AudioJungle Sales Monitor 3

It seems, that the AudioJungle turned into an AudioDesert. The Atacama desert is a place of pure life compared to this abandoned and dead place here.

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@WormwoodMusic .
They are obviously not profitable for authors. Well, at least not in a decent way. The recent situation, pandemic and stuff, changed the way we knew the world. These things affected major labels and independent authors aswell. I was just listening to most recent uploads on other stock markets and i was pretty shocked. There are real recordings, jazz bands, not programmed vst, with live brass players, drum players etc. There is no need to mention how much investment does that mean. Paying all the performers, recording editing and mixing live recordings is not a joke. And as much as i tried, i couldn’t find a real reason and feasability to do that. Because the royalties are low, and obviously there is no way to afford to cover all the expenses from the well known income. There is a steep way ahead us .

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Hello, hello, check, check, 1,2,3.
Is this thing ON here or still in hibernation mode?

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RF markets are in assisted life support or something.
in retrospect it looks obvious, but if you really think about it, there are too many good musicians and producers all over the world, focusing in the same markets, while there are not enough customers to cover the amount of high quality offering.

I understand the subscription models are a huge part of the problem, but thinking that is the only issue is like trying to block the sun with your hands. It was inevitable as every single company turned to this method. So there was no way to stop it.

Marketplaces might survive, but authors not.
At least in my case, throwed the towel for this battle.

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What you say is correct however marketplaces should consider a whole community, not just a select few.

Public Impact Statement and references to a community become irrelevant if the current circumstances continue.

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@gballx I’ve a question. What is the difference between a marketplace, who decides to let or not to let you join as a new contributor and Envato Elements (if they pick and invite some of the most promising contributors)?

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I disagree, there are many customers, but they just now pay $200 per year instead of $20-50 per use. By lowering prices, we simply make them spend less money. Now they just give that saved money to other businesses. If there was no way to get a quality track for penny it wouldn’t be that bad, but authors themselves giving away quality tracks and now you can buy broadcast commercial production ready track for $5 (or fraction of penny by subscription) along with cheap trash made in one hour

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They don’t as @BlueFoxMusic was not invited to Elements and he has to be one of the most talented authors here. Strange.

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@gballx I think, you misunderstood me. What I want to say is: What is the difference between the decision of Envato not to let everyone to be part of Elements and the decision of another platform, not to let everyone in? Would you really go into discussions with another highly curated marketplace, why they have rejected you? I guess, you would accept it without any discussion. They have their reasons - and that’s it.

That’s what happened every day nowadays. Every market platform can decide how they want to act. What I don’t understand is: You are so much very highly unsatisfied with Envato and their way to act. Why you are still here? You have a very big portfolio with good tracks. You have every chance for success on every other place. But you prefer to excite yourself every day when it comes to the point “Elements”. You will not change Envato. And if they decide “that your nose is too big” or “your eyes are brown instead of blue” or any other weird reason for not to let you be part of Elements- than it is still their decision.
But, of course, you have also the right to excite yourself every day and as much as you want. And you can of course write about it as much as you want - if it helps you to feel better :wink:

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I have tracks on here as an exclusive author and tracks elsewhere not sold on here as per exclusive t&c’s. I have been here for 9 years and seen the community ethos dwindle when in yesteryear we had competitions and a fantastic vibe on the forum. The community spirit has been ripped away and this has been compounded by the introduction of Elements which has destroyed AJ. No I would not like to join since authors interests are not addressed and that I really dislike the promotion of Elements within AJ as bad taste. Happy no, but some of the behaviour of authors such as self purchasing, copying and template tracks has really changed this landscape.

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@gballx I understand all your concerns. But the existence of subscription models is not a problem of Envato. It’s a market development. Envato had the choice to offer a similar model or not. If they don’t offer a subscription model, they had lost customers to competitors. Nearly all of the competitors have subscription models. And I guess, there’s no way back.
And the problem of self purchasing, copy and template tracks is not reasoned in a subscription model. This is a behaviour of human greed - get out as much money as possible with the smallest possible effort. Copying the work of others to get a bit of the success-cake is very known for every industry. It’s part of our daily life.
The most disgusting example of human greed is the stock market. I give my money to a company and expect, that they will multiply my investment. I have nothing to do - only waiting for the cash. And this model works unfortunately very good. With all the negative impacts to our culture and environment.
And this similar behaviour has now reached the stock music market. Making money with no effort.

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Interesting points. It has to be noted as well, that many of the tools we have nowadays are geared up for making music with no effort too. I’m sure there are stock music authors who don’t know how to program an interesting beat, let alone play one. How easy it is to just drag an entire loop out of Maschine or something like that. Same goes for synth sequences. You can make a serviceable track just by clicking a mouse, so it’s no wonder the artist pool is getting bigger than the customer pool. In the past, musical ability, originality and recording know-how were important, but now it seems online marketing knowledge would be more useful.

Maybe the template cheats have it right after all. Maybe the key is just to get as many customer ears on your shĂ­t as you possibly can, no matter how awful and unoriginal it is. I guess spam is the new prime steak.

