Don’t shoot me down but this is a thought bubble I had at 3am this morning and just want to put it out there.
There is a lot of talk around how the best sellers consistently make the vast majority of sales. And rightly so as the music is mostly of a high standard (though there is some out there that you would have to question how or why it got there . AJ has addressed this at some level with featured artists/tracks etc but I am getting tired of the usual 1-5 sales of a track and then…nothing. It does kind of take the wind out of my sails. To give other tracks some much needed exposure how about periodically dropping best sellers from the search eg one day a week or one week a month?
Imagine that you suddenly got that top selling track after all your hard work and less successful attempts. ‘I’ve finally arrived’ you think to yourself. Then Envato nixes 10% or more of your earnings when they turn it off one day a week.
Imagine the buyer that bookmarks that perfect track for his urgent project, then comes back a few hours later to find it’s not there anymore.
And imagine the perceived quality drop across the site if all the most popular items are just turned off…
But your motivation is absolutely correct. Envato markets are a success amplifier. I’ve been harping on for ages about positive ways to bring quality material that may not have sold so well (or is by a newer author) to the attention of buyers.
As means of balancing out the natural success bias, I’ve mentioned Envato showreels, curated collections of items on the front page, high profile guest curators, promotion of niche categories our outlandish ideas … all of which provide excellent marketing opportunities, a means to promote and encourage high quality and innovation. This is all done without reference to the volume of sales.
As we all know if the Beatles were to magically reform and upload a track to Audiojungle tomorrow, it probably would only get a handful of sales.
I’ve dropped from the weekly top sellers for the first time in 3+ years, and it does not feel good. My item was so pirated and I haven’t taken care of it for months so it reached this point in its declice. I submitetd DMCAs for about 250 links, let’s see what happens. I don’t think the top sellers should be artifically nudged, there is an own natural ecosystem that moves their order by the sales. And the “club” can definitely be breached by newcomers, even if it’s hard.
Yeah, not too keen on the idea. Best sellers are best sellers for a reason, and they deserve to be where they are. Everyone has to start somewhere and if and when I become a top seller then happy days! At that point, I don’t want anybody disabling me periodically.
There’s always the trending items feature, for people who aren’t yet best sellers but are producing popular items.
Best sellers are bestsellers for many reasons. They are generally more likely to be high quality and generally deserve their success. But we can’t deny the luck / good-timing / good-naming / fits-the-marketplace-algorithm / already-successful-author effect.
The problem is that there are also many very deserving tracks (often by highly talented, highly successful freelancers) that never see the light of day. They’re just not visible on the marketplaces. They absolutely sink without trace. This is primarily because of the way that Envato markets (and human beings) work. To maintain quality and innovation, it’s really important that these people are given more of a chance than they currently have. I know first hand that Envato is losing some really talented people.
So any ways that Envato can balance this out are important. Trending is a help, because it looks at short term sales rather than long-term cumulative… but it still works purely on sales. Trending is a short-term success amplifier.
What I’m talking about is maybe more akin to the A+R guys at a record label, or the talent scout at a production company.
indeed, i do not being in the same category as u do , but honestly , for me, if i understand your motivation (which is good), i also tend to believe that , even if that was technically possible , i think that this is not really fair either … . the fact of the matter is that elite authors are there because they worked hard and sold hard and i am sure that envato would not do that only for that. After that, i think that no matter what u do , there will be discrepancies between people and elite authors will always be one step ahead as they are also the ones with good skills at least but also good networks and good promoting habits and skills, so that’s how they dominate the marketplace
i do agree with what u said in general way that’s completely true … however , u can find some isolated exceptions and a few of them which are not so good but are high sellers for reasons that are sometimes hard to explain , but probably mainly because they are good at self promoting and promoting their items and using networks
. AJ has addressed this at some level with featured artists/tracks etc but I am getting tired of the usual 1-5 sales of a track and then…nothing. It does kind of take the wind out of my sails. To give other tracks some much needed exposure how about periodically dropping best sellers from the search eg one day a week or one week a month?