busybee fluffy rambles

All of these prices are minimums, with the option to pay more if they want.

One pervasive bit of thinking here is that people are only going to be buying the music in order to support me specifically. If they just want to listen to it, they can listen to the web-based previews for as long as they want, and if they really want to download it without paying money, they have the option of ripping it from the web player or YouTube or whatever at lower quality, minus whatever hidden/bonus tracks I put on the purchasable downloads, anyway.

This is purely about having people support me as an artist, and reminding folks that work goes into these things, and not undervaluing the hell out of my stuff (which a lot of indie artists have a big problem with, especially those of us in marginalized/minority groups).

Full albums, EPs, and singles: $0.70/track, up to $7

iTunes charges $1/track up to $10/album. Of that I get a 70% cut. The independent stores still take a bit of a cut on top of that (Bandcamp takes 15% + payment fees, for example, and itch, ko-fi and gumroad each take their own cuts on top of payment fees as well) so I’m still making a little bit less on the indie shops than on iTunes, but I also want to encourage people to use the indie shops. And of course people are still free to pay more if they want.

This includes authored OSTs for games, incidentally. Just because something’s background music for a game doesn’t make it worth any less.

Game jam OSTs/compilations: $0.50/track, up to $5

Game jam things are done for fun and “exposure,” and are basically portfolio pieces. On the one hand, it feels a bit gauche to charge money for an OST for a game which is probably itself available for free. On the other hand, people can still play the game for free. And honestly, game jam games should probably charge money after the judging period is over, too!

Cover songs: It Depends™

Licensing covers for sale is a gigantic pain in the ass, although in recent years rights clearinghouses have made it easier and cheaper to do (apparently to the tune of $16/track).

Right now I only have one set of unauthorized covers for sale anywhere and it’s strictly pay-what-you-want, under the theory that it’s easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission and that what few payments I’ve even gotten are basically tips sent to an Internet busker.

I do intend to eventually release an album of cover songs and for that I’ll probably charge $1/track up to $10, just to try to recoup the costs on the mechanical rights. I dunno.

Collaborations: $0, no extra payment option

I’ve only released one track of this sort and I only put it on Bandcamp so it wouldn’t get lost, since I was very happy with how it turned out. I did most of the writing and performing on that track, but I couldn’t have done it without my collaborators. I got permission from them to post it on Bandcamp but we didn’t want to work out a payments cut or anything, so there it’s basically just an extension of the existing free download on Song Fight!.

Discographies: 25% off

Bandcamp gives a simple discography-bundling option, and 25% off brings the total price down to under $100, which feels easier to swallow. Might as well mirror that on the other platforms that support it; so far that’s just itch.io (where I went ahead and included all my other stuff too, because why not) although if I ever get around to posting more of my discography on Gumroad and/or Ko-Fi I’ll see if those support bundling as well.

Update: Neither Gumroad nor Ko-Fi support sale bundles. Also, setting up a bundle on itch.io is a little counterintuitive; setting a bundle price as “all these items at a 25% discount” also puts a 25% discount on each individual item. The correct way to set up a discography discount is to set the bundle discount to 0% and then give the bundle as a whole a sale price.

Update to the update: Gumroad supports bundles now, but actually putting music for sale on gumroad is such a pain in the ass and doesn’t result in a good purchasing experience so I’m still not gonna do it.

Wrapping up

This is just a bunch of unstructured thoughts around an experiment, and is of course subject to change. But I gotta start valuing my own work, right?

I also kind of see this stuff as a bit of an extended tipjar for the fact that people can listen to my music for free and that I spend so much time and energy building F/OSS tools for others to use and enjoy.

I dunno. Let me know what you think in the comments or whatever.