An EP with 10 tracks = $3673 earnings but...

[Wildfunk]

The following comes from Nick Thayer, a producer signed to Skrillex’s OWSLA label:

Here’s the TOTAL sales breakdown for my Like Boom EP (March 2012). This is sales across all platforms (iTunes / Beatport / etc etc). Bear in mind this EP was the #2 overall release for thirteen weeks on Beatport so you can assume it was a comparative success.

Like Boom 2600
Facepalm 2932
Totalitaria 1125
Haters Gonna Hate 652
Top Of The World 710
What Props Ya Got 614
Rise Up 658
Like Boom Nick Thayer Rmx 1953
Facepalm Rmx 969
What Props Rmx 509

So that’s 12,722 total sales.

For the sake of making this as simple as possible, let’s be generous and call these sales $2 each (most are a bit less). Then let’s split 50% (give or take) for whatever site you sell through, meaning the site takes $1 and there’s $1 left. Most labels these days run on a profit share arrangement which means you split what’s left of that down the middle too. Let’s also allow for any writing splits where other artists have been involved adding vocals etc. So here we have total income that gets to me after the site, the label and the other artists involved have all taken their cut.

Like Boom (50% to sample clearance, 25% share to three vocalists) $162.5
Facepalm $1467
Totalitaria $562.5
Haters Gonna Hate (50% to vocalist) $326
Top Of The World (50% to vocalist) $177.5
What Props Ya Got (30% to vocalist) $158
Rise Up $329
Like Boom Nick Thayer Rmx (see above) $122
Facepalm Rmx (50% to remixer) $242
What Props Rmx (50% to remixer) $127

So that’s a total income from the EP of $3673.50.

(I’m not going to include Spotify or YouTube here as they total less than the price of a beer overall).

At this point you pay your management 15% of what you have. Mastering comes in at approximately $150-$200 per track, so that’s $1500 total. Artwork is $1000 for anything half decent that’s usable across all platforms. A decent publicity campaign is about $300-$500. There’s a myriad of other smaller costs involved too. Some labels will cover these costs up front but it will be a ‘recoupable advance’ meaning you have to pay them back before they give you any money so it’s the same as fronting the money yourself.

So you can see at the end, this EP which probably represented a year of work at actually ended up COSTING me money (though not a lot) to release. If somebody said to you ‘put your heart and soul into this project for a year and at the end give us some money for the privilege of having us listen to it’, what would YOU do?

What about touring?

At this point people usually say ‘well you make a lot of money from gigs right?’. Well not really. Around six months after this EP came out, so in late 2012, enough time to potentially see the benefits, in the US I was earning between $1000 and $1500 for a show. That might sound like a lot of money, but that is TOTAL.

Let’s say I did a run of nine shows across three weeks (Thurs, Fri, Sat night x 3) at $1250. That’s $11,250. That’s A LOT right?? Well. Right off the bat the booking agent will take 15%. As an Australian in the US I pay 30% up front on tax too (this is reclaimable but Australia has a reciprocal tax agreement with US so it comes out of the amount of tax I owe here in Aus). So that’s down to $6200 straight away. Then I have to pay for travel. Let’s say return flights from Aus ($1500 economy fare) plus travel in between shows ($200 per flight if lucky) and we’re down to $2687. You can usually get the club to pay for a hotel on the night of your show, but that’s it. So that leaves maybe ten nights where you are covering it at $100 a night if you can find it. Often they will be much more expensive so you survive by sleeping on couches in friends’ places every second night. That’s $1687 left. Now pay management 15% and we’re at around $1434. Then there is food to pay for cause you can’t live on bar snacks for three weeks. At $30 per day (that’s $10 for b’fast lunch and dinner) for three weeks is around $600 and at that point all you’re left with is around $800 for three weeks’ work, which is not exactly a fortune.

LIKE BOOM : Do you wanna know just how much money I make?

Some points of clarification from my post yesterday.

Seeing as my post has been picked up and has had a much wider reach than I expected I want to clarify some points:

- Artwork costs being $1000 / other EP expenses
It has been commented that this is a lot. What I said is that this is artwork ‘usable across ALL platforms’. That is, usable as a digital album picture, a sticker, an ad mat, tour art (vectorised and layered to make for easy adaptation) and more. I also paid for the original photo. I believe in paying people properly for their work.

- Label deals / splits etc
It has also been commented that labels will split costs on a 50/50 deal. Without going into the specifics of this contract, I paid for the art up front. The mastering expense (I just looked up a statement) was $1700 and was split with the label, so yes, that does alter my maths a little. I only tried to provide a rough guide anyway.
I also mentioned other expenses. These include things such as vocal sessions and lawyers (for sample clearance and for record contracts). These came directly out of my pocket (the track with the sample was completed including clearance before the label was in the picture and a label is not going to pay for your lawyer to sort out a contract with them).

- Travel expenses
It has also been commented that venues should be paying for travel. The deals my US agent (AM Only) works on for me are all-in deals. They do not include flight shares. This is not the case for me worldwide (in Aus and NZ travel is certainly added on top of the fee), but I wanted to use a REAL tour to highlight the situation.

