive book project, i don't know if that exactly makes my use of it better in any way, i may be a hypocrite, i'm just saying.

I think the chief problem I have with Kickstarter, at least as far as funding music projects goes, is that musicians are often terrible at managing money. Someone I know in a middling indie band (who shall remain nameless) put up a Kickstarter a year or so and got a fair amount of money to put towards the recording of a new album. One year on and there's no sign of the album, and I see him getting asked questions about it on Facebook all the time, with vague "it's coming soon" promises from him in return. I don't exactly know what he's done with the money, but I'm pretty sure most of it's been blown on boozing and partying.

So, if you were going to do something anyway with your own money, why not get a Kickstart thing, get some peeps to donate $, then donate to your 'goal' yourself if you're short and you'll be less out of pocket in the short term?

― The Jolly Roget's Thesaurus (S-), Monday, December 20, 201

That was our idea, but at the last minute when I tried to do that, I was made aware that I couldn't. I was trying to find someone - anyone - to donate (even just in theory) the last bit to make it happen but to no avail.

yeah there's a lot of ins and outs of how KS works that sometimes you don't know or think about until you've started your project -- really that's the main reason i'm being pretty forthright in this thread about how mine went down, in case the info helps anyone else here down the road

Trying again?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/344806759/soulstreamers

Oh, I know Heather! At least I know her from the store in Knoxville. Rad store, great gal. I'm tapped but I know some folks who might be into this - will alert 'em. This is a really cool idea.

Friendly advice - I'd offer some sort of physical product (I'm assuming these mixes you're offering are sent via email?) in exchange for pledges.

Thanks for that offer! You are very sweet. The mixes offered as incentives, though, are the actual mixes named on kickstarter and recorded live by the three of us. We send out the actual mix with our own covers and such.

Are you in Knoxville? When did I meet you? I live in Kill Devil Hills now, though. I left Lost and Found in December to move out here.

Verbena dudes / Wooden Wand just launched one of these

whoa. just found out that one of the cofounders of kickstarter is a guy i went to college with. worked at the college radio station with him. he also posted on ILX for a while.

started this thread e.g.

New from the DFA...

Yancey is one of the kickstarter cofounders?

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/ff_kickstarter/all/1

yeah i thought it was common knowledge that yancey was one of the main KS guys. also i always thought of him as a pretty major part of ILM for however many of the early years he was posting.

I read his on-again/off-again blog for a couple years before I even found ILM and was glad to find him here. Was disappointed when he stopped posting. Cool that that's what he's up to these days.

kickstarter kickin knowledge

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkck96gjE71qz4ede.png
Projects that reach 30% of their funding goal succeed more than 90% of the time. You can see that as the line turns green, the percent of projects that succeed approaches 100%.

that's kind of a "no duh" statistic though, isn't it?

i mean the curve could be steeper or flatter i guess but it's kind of like saying "people who grow to be 5'9" are more likely to end up over 6 feet tall"

we were all 3 feet tall once

i mean the curve could be steeper or flatter i guess but it's kind of like saying "people who grow to be 5'9" are more likely to end up over 6 feet tall"

― hong does your geirden gro (some dude), Friday, April 29, 2011 7:20 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark

i mean, no, not at all. it's more like saying "people that grow to be 3 feet tall almost always end up 10 feet tall."

fwiw on the clickthrough there's way more

yeah, i guess that's a more accurate way of putting it. just seems like a pretty predictable and logical stat that they're dropping like a revelation or truth bomb imo.

idk i mean i phrased it the way i did because the idea that projects reaching 30% get funded fully almost every time is really surprising to me, i would have expected there are a lot of projects that stalled out at higher numbers, or that if there was a threshold like this it would have been much higher--"get to 30% & statistically you're basically there" is way more surmountable as a goal than "promote this until you are all the way there, cause it won't happen otherwise"

btw al i'm following this stuff/bumping this thread cause some ppl i run with are thinking about moving to kickstarter to fund some art projects and i actually wanted to tap yr experience on this, so def don't let me make it sound like i know what i'm talking about.

haha no it's cool -- i guess i have a different way of looking at how KS tends to work for people but i don't know if it's necessarily because of my personal experience with it. but sure lemme know if you have any questions.

By itself, the graphic doesn't mean a lot. For example, what's the breakdown is dollar/values
as goals.

How does it skew when comparing projects that ask for trivial funding as opposed to those requesting more serious money? What's the impact of publicity or recommendation by big name linkage?

Also, from the pov of the non-user, there's no way to gauge how hard 30 percent is to reach. Is it just a meaningless pass through point on the way to full funding? As presented here, it looks fairly ambiguous without clarification.

seems like people are more reluctant to be the first ones to jump in, or to fund something that looks like a futile effort, but happy to keep the momentum going and give it that last push.

that i think is true, but perhaps less true than that imo your project either has what it takes to go the long haul, or is just nowhere near it, with little in between.

