My Motivation is Dying Fast!

Envato Authors Author Hangout
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Ever since the Search Engine changes a few months back my AJ experience has not recovered. Sales have dropped off over 60%.

My last 5 releases have a combined 2 sales since Dec 25th, 2015. With 2 more new tracks in the queue that look to be somewhere near a month before possible approval/release I sat down at the piano today to write something new and all I kept asking myself was…WHY?

I guess I’m just wondering if I’m the only one experiencing this low point in their AJ career. Is it just me?

Thanks for letting me vent,

Paul

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Hey man, definitely feel your pain. I’m not currently in a career halt as you are, but I sure was last year, during the summer months.

The one thing that got me back on my feet was to be brutally honest with myself. I would pour countless hours into AJ tracks, with no results. Instead of blaming anything other than myself, I took a good hard look at what I was creating.

Sure, the tracks were pretty good, and I can see it being suitable for a video project, or what have you. But having ‘OK’ tracks just wasn’t cutting it. The problem is, this field of work is getting more and more competitive. In order to make it, you have to get really good at your craft. And once you’ve made it to the top, you realize that the bar has been raised even higher. And you start climbing again. Take a step back, look at the competition, ask yourself if you’re producing at that level. Find out what makes them different. (HINT: It’s probably NOT a piece of gear) Learn those skill sets, then put them to action. Its a constant education and re-education mindset. This also applies to other non-music related aspects of this field (external marketing, SEO, etc.)

This field is always changing. If you can’t adapt, then you’ll get left behind. That mindset has been helping me in my attempt to make this a sustainable career. I’m not there yet, but I’m still climbing!

Hope that helps! Stay strong!

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Thank you MLM,

I definitely need to revaluate what I’m submitting and where it ranks on the quality scale. One could surmise that just because something is good enough to get approved here, doesn’t mean it’s going to sell. Maybe I’ve made that mistake far too often.

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Hi @MusicBoxStudios! I will always encourage and motivate anyone to continue when they’re in a situation like this. Why give up if you’ve come so far? Everyone always has two options: Sit back and wait for things to happen, or work hard and be in control of what happens next. Which one do you want to do?

Succeeding on AudioJungle (much like anything in life) requires a commitment so authors should always ask themselves how committed they are, or how committed they want to be, to not only continue, but to be successful.

To cut to the chase though and to answer your ultimate question, I don’t think it’s fair to blame your current success on the search engine. Here’s what’s really going on:

###You’ve released 4 tracks in the past 5 months.

I can’t put it any more bluntly than that. So every time a customer comes to find music for their project, the probability of someone purchasing tracks you made in 2016 are 4 out of almost 400,000, such is the size of the AJ library now.

I would ask yourself, is this putting your best foot forward? Is this the best way for you to compete with others? Simultaneously, are you putting all your eggs in one basket? If AudioJungle is the only way you are promoting your music, you’re probably doing it wrong (or at least, inefficiently). Authors are now thinking outside the box and working on new and better ways to drive traffic to their content on AudioJungle.

Long gone are the days of releasing a couple of high quality tracks here and there and expecting to earn a living off of it. Competition is now huge. Thousands upon thousands of new items every single week and almost 400,000 tracks in the library every time a customer comes to find the right track.

I think successful authors in the “new world” are succeeding because they’re finding the right balance between quality and quantity. So on one end of the scale, you’ve got an author (for example) who has an amazing track, and it’s selling, and it’s super high quality, but it’s only one track. And on the other end of the scale, some authors are churning out a ton of “average” items on a regular basis. I think the sweet spot right now is somewhere in the middle:

###Aim for original, high quality content, but produce and submit it on a regular basis. Find the balance that works right for you and discover how much you are willing or able to commit to.

I hope this is some honest and useful food for thought, and good luck whatever you decide. :thumbsup:

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Agree with your every word here. It’s all about balance of quality and constant visibility. I would add originality to this equation. As i found, buyers also prefer some personal “spice” and “touch” of your music.

