An artist recently asked me if I felt her music production pace was too fast, suggesting she might be ‘flooding the market’ with her music and so wondering if she should release her music into the business royalty free market at a more controlled pace.
This is most certainly a good point in terms of the argument about providing too many tracks / albums to the same finite market. It’s worth considering the timing of publication of new music IF an artist’s music income comes from consumer sales. Consumers tend to want a regular flow of their favourite artists more on a seasonal or annual basis. Anything more than that might be considered too much of the same thing by consumers & thus no more is sold even though your production is higher (i.e. A finite market). If an artist also want’s to sell their music into the consumer market then they should consider starting with say, three albums and release new albums at a slower pace.
However the business market is fundamentally different in that purchasers tend to have a specific business project in mind and so are looking for the right piece of music or collection of music to meet that business need. They tend to know what they need for their project and go out there to find it in that sort of pragmatic way with less loyalty to any specific artist (although of course, over time, business clients who have a regular need for music will know the artists they will trust and visit first). They want choice and variety. So if you have a strong collection that provides choice and variety you are more likely to gain a sale than you might with less music available.
Artists who are relatively new artist to selling their music online will naturally be behind (with creating a strong catalogue) to those other artists who have been producing music for a much longer time, and therefore have a much wider selection of music for the market as a whole. Artists who are reasonably prolific in their production of new music have the opportunity to narrow the gap between the average artist who has been producing music and making it available online for a good while and the collection size expected of a relatively new recording / online artist. Artists who are not so prolific slowly develop their music collection but over time gain a good online presence. So, you need to make a decision on your music production pace, ensuring your quality is not compromised.
As long as an artist continues to develop music for licensing that has variety but within their core skill area of genre and style of composition & production they can become a major artist for business licensing in their chosen niche. As their production skills develop they can go wider in styles they choose thus building out their market reach even more. The more they produce quality music and make available in the business market the quicker the income will grow. But again, keep the quality high and you will become a trusted music producer for businesses.
So ultimately, an artist may never need to slow down on their production speed as long as it is of good quality and provides a catalogue that presents variety within your chosen music styles. Of course, if an artist has tracks available but doesn’t have them available online for sale then clearly they are not potentially making any money for you.
I know a number of artists who consider their music catalogue as their pension, in as much, that they produce music that is timeless and will earn for them for years to come, as yours clearly will. An artist I know produces probably around 80 tracks per month. His music tends to be focused on meeting the needs of business clients who need short 2 minute tracks for various corporate and broadcast needs but his rate of production is very much driven by a need to build a very large catalogue of music so he can meet the needs of most business clients that come his way.
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