Overheard At New Music Seminar

New Music Seminar is taking place in full force today, here are just a few of the conversations happening on Twitter:

– Susan Boyle's sales are 97% physical.

– Music has a 10/90 rule — 10% of your fans will provide 90% of your revenue.

– Actually email is like a river – fans dip in an out of the information stream.

– Engagement makes money for artists, awareness does not.

– It takes 14 clicks to download music from Amazon without an account (12 on iTunes) vs. 4 clicks for typical torrent site.  Streams take 1.

– Basically the music business today is where it was in 1967.

– Artists need to make sure they are easily findable on search engines.

– Primary focus of new artists needs to be finding a core fan base.

– 81% of all albums sold last year sold under 100 copies. But… there
were 5 tracks sold for every album.

– Even though it's now a singles market, many labels are still album-centric.

– Odds of winning the lottery are as good as a record deal and a hit. Actually the lottery has better odds…

– Artists, you may not want to hear it, but you have to look at yourselves as businesses.

– High awareness with low engagement is a hobby, not a business.