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And that’s exactly the point, @criskcracker . In the past, music was art, intended to entertain the audience. Later then in the film era music was intended to support the mood of the movie pictures. But nowasdays we produce here pieces of music, intended for short term video products.
Watch the YT videos for so called stock music composers. A lot of these “teachers” tell them “You don’t need music education, you don’t need to be a perfect mixing engineer. Don’t hesitate to copy and paste music parts multiple times. The only thing you need to hit, is the mood. That’s all”
And now we’re wondering, why there’s so much crap on the market. We are now part of a mass industry. Individuality and creativity is not desired by the customers. They want modifications of well known music pieces - but still stay in the actual trend.

Anyway, we have to accept this market development. Customers want cheap crap (and don’t want to pay more than $10) – and they get exactly deserved what they want.
Real artists, independant highly creative musicians, mixing engineers are at the wrong place here.

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Interesting point of view. But quite frankly, don’t you find this point of view a bit old-fashioned? Naturally, I agree on the fact that people cheating, with templates, copy and paste, auto plagiarized, even just plagiarized. But that’s a bit of a denial of the real reality behind much of the work of the producers. Some musical genres are based on loops, sampling, and then with all the creative tools available, a simple loop can become something much more interesting. I use rhythmic loops to embellish an already constructed idea for example, I can cut it, mix it with other, apply a specific treatment to it, which will contribute to the uniqueness of my piece etc.

And you are also able to use some of these tools to help you ing your own work, this is not something bad at this time etc

Otherwise, I agree, the market forces us to be fast, efficient, and there are tools that can do all the work for us. sSome know how to use it intelligently, others not. But for me, these last ones have more of an amateurish approach! I don’t think the markets are full of amateurs, how do they get accepted here?

A balance must be found, I agree on all the bad aspects stated, but on the other hand, the stock music is not necessarily the place where we creates musical masterpieces either. In my opinion, everything is a question of balance between efficiency and intelligent use of tools that simplify life, and quality works, different from other authors, but always for a commercial purpose requested. Which already codifies and structures what the music should look like! The real challenge is to bring uniqueness in something standardized !

The way it’s done now vs the way it was done before it’s not the main point here. You have tools, it’s up to you to use it, mixed with your musical skills and knowledge, 100% guarantee you will have amazing result too, compare to the one you already have !

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Not really. I guess my ham-fisted writing style gives the impression that I think all the new audio production software and plugins are a bad thing. But I’m not shunning the tools. I use them just as most of us do. They are hugely useful, and often creative in their own intuitive ways. My thoughts above are just that in environments such as AJ & P5, where the standard bar is not too high, it may well favour the artists who churn out fifteen or twenty tracks in a month (whether nefariously or not) and the ease of use tools help to facilitate that kind of approach. Of course, this is just musing on my part. I’ve never tried to play it that way myself, so I can’t back up my thoughts with data.

Infact, not to actually want to prove myself wrong, but I had an interesting conversation here with an author who managed to make and upload the maximum thirty tracks in one month, which I thought was pretty impressive, especially since their tracks were decent, varied and individual in my opinion. But they themselves said that keeping up that level of work was unsustainable, especially for the surprisingly small amount of sales they made. Their pricing strategy was questionable in my opinion, but it kind of hit home for me that even if you make thirty decent quality tracks in a month and set your prices to rock bottom, you still won’t sell an effing thing around here in these times.
:man_shrugging:t2:
I suppose I am being the essence of cynicism, but I think that this is the reality that many exclusive junglers who are trying to grow their profiles are experiencing at the moment, which is why I thought it quite fitting that this year’s “Public Impact Statement” should pass by pretty much unremarked, like a proverbial fart in the wind.

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I understand and share your point of view of course. I will say that each story and experience is different for each of the authors, the reverse is also true, there are some author who quickly established this strategy and who manage to get out of it. Without providing mediocre work.
It is undeniable that quality will always sell, but there is indeed this idea that the markets push us to produce in quantity, to do better and to be paid less. I am thinking of a competitor site in particular. Of course this is not viable, both for creativity and quality. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to do without. And that is why modern tools are helping us in this direction. But it is an almost infernal machine!

I mainly reacted above all to the other remarks stated above which also hinted at the idea that “what is not done as in the old way is necessarily mediocre, bad and soulless”. That the cheaters, or those who spam and saturate the market are found guilty of a certain current state of this market is a reality, but I think it is tiny and is not the cause that explains why our sales are declining.

I would spend more time on looking on my own craft that just point some few guy who cheat and make them guilty for lack of sales, no body is stealing sales from other here. Customers decided no matter our musical sensitivity, knowledge and musical skills. It’s not means we have to provide bad and cheap work, but it’s just mean this is a waste of time to look at other and want to compare what they do great and what they do wrong. We can’t explain the taste, the market and how customers react to the work they listen to. Good or bad of course even if yes quality will sell a lot, and some success here are well deserved because of that ! And I mainly hear great quality track here than the opposite !