Ok my friends all use bandcamp and soundcloud, but I've been doing the mediafire for years now, but I'd like to branch out. What are the differences between the two? Which is better? I really like the soundcloud presentation, and the streaming embedded files, but I wouldn't mind being able to charge for things. Is that a bandcamp thing only? Also, does anyone ever make money off it? Most of my stuff is covers, too, so I don't know if those sites will allow them. Opinions? Suggestions?

i think soundcloud is way better for sharing, but is not geared towards selling at all - you can link to where your stuff is for sale but can't sell directly on soundcloud.

you can share things fine on bandcamp and it is probably a lot more flexible though. i think there is no good reason not to use both.

Also, does anyone ever make money off it?

i'd say we're not in the black yet but it has definitely been worth having

Are there any reasons to choose soundcloud? Other than prettier embed graphics?

well, one good thing is there's an android app for it, and bandcamp won't stream on android

also soundcloud 'feels' better for non-releases, demos etc as bandcamp is more geared towards "albums", but that's more just my opinion

also the social networking aspect of SC that BC pretty much doesn't have, if that floats one's boat

Can you sell albums/songs on Soundcloud?

not directly, but you can link to stores/bandcamp etc

I think i post new stuff more frequently on bandcamp, just like the layout better. soundcloud i do mixes (tho also mixcloud now), covers, "singles"

hey, thought i'd just do a little bit of shameless self-promotion...i've started a kickstarter to get a digital compilation i just put out for free pressed on vinyl. exclusive tracks from amen dunes, wooden wand, sore eros, xray eyeballs, the renderers, black eagle child and bunches more. there's a link from the kickstarter page to download it. alright, back to your regularly scheduled thread.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1671364068/press-blackburns-various-deficiencies-vol-2-on-vin

a more important chart

http://static7.businessinsider.com/image/4db9a1cd49e2ae83320e0000/kickstarter-graph.jpg

totaling funding, projects in aggregate.

wow. nearly doubling since the beginning of the year.

as someone on my facebook said: 33 grand to start a blog?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ricleichtung/ad-hoc

kickstarter abuse?

although they do say that they are gonna do a print version too. there is that.

Pretty good NYT story on Kickstarter the other day, they interviewed Yancey.

yancey s.? what's he up to?

adding what?

needless "functionality" and bloatware (guessing at what calstars meant here but that's my take)

Ned's link is to register for a Zoom webinar FYI

yeah IDGI

doh

it’s the link to a public meeting to rally support for the bandcamp employee union afaict

Yup!

I'm really surprised more bands don't just chuck up a whole bunch of soundboard recordings of their shows for a few bucks each. Seems an easy way to make some money without much extra effort.

Like this: https://bspliveseries.bandcamp.com/

Some bands don't like to have live recordings out there unless they're properly curated, mixed and so on. Plus, it might adversely affect sales should they decide to release a proper live album later.

I guess that’s so, but I would imagine the people who buy live albums tend to be completists anyway.

Update from Bandcamp United:

--

After an unnecessary hearing brought by our employer’s lawyers, the NLRB dismissed the case and has issued a date for our election. We’ll be voting by mail, and our ballots will be counted shortly after.
We’re calling on our supporters to stop sending emails to Ethan as we focus on casting our votes for our union.
If we see any more union busting in the coming weeks we’ll be sure to let our supporters know.
We’re grateful for the support that you have shown us in the Fediverse, and by signing our petition and emailing our leadership.
It made a big difference in proving to our employers that we have the backing of the Bandcamp community, and that we stand together in asking management to do the right thing.
Please share your messages of support on social media on why you think a union is good for Bandcamp (Please tag us so we can see them.)
To summarize:
We have an election date!
You can stop emailing Ethan (but thank you for your support in that campaign.)
Thank you for your continued support of our campaign.
Solidarity forever!

Epic sold Bandcamp?

it sounds like the writers for the bandcamp reviews/etc are either laid off or bailing, which sucks

yep, being discussed here

Thread for awesome stuff on Bandcamp that costs money but is still awesome

Damn, if they lose the editorial side, that's a huge loss and a bad sign.

Epic is doing layoffs with its remaining companies but is anyone saying they've been laid off from Bandcamp yet?

i think they just sold it off, rather than axe personnel

does anyone else have a bad feeling that bandcamp is just going to die by a thousand cuts and be left in the ether like myspace? i have a few albums i want to put out next year, and the thought of uploading them there just feels like dumping into a void to me. am i too pessimistic about this? i'd rather just make CDs and ship them out, but i also don't want to limit access or be awkward about it...

I wouldn't stop uploading to Bandcamp (all my stuff is on there) but I'd start looking at similar alternative sites as well.

Gotta love the new Bandcamp:

Subtotal: 2.00
Additional fan contribution: 3.00
Revenue share (15%): -0.75
Applied to your revenue share balance*: -3.94
Payment processor fee (PayPal): -0.31
Your share: $0.00 USD

How can we have a 'revenue share balance' if they take their cut right off the top anway? Bullshit

that is not a new bandcamp thing though, i see it in payments as early as 2015

i dont understand why, but for physical sales they dont take the revenue share cut on the actual transaction, they bill it against future digital sales

Maybe because they're not involved in fulfillment? Whereas with digital they're in charge of everything