You’re right, I guess
My somewhat hypothetical point was that these “typical PF buyers” would never turn to search anyway, but only buy from PF. With current prices they could maybe buy 4-5 tracks on a typical shopping spree, but when prices are higher they may decide to only get 1 or 2. Question is, how much higher prices could get before they start to care. Bottom line still, you can’t really force people (who have the mindset that “any decent track will do”) to do something that feels cumbersome to them (search, listen, and make an individual decision), when there’s a quicker alternative in front of them.
These customers will not care much about the “distribution of exposure between authors” - it’s up to the marketplace (Envato) to create a structure where these benefits are not distributed in an arbitrary (or worse, manipulable) way, or at least mitigate the feedback-loop effect of it all.
My own suggestions to downplay this sales-looping effect was posted here a while ago.
Well yeah, I agree about the “life changing” bit, but the problem is that it motivates a behaviour that really neither the authors, the buyers nor Envato stand up for. We can all see that it generally just leads to authors copy-pasting hit tracks and going nuts on titles and descriptions for pure SEO reasons.
Authors - ideally they want to be creative and “do their own thing”, and have a fair share of exposure
Buyers - they don’t want to sift through 1000’s of nearly-identical tracks
Envato - they want authors and buyers to be happy, and a high conversion rate for every approved item
Since nothing seems to be changing about the PF and search in the immediate future, and the rewards to reap are so high, even I, who have had most or all my sales coming from niche ventures, am starting to lean into this behaviour. Even if I don’t “have to”, I’m actually now in the plans to make a crap load of mainstream corporate tracks and throw them at the wall with all my SEO titling might to see if some of them may eventually stick. Sure, I’ve had a nice run over the years with some of my “random” tracks, kids music, sound packs and whatnot, I’ve sold about 300+ licences each month for a couple of years, but I fail to see how using that strategy I’ll ever get into the cream of having multiple tracks selling 20+ each per week, week after week, if I don’t hit that Popular Files page.
I’ve done some comparison with the authors who do, and the numbers are simply crushing. The “Top Authors” list says it all, really. These are authors who sell 700+ a month by means of having just a couple of bestsellers on PF. I’ve run through some portfolios and with few exceptions they upload at a much slower rate than I do. Assuming boldIy that I’ll be able to produce these kinds of tracks at a similar or higher level of quality within less than a year of commitment, I can probably churn out 10-20 tracks a month. I’ll have about 150 Corporate Inspirational Motivational Background tracks for sale after the first year, and even if just two or three of those hit high I’ll be in the green. Sad!
Envato, for whatever reason (I’m sure it’s complicated), is apparently rather stubborn to keep this “popularity convergence” infrastructure in place, and while I’ve always been advocating diversity and quality, I’ve come to feel it’s actually more exhausting (not to mention humiliating) to “fight the numbers” than to simply “face the music” and meet the top seller competition head on. Now, I don’t have any illusions, it won’t be an easy task for sure, but the haunting potential reward of having a bunch of tracks enjoying exposure completely out of proportion is simply stealing the show.
Basically, after three years and 500 items of going in the other direction, I’m now succumbing to a failed exposure system and forcing myself to be a part of the problem. However, If the situation reverses, so will I.
Meanwhile, see you in the PF