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I agree a lot with everything that has been said here. Additionally I think that there are some other worldwide factors that influence the state of the market. Of course the pandemic and its economic consequences, especially in Europe. The whole tourism, cultural sector and adjacent industries. Then there is price inflation.
I think our market, especially in direct relation to the advertisement industry is very vulnerable to all these factors.

When things look uncertain you’re going to cut on marketing/ advertisement costs, or at least be careful about them. Personally, I feel uncertain about the future in the sense that I have no idea where things are heading, when the pandemic is “over” etc.
So in my view this is something global that is influencing our situation directly on top of all the other things mentioned. Doesn’t make it better but it gives me a rationale when sales are lower than expected etc.
There are still buyers who value our hard work, they are more careful and yes there are plenty of authors.

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Ahh, sorry, I could have made my point about this more clear. I don’t mean to say that modern production tools are inferior to older recording techniques. Far from it. I just mean that music-making is available to so many more people in these times, and it is possible to make well-sounding music with minimal training and musicianship because in many cases, the performance part is covered in the plugins. You don’t have to learn violin to put a violin in your track for instance. We all use these tools. It might not sound as good as a professional violinist for instance, but as the years go by, it is getting harder and harder to tell the difference.

I think it’s awesome that music is more and more accessible to anyone who is interested. When I started out, I went to college to study popular music performance and recording techniques with a dream of producing music for a living. But music was only recorded in studios at that point, and getting in the industry was like using a crowbar on a bank vault. I would have loved to have all the modern recording tools back then, as I enjoy them now. If I could give my 1995 self a copy of Kontakt, Serum and Cubase 10 on a capable machine, I probably wouldn’t have emerged from my bedroom until the millennium!

I don’t mean to emote towards other authors here, that’s not my position either. Each has their own strategy for success which are just as valid (probably more so) as mine. I’m just stating that accessibility to music production (and the promotion of the notion of home producing by the companies selling home-recording gear) has an effect on the ability to make a living in the stock music field, especially the mass markets like AJ & P5 where the author curation is limited and are one of the first ports of call for folks who have started recording their own music and are looking to try and sell some of it.

With such a large ocean of tracks, it is difficult to get your tracks to even reach customers’ ears, only at which point does the quality aspect become important. So in this case, I think online user trends and marketing knowledge could actually be more useful. I’m not sure if I am imagining it, but I think I read somewhere that Envato used to have a slogan, something like “You focus on the creative, we’ll take care of the rest”, but now I’m starting to look into effective methods of self-promoting. Not here though because any customers that you spend money on attracting will just go straight out the back door via the friendly, bright and chirpy banner before you’ve even managed to make them a cup of tea! My only uncertainty about this is how to divide my time, since learning web trends and marketing stuff is pretty time-consuming. I suppose I could divert some of the copious chunks of time I spend here writing these inane ramblings would probably be a good start!!
:smile:

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Yes this is true ! But as it was said on previous message, I think it’s a mostly approach from amateur, an more experienced guy will try to do compromise, or try to push the more “production skills” to bring wha is missing compare to some more realistic feeling or composition. I mean the limit are endless when it’s come to create easily something with your daw

I’m agree with that too !

Yes of course, it was more a general feeling I have reading the forum, not directly addressed to you of course ! :slight_smile:

I got it too, you know I started stock music with a limited knowledge in term of music production / mix, and I mainly learn and dig with stock. (We all start somewhere, and I guess most of more experienced guy here also started with stock, and had a learning process through years.)
I needed some challenge and motivation to push me to work harder on this way because the more “traditional way” after several years of experience was not for me.

I understand it’s frustrating for more experienced or older author, in my case I found it great to have such opportunity, no matter your deep skills. And finally this was worth and I don’t have the feeling to have steal some one. I just tried as much as I can, and I tend to believe some other guy are doing the same, even if most people will say it’s not the place to. But for me it was and it’s important to have some opened door, especially when it comes to musical industry ! Now door tend to be more and more closed so it will harder for other guys who will want to try !

Yes it is. It’s good thing you start to learn by your own this ! I personally do some marketing but in a more random way because it’s take time, and I’m more focus on my musical craft ! But I’m pretty sure some sales had happen to me thanks to some social media and marketing on Youtube or other platform.

Our music are less heard, but there’s also such place and opportunity where you can put your track to try to reach customer’s ears. AJ is no more what it was, but next to that, there are now many place (not only stock platform) where you can put your track and make it alive, and maybe this will lead to sale or great opportunity ! And we have no more the choice, being on other place is also a way to stay ready for the next story.(the bad one, if it’s happen)

I know I’m an “too much” optimistic person, but each thing you do, music you upload etc is a chance that can lead you to the next step and repetition make it more and more true on the long run !

About the future I’m in waiting about something, especially with one competitor which start to make a huge change, maybe for the worst, maybe for the good ! I’m trying to stay the most realistic, future is not seems bright, but I’m trying to find some “other ways” !

No, it was a good talk, kind of talk I like to see here on the forum :slight_smile: Thanks for your time !!!

To bring some optimism too, I made 4 sales in less than 24hours here, 2 were High priced and one was 1 million license :smiley:

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Which year?

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