For a while I’ve been pondering whether or not to change my exclusive status to un-exclusive and upload my tracks elsewhere. Has anyone else considered this?
I’ve though for a while that my tracks have been buried in the pile by Envato because I used to sell 30 tracks per week, then 25 etc until over the past year I’m now selling around 3-4 per week which is pretty ridiculous for a so-called Elite Author with almost 200 tracks. Myself, @Alumo, @AudioQuattro, and even @TimMcMorris have experience large sales declines but not sure if they’re as dramatic as mine. I can’t help but think that the top selling authors get a little time in the sun and then a Envato decide to refresh this group of 30 or 40 people who get the lions share of sales. I imagine in a couple of years that other authors will experience this same drop. For so many established authors to experience the same decline at the same time can’t be a coincidence.
Anyway, I think the time has come to test these tracks elsewhere. Does anyone have any opinions on this? Thanks. James
Selling tracks elsewhere… sure, but where? AJ is still the best selling platform out there. It’s very unlikely you’ll perform much better on another platform.
What you’re experiencing and describing is the fundamental flaw of the huge marketplace business model. Model that is not sustainable for us authors. The insane and out of control production results in devaluation of our music.
I remember when I first started out on here over five years ago, there already were authors complaining about not making as many sales as they used to, that something was broken and AJ was dying. Five years later AJ is still around and kicking, while these authors are long gone.
Truth is, apart from PZ, no author has been able to make a sustainable living out of selling RF music on markeplaces such as AJ. The whole model is the death of us.
I don’t know what the answer is really. Truth is that there are way more talented musicians out there capable of producing quality stock music than demand could ever keep up with.
I suppose AJ could have drawn up the drawbridge at some point and stopped accepting more than a handful of new authors, but that doesn’t seem particularly ‘fair’ either or good for the long term survival of the market place overall.
I’ve actually sold more music on [removed by mod] than here for about 4 years but that is showing signs of going down (but nowhere near as AJ). I’ve actually started to write royalty music for a few publishers that I got in touch with because that seems like a more sustainable way of having income as a composer. 2 years after doing it I’m starting to see results.
AJ will keep going but yeah, authors will come and go and I think Envato def has a say on who is found and who isn’t. Maybe they want to keep refreshing their top writers.
Oh, alright then! I thought [removed by mod] was way behind in terms of sales quantity. Good to know!
This is the only viable solution in my opinion. Although AJ is competing against those as well, so don’t know how long that’ll remain an option for us.
Makes perfect business sense to them, I can’t blame them. But it means that for us it’s just smoke and mirrors.
The way I see it, this is a solid marketplace and for us to be fully bootstrapped in a nice market with paying customers in 2018 is a huge achievement in itself; Last year, they said there are over 8 million members in this community and more than 35k people earn money with 96 of these being power elite authors who’ve made over 1M $$$.
In other words: I think it’s all pretty successful, and generally speaking, while sales could be better I’m quite happy to be here and close to earning elite status.
At the same time, I can understand you feel the time has come to move on. In particular, I think it’s fair to look for an environment where you can grow more but in my opinion, the grass is always greener on the other side and at some point even those places will face similar saturation.
There is no preference marketing being done here or i’ve not seen proof of it . On the contrary, what i see clearly is they don’t market items like in the old days anymore. It is now up to us apparently. They simply provide a platform to sell and a paying customer base.
In my opinion, you should stick around and invest in your own marketing. This is a future proof approach, which I shall be doing myself.
I think it is very rare occasion when being an exclusive would be worth it. The generic revenue difference is twice the amount of non-exclusive. If your exclusive sales are for example 100 / month, it is as good as 200 as non-exclusive. So the question is, do you think you might get the amount of sales difference from other places (in this example getting 100 sales from elsewhere), or do you think it is worth it to bet that you are better off in single place. For me the statistics have always been clear - i get way much more sales from being in different marketplaces instead of keeping all my eggs in one basket.
It all depends but I think being exclusive is only worth it after you get stable 300-400 sales a month, otherwise it should be simple to get the difference back by being in many places at the same time.
The main question is, does Envato do something special for exclusive portfolios or not. I have gotten the impression like the author of this thread states that being exclusive doesn’t give you any meaningful privileges other than the revenue doubling.
I mean, you should be where potential customers generally hang out. A blog post about a certain genre of music, a facebook group discussing your type of music, a tweet about music, commenting a youtube song, exposure on soundcloud, a music discussion on reddit. Be part of the discussion.
Now, I don’t mean follow this advice literally but you get the idea. You need to socialize. This is the best form of marketing and is not spammy but does take away a lot of time.
While PZ is the most visible and longest-reigning top seller, and while there have been other top sellers who have seemingly disappeared, there are plenty of authors making a solid monthly salary, year in and year out. A select few, true, but they are definitely out there.
You may be right. I don’t know them though. While I can believe a select few have been able to maintain a satisfactory income for years, I’m pretty sure this does not reflect what the vast majority of us have experienced.
Has anyone heard of a certain “childrens building toy” company that seems to be offering unlimited downloads and use at a ridiculous rate? The music kinda sucks on quick glance but man is it cheap and i’m sure a lot of people care more about that. Do you think that could be contributing to an overall downward trend on some of the more traditional sites?
Please remember to not discuss competitor websites or I’ll lock down the thread. The initial post is about being or not exclusive on Envato Market. Keep the discussion on topic, please.
That’s all part of the discussion. Nobody has used names. It’s all relevant chat to authors who are trying to make a living and it’s a little ridiculous that Envato dont even want people to drop a hint at which other website they could be referring to.
Yeah I agree. If websites price themselves insanely low then its no good for anyone. Careful what you say. This controversial thread is about to be shut down by Big Brother