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No MusicBoxStudio, you are not alone…Im also suffering very big cutoff in sales…More then 60% + USA taxes…I hope maybe this will comfort you to know that you are not the only one, but be asured that if you have constant at least two tracks a week, you will get back…This is already checked and working…I didint uploaded for THREE MONTHS and i fall down…Every time i stop uploading for a while, i start to feel it…
That cause pain, i know…Im also losing inspiration when i sit to make a new composition…But somehow, i get up and belive…There are always ups and downs and now we are both in.
Sit, start to belive and work hard, start to relase more tracks and things will start to change…I totaly agree with @scottwills, competition is huge and you have to be “in there” .Let’s get to the top :slight_smile:

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I feel your pain and have been there. It really starts to feel like “why am I putting myself through this” and every day grinding gets real old real quick. Right now you got 66 tracks in your library, so keep pushing and as long as you’ve got the creative juices flowing make good music. On the other hand if the grind has put you in a block then focus on marketing and promoting the music you do have. Just switch gears for a little bit and see if that stimulates some sales and gets you feeling better.

There is no reason to just add some music here and then let the search engine drive traffic, you can control some of that and drive your own traffic to your tracks. Here is the truth, there is no one that cares more about your own success then you. So fight for it, drive some traffic, market your music, and hopefully something will break loose. This is a weird business because it’s bipolar in a lot of ways. Sometimes you are rocking sales, sometimes you can’t catch a break. Either way, you could wake up tomorrow and something could have happened that totally changes your life. Music is funny like that, you just never know.

I think everyone has felt the way your feeling at some point or another, you just have to push through it and try to figure out a new game plan going forward. This business is constantly changing which means you have to keep changing as well. Hope that helps, and good luck!

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Thank you for the detailed response Scott. Please don’t misinterpret my frustration to mean I’m giving up. I’m not.

At the same time my motivation is waning. While I may not be releasing a track or two a week like some others, I’ve tried to slow down and put more time into each release versus just throwing up a bunch of mediocre work. That entails spending more time per track.

Where do you think the balance point lies? 2 a month? 4 a month? More? I’m just not sure.

I agree with 90% of what you’ve written and will try to institute some of your suggestions. I do however strongly disagree about the search engine. The day the changes went into effect my sales dropped off literally overnight and are still beyond 60% lower than they were before. What else would explain such a dramatic change so quickly if not that?

Thank you for engaging this conversation Sir.

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I’m curious to hear the official response to this… It’s kinda sad that an upload a month is now scoffed at and authors are encouraged to flood the market in order to jostle for position. I’m not having a jab at Scots advice which is spot on in terms how how to achieve success here. Its just that the chance of success is well, very small.

The new search engine is working well for me so I can’t complain. That said I still dream big of one day being on that leader board. I think I’ll rub Lumen’s avatar for luck :wink:

Sorry if that was a little bleak… Now chin up son and get back to your Piano!

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Hi there, taking a quick glance at your portfolio you seem to be competing in the most popular genres. That’s harder than ever now on AJ and even though the search engine works differently from time to time it doesn’t make a lot of sense to dwell too much on that. New day, new track… and maybe just try a less crowded niche?

For inspiration, what always gives me a kick is to pick up a new instrument, learn a new style or just listen to some great music. If you’re stuck on “Why?”, maybe try “How?” instead. How is the best music made? How can you make it even better? How can you work harder and faster and still enjoy it more?

Whenever I have a track approved that never sells, at least I want to feel I have learned something from it. If I only copied ideas and methods from tracks I’ve made earlier, then yes it’s basically a waste of time. No buyers will thank me for just adding another track on the pile. When they do thank me, it’s when they’re happily surprised how well the music suited their project. I try to remember that I’m not the one “creating the sales”, the customer is. When I sit down and hit the record button, I don’t sell, I make music.

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Hello,

I feel your pain. I don’t understand the search engine either. I had no sales for over a week and then three sales yesterday. It can’t just be regularity of upload. I’m sorry. It can’t. I too should upload more tracks, but, I have noticed new tracks don’t seem to get sales old ones do!!! In fact yesterday a track I hadn’t sold for about four years made a sale.

