Bandcamp question.

  • 3 Replies
  • 1106 Views

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

rightly

  • *
  • Stadium Tour
  • *****
  • Posts: 1912
  • newer Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/2rightly
    • My cloud o' sound.
« on: May 15, 2019, 11:25:21 AM »
I was just wondering how many if any
Folks here have sold stuff on band camp.
I've not tried it out.

 In what way is it better than soundclound?
I've got maybe three albums I'd like to release.

Thanks , rightly.
It's either this or that, then again it might be the other. 

I can promise you a future of slow decline.

Don't eat the yellow snow

And there you have it. 

https://soundcloud.com/2rightly

https://soundcloud.com/rightly

CaliaMoko

  • *
  • Stadium Tour
  • *****
  • Posts: 3687
  • Strumming on the couch in pigtails
    • Late Bloomers Rock
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2019, 01:25:46 PM »
Bandcamp is what I use to sell albums, both digital and physical. They don't make the physical albums, but they take the orders and you send them out. I don't remember it being too difficult to set up, although I struggled a little with the sales tax. Overall it seems to work okay for me. I can't compare to SoundCloud, because I've never tried to sell anything from SoundCloud. Can that be done? I haven't looked. I mainly have just one album for sale on Bandcamp, and I've posted the full album on SoundCloud for free listening--because who ever buys an album without hearing the songs on it a gazillion times for free first???

I like that you can set your release date ahead of time on Bandcamp, and you can set up pre-ordering at a special price. Or not at a special price. Whatever works for you.

I don't like that you can't use the same image for the physical albums that you use for the digital ones. And maybe I didn't do something right, I don't know.

Someone else may have more helpful feedback, but I hope this is at least a little useful.

Vicki

Skub

  • *
  • Stadium Tour
  • *****
  • Posts: 3660
    • Soundcloud
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2019, 01:33:34 PM »
Yo Rightly.

Vicki pretty much nailed it with her reply to your questions.

Look upon Soundcloud as a hosting/sharing platform and a community similar to this forum,but a bit more widely used. As with here,you get out what you put in. The more you listen to the music of others,the more they listen to you. It's one way of getting your music out there and also good for a backup for your music,if/when your computer dies.

There is no way currently to sell music through Soundcloud,but you can make folk aware of your music and point them to where it is for sale...such as a link to Bandcamp. Some also use Facebook as a medium to plug a sale,personally I've never found it to be much use for actual plays or sales, beyond a few folk who may know you. Perhaps I don't have a big enough profile on Facebook,but it wears me out after a few minutes!

There are loads of other hosting platforms such as Spotify,Deezer,YouTube,iTunes...etc. All these can get your music out there too. Others seem to have more success with Spotify than I do. I get hardly any plays at all,maybe I'm not using it right?

Band camp take something like 20 or 25% cut for everything you sell,which is probably reasonable enough.

So to sum up,places like Soundcloud can get your music played and Bandcamp will allow you to sell it.

Andyb

  • *
  • Guest
« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2019, 02:47:32 PM »
I use bandcamp... It allows people to listen to your music and download for a set price (or as I do priced at the listeners discretion - but have found nobody downloads for free everyone pays something) You can also sell hard copies through the site but as I haven't sold any of those I can really vouch for the process but i assume I get a message to say so and so has purchased a copy of your CD with the delivery instructions (bandcamp hold no copies of the CDs). I guess the question you should be asking is how it compares to streaming services though and here's the sticking point for me. hardly anyone downloads now even if it is free! Most people will stream now but spotify are in excess of 25,000 uploads every day ! that's a lot of competition and at a return of 0.05c per stream you will need thousands of streams before you see any kind of return. Ive gone down the distrokid route before with a previous band and we were on all streaming services and I can honestly say I made nothing from it (we weren't very well known or popular) but using bandcamp for my latest venture I have made something, not much, but something from my music (again still not well known or popular). From what I can see you get nothing out of soundcloud either, you might glean a handful of new fans but that would be about it. For all these things though people have to know about you to find your music, you wont get stumbled across by accident on any of these sites so I guess it's all about making your music accessible to your existing fan base.