LIKE BOOM : Some points of clarification from my post yesterday.

[Numanoid]

Mastering comes in at approximately $150-$200 per track, so that’s $1500 total. Artwork is $1000 for anything half decent that’s usable across all platforms. A decent publicity campaign is about $300-$500.

Mastering costs $150-200 per track?!?

Artwork is $1000 ?!?



1000 bucks for that?!? Forget about making music, start in the design business instead.

[chk071]

Mastering costs $150-200 per track?!?

Artwork is $1000 ?!?

Depending on where you do it? Could well be.

[Numanoid]

This is the guy/co who charges crazy amounts per track for mastering:
https://twitter.com/HM_Mastering

I mean, with something like Izotope Ozone at the foundation of your mix, how much does any masterer need to tinker with it?

[BertKoor]

Artwork is $1000 ?!?

Lately we had a failure in our web server, the whole site was down. So we phoned the guy responsible for it. He came within an hour, sat down at the server, and after five mouse clicks you instantly saw network access being restored. At the door he said it costed $500. My manager got a bit pissed and asked for a fully specced receipt:

Call-out: $50
Mouse click ($1 each) : $5
Know where to click: $445
TOTAL: $500

People deserve to have a decent living. So it's not unreasonable that you pay the mastering engineer per hour more than your hairdresser. Right?

[UncleAge]

I don't think he was trying to give exact figures.

@Wildfunk - Thanks for passing this along. It was a nice read. I'm past the stage in life where I would think those opportunities would allow me to make a living. But it is nice to read an example of someone trying to show a little bit of whats behind the curtain. And he didn't show a lot really, just enough to make you want to fill in the blanks.

[Numanoid]

To me it seems like the artist wants to "scare" away competition: "Nothing to earn here kids, move along now y'all"

Of course it costs to travel to dj bookings if you live in Oz, but it would maybe be smart then to set up camp in the UK and live there for parts of the year, where many venues could be reached by car, would save both airfare and hotel accommodations.

[Ghostwave]

Insteresting read.
I haven't listened to the guy's tracks but maybe it's just that his music isn't good enough.

TBH, I think the days an artist could "break through" on his own are basically gone.
If someone new is successful, it's because some businessmen have decided to back him up with big bucks in order to get a large return. The market is that saturated.
It seems you have to spend lots of money to have any hope of getting lots back. Talent seems to be more and more out of the equation.

[Wildfunk]

I think he wasted the $2500 for mastering and artwork.

I'm sure he would have the same sales with cheaper/own mastering and a stock image artwork.

[chk071]

I think he wasted the $2500 for mastering and artwork.

I'm sure he would have the same sales with cheaper/own mastering and a stock image artwork.

Don't underestimate the influence of a good cover artwork on sales. Also a question whether he can do the master himself. Afaic, especially in the EDM branche, there's people who don't have a clue about mixing and mastering. Avicii comes to mind. And a good production can surely make the difference between selling well, and selling nothing.

Bottom line is, i don't think, even on this level, people have money to burn for nothing.

[Aloysius]

... with something like Izotope Ozone at the foundation of your mix, how much does any masterer need to tinker with it?

From everything I've read ... mastering peeps need to cut about 0.2 dB here and a maximum of 0.5 there. Of course, one process should never be allowed to take all of that load by itself. You need special (golden) ears, years of experience and amazing monitors to get it just right.

[Wildfunk]

Don't underestimate the influence of a good cover artwork on sales.

Yeah but i can't see titties on the cover!

For me it's just a generic cover, could also be from a stock library. Font could also be freeware. I'm sure some of the designers @ 99designs.com could do better artworks for lesser money ($150-$250).

[chk071]

Yeah but i can't see titties on the cover!

It probably was out of context this time.

[GaryG]

Isn't an EP with ten tracks, like, an album?

Maybe i'm getting old but an Ep was ~4 tracks in my day...

[BERFAB]

You can quibble about the cost of the art or mixes, but the fact remains that the overall production on this radio ready EP was peanuts, comparitively speaking.

While the genre is generally not my cup of tea, I've listened to a few of the tracks, and it sounds to me like there's also some additional talent that has performed on his tracks dirt cheap as well. But there's nothing "cheap" sounding about his work, even though the artist and his sidemen are clearly short on compensation.

The ubiquity of technology has been a blessing and a curse to artists. Because there is now almost no barrier to entry in obtaining the tools to create marketable music, EVERYONE, it seems, has a voice. But the vast increase in product has now sliced a small pie into even thinner slices.

As for Mr. Thayer's EP, within minutes of reading his post, I listened to unedited versions of all his most popular tracks on Spotify. Cost effective for me as a consumer, but not so much for Mr. Thayer as an artist. The tradeoff, of course, is that without Spotify, I never would have been exposed to his work AT ALL. And while he may, indeed, pick up more and more fans from outlets such as these, how to monitize it from there (once you've already given away the product) remains the problem.

Cheers
-B