fair enough, and i don’t want to single any competitive market place out, really. Can we just talk the overall trend of where things seem to be heading with stock music in general and some other generic marketplaces that seem to be de-valuing things to the point of no return? I’m certainly not advocating for any of these marketplaces…
Yes, definitely.
No. Just keep the discussion on topic, we are not here to discuss about other marketplaces.
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ok well i think the overall trend of where things are heading with stock music is down (much like other music) and i don’t know how we can talk about the original question, since the whole point/question was whether or not to stay exclusive with AJ which in itself implies that there are other market places out there… not that we are talking about them specifically…
edit: well I guess we kinda were implying specific other marketplaces… it is tough to have a conversation about staying exclusive with AJ without mentioning the existence of other marketplaces is what I’m trying to get at here 
You might consider “testing the waters” by deleting one or more older and/or lower selling tracks and seeing how they fare elsewhere.
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I’m not elite author and my portfolio is small (around 50 tracks) and also an non-exclusive here. My opinion is that we produce a product and all the marketplaces are like super markets! Do you know any product that is famous but you can find it just only in one super market…?
I placed my products to 12 super markets out there, and to be honest my 70 sales here are more than my 30 sales in ALL other places. But I’ve got two film placements from another market and paid the money that I will earn here when I reach 2000 sales! (One of these tracks got rejected here!!!)
As for those elite authors that became millionaires here, we have an expression in Greece: “Only the lucky ones saw Christ”
Push your luck…
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Do you mean “pool, waterhole, lake, tarn, reservoir, slough or lagoon” 110-((20/2)10)-(40x3/4)+25) ???
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Hmm… probably… or maybe “Puddle 4.99” ? 
Friends! Not panic. Believe in Envato. there is no sense to go to other sites.
Obviously he’s taking about Agalychnis callidryas, the red-eyed tree frog, common in Central America.
And “4+1” can only mean a car with a visible spare tire in the back. So, a Jeep.
“Tree Jeep” will, unless you hate good movies, inevitably make you think of Jurassic Park.
Case closed. 
EDIT: I just had to correct my own ignorance. Only the park staff drove Jeeps, and the car stuck in the tree was a 1992 Ford Explorer XLT. Really sorry about that. 
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Ah!.. Now that explains everything abt the mystery of the frog’s habitat!
Thanks a lot Sir Sherlock (Flumen) Holmes! 
I think it’s time to allow us to set our own prices, regardless of track length. and in regards to sales declines from authors who once were successful, that does not surprise me at all. Nothing lasts forever. You can try to write a hit track every week to stay on top of the charts, but there are 2000 others trying to do the same. When you stop releasing, as several have, you may fall down the charts, and off the charts. Again, nothing lasts forever. Also, do you really think that customers will just continue to buy the same “popular” tunes indefinitely? Eventually they wear out and new hits replace them. But indeed, it does feel like Envato has some control over those charts in terms of the tracks that get presented in search with higher frequency.
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I think it’s fair to say they probably do? I know some people talk about certain conspiracies around here (cough @Marbury-Media cough ) and I don’t think it’s quite that bad but as far as placing known bestsellers or items with good conversion rates at prominent positions in the results and on the site, that’s just smart marketing and business in general.
I tend to agree about conversion strategies but I still feel like price is not being used as a communication tool on this site. All tracks are not created equally and all artists are not equal. The problem is that price is equal here. (Higher) prices can provide more colorful and interesting forms of quality communication to buyers.
Envato’s top management should read this article:
https://chiefexecutive.net/commoditization-is-todays-threat-to-your-business/
Ultimately “sameness” is a failed business model.
totally agree with this.
It’s a matter of approach. If the deversifying starts, there’s no end to it. Who decides what’s better quality? And if the price is higher, the lower priced items seem inferior immediately. Price related to lenght seems fairer to all. If it’s unification (in price) people will have to be able to filter the better pieces. Or the author should do Some marketing to convince buyers. Maybe it’s time for niches with more exclusive offerings. And then there’s the search engine that makes it even more complex…
So Hummingbird…are we all really egalitarian commodities? Every track? Every Artist? It’s completely absurd to base price on length. Here is why? Lets suppose someone decides to hire 5 to 7 musicians, really high quality performers or singers to create a track. Potentially spending (investing) $1000 to produce the track on singers and musicians, don’t you think that it would be a good idea for that artist to price the track at $100, $200, $300 if they so wished to? You see, this market encourages nothing other than mass produced midi tracks. And many who do use live guitars, vocals, etc… do gain an edge because the quality is better. Those authors should be given the chance to raise their price to communicate something (of greater value and quality) about the work. So we can agree to disagree on this issue. “Commoditizing” art is ridiculous.
I agree in some degree, but this is just the sort of business/game you’re in. If an artist has a main instrument and even acoustic sound, most people notice the difference, contiously or uncontiously. To stay on topic: exclusivity should be represented by the sound, not the way the pieces are offered in a business sence.
“exclusivity should be represented by the sound, not the way the pieces are offered in a business sence.”
Can you please explain that point a bit better? I really can not understand what you are writing here. Sorry!
In regards to “Topic”, and staying “on topic” It all ties together. Decisions about where and why to sell your works are price sensitive. Artists should be able to decide their own worth. I still feel like Envato’s revenue would increase if we could use our own discretion to raise our prices, not lower them.
I don’t believe they directly control how individual tracks are placed, BUT, they do control the search engine, and particular algorithms of course result in certain tracks showing up on page one.
It’s simply a combination of number of sales and approval date. A chosen list of special tags will yield a “Best match” if they’re anywhere in the title, while all the rest of the possible words need to be an exact match (or synonyms).
That means a track with 10,000 sales that was approved in 2017 can put the whole dictionary in the title and show up first for any of the words in the special list. It will, however, be ranked low for words not in the special list, even if they are in the title.
A track with 4,630 sales approved in 2017 will rank higher than a track with 10,916+ sales approved in 2016 for a “corporate” search, if both have that word somewhere in the title.
This also means it’s pointless, and actually bad for sales, to put a keyword list as the title unless your track has thousands of sales, or hundreds in a very short time (month or so).
Of course, this gives power (some would say unfair power) to composers who happen to have tracks with thousands of sales. The “Best match” results for the chosen keywords will simply stay roughly the same for very long periods of time, since very few tracks can get thousands of sales and replace them.
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The topic is whether to go unexclusive. So, to sell more pieces and get lesser fees per item?
In my point of view, the quality of the music should display the exclusivity. It are two different things. The quality and the way its marketed. Going non-exclusive is a way to go, but it has nothing to do with quality, on the contrary (I know I’m polarising now but) it’s selling out!