I think making it easier for buyers to review tracks or removing it completely would help. It favours many elite authors. After all, years back before I started many buyers would review their purchase, for AJ this doesn’t happen much anymore.

I get it, Envato needs to make money, and elite authors are regular money, but tastes change and competition in the marketplace increases. Support all authors I say! Be open and honest about how you hand out featured file as well.

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Only to understand the damage that makes the new system search simply type the word “ambient” in the search box (as suggested in grey letters). The same song came out for months and that’s just unfair (really far away from any kind of “kind randomness/sense of comunity/bread for everybody”).

Anyway MusicBoxStudios your music is awesome and a very active member at the jungle, it is only a matter of job and new tracks that you can recover from your last descents.

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As someone who is also experiencing a massive - almost lethal - drop in sales (and the drop in motivation that goes along with it), I totally sympathize. And curiously, the more I upload lately, the less I end up selling.

So while I can offer absolutely no advice as to how to increase your sales, there are a few things you can try to get the juices flowing on the creativity side. Even though these suggestions might seem simultaneously similar and contradictory, they sometimes - not always - work for me.

  1. Get out of your comfort zone. Try producing a track or tracks in a style in which you’re not particularly proficient…or even familiar.

  2. Then do the opposite: Produce and upload some tracks in whatever style you personally most enjoy, even if they have a slim chance of significant sales. You could be surprised.

  3. Similar to #2: Try to remember whatever it was you enjoyed about music production BEFORE you discovered Audiojungle. Tap into THAT energy. Very few of us, I believe, ever “aspired” to a career in Online Royalty Free Stock Music (especially since the market segment hasn’t even been around for much more than a decade or so.)

  4. Crank out 4 or 5 tracks in a week. Don’t sweat the details. Just start it, finish it, and upload. Give yourself a time limit. Worst case scenario, it gets rejected. Again, you may be surprised. My best seller took far less time than most of my tracks, and coincidentally came from a period of “speed production.”

Hope some of this helps…Good luck! :slight_smile:

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You are not alone with your frustration, i just have another reason: since 2-3 month they rejected all my tracks in every genre (rock, corporate, children, atmosphere, cinematic, atmosphere). That kills motivation, too. :confused:

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Not to talk about massive rejections. My data for 2016 is 3 accepted versus 4 HR. It’s a hard pain but let’s assume as they raised the bar and only really commecial viability items are to be accepted so let’s feel challengued for that :slight_smile:

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I’m between 18 and 25 hard rejected tracks and 1 accepted loop in the last two month. Im the winner of HR battle :stuck_out_tongue:

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18/25 HR for better!, You are showing strengness and a great determination wich is the main fuel to run overhere. Soon or later you will get to the point to have almost all your items accepted. It is all question of learning what is wrong and mistakes… :slight_smile:

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I do not agree with the first point. We have crazy competition here, if you always write folk you just can’t make good dubstep. I think that most important is to analyze your past sales, analyze who is your customer etc. MusicBox, you are very talented guy, but maybe you just doing something wrong. One of your most selling tracks on first page of your portfolio is blues, but you don’t write more blues. So you don’t have repeat customer. Find some projects on youtube with your music. What is it about? Which tags does this video have? Make new track in similar genre and use these tags. Think like your customer. After some time this customer will come back to you. Also, i think it’s very important to understand who you are as musucian and brand. People will always buy dance track from author whose page looks like dance club and they will never buy dubstep tracks from authors whose page looks like texas saloon. Your page looks like sushi bar, but you make epic music. I’m not successful author yet, i have a lot of my own mistakes, but this strategy works for so many people! And sorry for my bad english!

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Most of my sales was from Austin,TX. And these was western,slide guitar tracks. So i made 2 more acoustic slide tracks and than i uploaded them in pack. It was my best month ever! Just because I understood who is my customer, what does he like, where does he live and what colour of hat does he wear :slight_smile:

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My suggestions are only meant to get his creativity flowing again. Increasing sales is a completely different issue, about which I said I could offer absolutely no advice (since my own sales are currently essentially comatose.)