Hard times arrived

Envato Authors Author Hangout
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Hi dear authors and friends

I’ve met alot of you on this 3 year journey in royalty free music…I’ve met alot of great authors and alot of good people who helped me alot during learning and improving myself in this business.I was doing really great in the past…
But what starts to happen is that im currently out of inspiration, motivation…Everything and that small piece of luck i had with me just left me…My sales are incredibly bad, without any explanation…I was doing very good for my standards.I tryed marketing and even invested in some traffic but no result…I just can’t belive that things can fall into the oblivion. No traffic on items, not even on new items…Just incredibly bad and that is really killing every hope in me.What changed?But really what have changed THAT dramaticaly to lose almost 80% of sales every month?Even with 80+ items in portfolio, traffic is very bad.The only sales i get is USA where i get 30% BRUTO cut.
What is happening to this marketplace? I just asked alot of questions because im a bit paranoid, my life is almost depending on this marketplace and there is just apsolutely no hopes and changes no matter how much effort i put into work…Can’t even mention that im barelly getting 20 sales each month…
The thing that motivated me alot are the guys from popular files list and their succes really gave me alot of power but not anymore because it’s more then IMPOSSIBLE to put your item in the list.
Also im a bit mad on Envato (maybe im not right about this) that gives featured files to 2-3 months old authors with totaly similar items as other authors…Im feeling a bit betrayed because there are more authors who are pretty LONG LONG time here and diserve their chanse in “hall of featured files”…But it’s Envato and their marketplace but bear in mind that it’s a bit disrespectfull to old authors and im a bit “feel like that” .
Every advice is welcome, how to overcome this hard situation…Not only about sales, it’s about finding a solution to stay focused and motivated…Because currently im totaly out of it and slowly falling into depression.
Maybe im not supoused to write this but i don’t consider this as “whining” , im just sharing my expiriance and what i feel with this community…Or anything that left of it…
Sorry for bad english, not my native :slight_smile:

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Easier said than done, but I would try to not become dependent of the income from AJ. It creates a pressure to earn money that takes out the fun of making music. No fun, no inspiration or motivation.
I would personally never rely on an income from AJ no matter how much I’d sell here, because those sales can disappear over night.
If you haven’t already, try to spread your music over as many marketplaces as possible. Either by changing to non-exclusive on AJ or making new music to other markets. Theres lots of libraries that doesn’t punish you for being non-exclusive.
But my number one priority would be to make myself non-dependent of the income from music production. But I know thats not always an option, depending on where you live and your qualifications and so on.
I wish you the best of luck!

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Yes, you are totaly right about that…I rely too much on AJ marketplace…But back in the days when i started (November 2014) it was like a paradise to me…Too many good guys willing to help, community was perfect, marketplace was like a dream come true, first item goes trending and hiting 14 sales in one week…It was truly fascinating how i started my expiriance here…I was going so good and when i see what im now, i just can’t belive…And yes, you are totaly right…Things can change over night…The guys from popular files list or those who gets featured file i belive…To me, not…This became a nightmare and im going to change myself into non-exclusive…Too bad i never belived this is going to happen.

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100% Agree.

We wrote this in our last income report:

"These days, while our little business faces the most difficult moments, I’m realizing all the mistakes we made since we started.

First of all, and against what most people think, it isn’t always a good idea to start a business on your passion. Because then, you can easily reach the point where you burn out, and then your passion becomes threatened and fades out.

Maybe that is not what is happening to my partner or maybe it is, time will tell, but what is sure is that our only passion while starting a business should be please our customers and give them a truly amazing experience.

Second, if you want to make something big, it isn’t always a good idea to start a business inside another bigger business, like we did with Audiojungle. They’re providing us with some customers, yes, but not enough -at least yet- to compensate all the hard work that we’re putting into it. We’re basically working for them and letting them have all the important information about our customers, like their emails, for example. That is not a good thing.

Third, if you’re making something new, please make something truly new, not a ‘kind-of-similar-thing-but-a-little different’. There are thousand of authors registered on Audiojungle making very similar music every day so there’s no WOW experience for the customers, just ‘different-but-very-similar’ songs. Very few of these customers are going to spread the word of mouth about our product, simply because we’re a little tiny part of something much bigger, that is Envato."

So yes, with very hard work during a long period of time (maybe years) and a bit of luck you can reach the popular files list and earn a living here but, until then, I would take the advice from @Hyperprod and search for other external sources of income to be independent of the ups and downs in this marketplace.

We must remember that we are not in control of anything here. If Envato wants to change terms, change the search engine, create a new thing called Elements or shut down the entire marketplace you have no word or vote there.

I’m seeing it lately, last year this forum is being full of complaints about the same topic… authors should realize that creating items for Envato is not the proper way of starting a business because you’re relying on a third party for EVERYTHING.

Sometimes is hard to face reality but, this said, you have many options @Mega-Music:

  1. Search for a regular job and dedicate free time and weekends to create music and upload it to Audiojungle. Yes, can be a painful one, but not as painful as seeing how you’re losing all your sales month by month and your bank account diminishes.

  2. Go non-exclusive and try to sell in other marketplaces too (I’m not sure how that would work).

  3. Do some Freelancing aside from making music.

  4. Learn new skills (marketing online, SEO, Wordpress, Youtube…) and try to bring your own traffic to your music, without having to rely on the AJ views.

Or even combine some of them…

I understand your situation, what you feel right now is the impotency of seeing how, little by little, you cannot control this situation anymore. But the business world is like this, it is continually evolving over time and you have to accept that reality, learn new skills constantly and learn about how business works too.

Nowadays is not like before, very few people can come here knowing only about music and nothing else and make a good living out of it.

Be brave and take new and unknown steps! You’re going to learn from every situation :slight_smile:

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Very nice and detailed explanation @SnailMusic
I was reading some of your blog posts and income reports and i saw it’s not only about upload music here.I made a misstake by thinking that i can make myself a proper earnings from a job that i know the best - creating music…But yes, sometimes isn’t so easy…It was easier for me that i never had so good sales, i could easier accept the situation im into now…And again, very bad thing i did is that i put all eggs into one basket…I will try to recover from this situation, finding a regular job here is almost impossible, Serbia is kind of wierd that you have to buy your place to work or be in a political party get a job…So thats why i put myself alot into this…I hope i will learn alot from this…Thank you very much for support and answer :slight_smile:

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I have to add that I’m exclusive on AJ myself, but I produce other music for other marketplaces. I’ve decided to stay exclusive with my music on AJ because it’s by far the best selling place for me. But eventually its the sum of the income from all markets that matter.

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@Mega-Music Yes! You have the right mindset… if it’s difficult to find a regular job, I’m sure you can find complementary income through freelancing on the Internet.

And keep learning new skills! Nowadays you can learn everything for free on Edx.org, Coursera.org or Lynda.com and read books about business, I recommend you “The millionaire fastlane” from MJ de Marco.

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Thank you for those valuable sources of knowledge i’ll browse :slight_smile: