Releasing songs to sell one at a time?

Don't have an answer to your question having no experience in that area, but from hearing your fretboard skills I should think you are also very much qualified to engage in some session shredding for cash...it's certainly something I would consider doing if I had the technique. Are there any opportunities in that direction at your location?

Hi, sharke and thanks for the fine compliment. I think there definitely could be some session work in my future due to my contacts but I need to kind of build up some showcase material to get to that point which is also part of why I want to get some tunes released sooner than later. Unfortunately anything I do as far as session work would have to be done here at home because I'm just too messed up to travel. That's why I've been busting my hump trying to figure out all this production stuff but simple tracking to send off somewhere shouldn't be a problem.
 
I kind of want to attack this from as many fronts as possible and building up a catalog that can just sit there for people to buy would really be cool. If I had even a small steady flow of cash coming in that I basically don't have to do anything for (after producing it of course) then great. Like seriously even twenty to thirty bucks a month would help me out big time (pathetic I know but that's my current reality) and then I can keep writing or try other stuff.
 
So yeah... I'm assuming I could do singles and I'm pretty sure the stuff I've read on the various sites say they do allow that. Just not sure if it would actually DO anything for me. IDK... I'm a dinosaur as far as this stuff goes. The only two real releases I've done were full productions printed to CDs and released through labels. This is all weird and freaky to me. :-/

I hesitate to state an opinion here because I'm not speaking from a position of success and/or experience.  I could be completely 100% dead wrong here.  Read at your own peril...
 
One of the difficulties in selling singles is the public's perception of value.  With so many individual songs selling for $.99, your retail price is limited.  The sheer volume of material on the market is another factor.  It can be difficult to find your audience (or for them to find your music).  I know that sounds depressing, but it's the way things are at the moment.  In many ways, established artists are struggling right now to market their material.  The days when the label would bankroll your career and let you go off and focus exclusively on the music have passed into myth.  
 
In my extremely uninformed and extraordinarily insignificant opinion, it's important to reset expectations.  It might be a good idea to track down some stats on indie artist download sales to help you set realistic sales goals.  I'm not talking about the one or two people who make it big and skew the numbers.  I'm talking about the typical musicians.  As I see it, there are two ways you can proceed.  Either spend your time making music and spend very little time/money marketing until you've built up a wealth of material or spend an inordinate amount of time/money marketing each and every song.  If it were me (and it's not), I would choose to spend my time creating content and worry about selling later.  Whether you market the songs as individual downloads or as an album, you still need the material first.  I suggest focusing on that without worrying about how you'll market it or how it sounds compared to your other songs.  
 
It seems to me that the album format is a product of the distribution medium (record album/CD) rather than something of inherent value.  If the medium has changed to single downloads, the album is of less importance.  As a consumer, I still prefer to buy an album instead of singles because of the perceived value.  My family, on the other hand, frequently buy single songs because they're not interested in buying the rest of the artist's portfolio.  Go figure.
 
How's that for not really answering your question?

It's all good, Bubba and your perspective is appreciated. To me I'm not looking to be some big name artist or known entity... kind of the opposite actually. I've already gone that route and got all the attention and "success" that comes with that life but without any of the darned money. I was actually making some decent cash at gigs near the end but I was already pretty chewed up at that point and frankly gigging became really exhausting and actually very bad for my health. I kind of shy away from the limelight now and will probably even employ many nom de plumes as I do this.
 
I also have yet another reason for getting some stuff out there and that's to have something to point to when I start finally finishing up my instructional method. Hard to sell people on guitar lessons/material when they don't know whether you can actually play or not. lol
 
I also want to eventually do some actual writing... like an author which IIRC is something you do.
 
Basically I'm a spazz who has become mostly useless for any other type of normal work so unless I want to rot away the rest of my life in extreme poverty then I gotta figure out ways to get a little cash flowing in from things I can do at home. Like I said... anything helps at this point.
 
This thread was inspired by me making my pathetic grocery list for the month and realizing that it's time I start actually putting some of these plans into motion. Gatdanged sick of this two bit scrounger lifestyle.

Beepster
Basically I'm a spazz who has become mostly useless for any other type of normal work so unless I want to rot away the rest of my life in extreme poverty then I gotta figure out ways to get a little cash flowing in from things I can do at home. Like I said... anything helps at this point.

 
LOL! Spazz...haven't heard that word in a long time. I think I fall into that category too...absolutely no qualifications, left school at 16, no further education after that, spent most of my 20's in and out of casual jobs whilst partying heavily on the rave scene, before deciding at the age of 30 that I had to get away, so I upped sticks and flew across the pond to America, moved to New York and was immediately thrown into a situation in a big scary city in a foreign country in which I had to get my arse into gear in order to survive. So I started working for myself and eventually grew a fairly OK business which does me well...I mean I'm not rich or anything (The city of New York and the IRS see to that with their greedy money-grasping pig trotters) but I've managed to eke out a passable existence in my favorite place in the world by effectively spazzing my way through everything. At the age of 40 I still sometimes feel like a dumb kid in the company of "successful" people a lot younger than me who did everything the "correct" way, but I've gotten good at snapping out of it and telling myself that I'm just as capable as them (in my own spazzy way).

I mean I'm not suggesting you up sticks of course, but my point is that if you're determined and have a half decent head on your shoulders, the world is your oyster, even if you have a thousand things working against you. You're still relatively young, and the world is littered with people who had to wait later in life until they found success. We're also lucky to live in a world in which brains, not brawn, are the key.
 
 

I'm probably in the minority but I go for singles online...
 
OOOPS! Sorry..., thought this was a dating site.
 
No, seriously. I only obtain single cuts. Albums usually only have 1 or 2 songs I like so the rest is a waste of money for me. With singles I can create my own albums just the way I want them, complete with original artwork too. Kinda fun really.

slartabartfast
Jeeze. I thought the whole point of online distribution was to free the consuming public from the necessity of buying.

I think that is how it is.

I also understand that Spotify pays 0.4 cents per streaming play, so you'll need 6000 plays per month to get $24. Depressing really.

timidi

jamesg1213
I also understand that Spotify pays 0.4 cents per streaming play, so you'll need 6000 plays per month to get $24. Depressing really.

James, I think you meant  $0.00430000 per stream thru spotify.
BTW, 6000 X .4 = $2400

I said 0.4 cents Tim, not 0.4 dollars

jamesg1213

timidi

jamesg1213
I also understand that Spotify pays 0.4 cents per streaming play, so you'll need 6000 plays per month to get $24. Depressing really.

James, I think you meant  $0.00430000 per stream thru spotify.
BTW, 6000 X .4 = $2400

I said 0.4 cents Tim, not 0.4 dollars

butt butt butt you rote .4 which is 40 cents hear in Umerikka.

1.00 = Juan doll hair
0.40 = 40% of Juan doll hair (farty centz)
0.04 = 4% of Juan doll hair (far sentz)
 
Whiff or whiff out a $ it's all the same, Shirley.

Heh. Needed a chuckle after this clusterfart of a morning simply attempting to get some bleeding groceries. And people wonder why I never leave my apartment.
 
As far as 0.00-bajillionitycents+1 for a streaming clickola it's better than nothing and I intend to completely flood everywhere I can with as many tunes as possible so that next to nothing could slowly end up being next to something.
 
Put it this way... $20 added to my monthly pittance means I can add just a little more desperately needed protein to my diet which helps me be just a little bit stronger which makes me a little less sore which makes me a little bit saner which makes me a little bit more productive which makes me a LOT happier.
 
When you got nothin' next to nothin' looks pretty freaking awesome.
 

spacey

slartabartfast
Jeeze. I thought the whole point of online distribution was to free the consuming public from the necessity of buying.

I think that is how it is.

This made me lol too because it is so true. I personally don't mind people "stealing" my music because I firmly believe in the "Pay What You Can" philosophy and know that a) the more people hear my stuff (if they like it) they'll tell others and b) for every "thief" out there there is going to be others who will drop some change into the hat. Perhaps that mindset comes from my busking days or all the gigs I've done where a jug gets passed around every set. Better to get people in the club listening and having a good time than to put up an arbitrary monetary barrier and play to an empty house.
 
I'm also considering releasing material on youtube and getting in on some of that sweet google ads money. Just have some of those stupid popups or whatever and the world gets access to the tunes and I get a few extra micropennies tossed my way.
 
It's like busking but in front of potentially MILLIONS of people.
 
I figure it's also a good way to collect free stats on how much people are interested in my material. Like if I finally got my shiz together enough to put together a proper album (which will happen) then if I decide to approach labels or film companies I can say "Look at these click counts!! LOOK AT THEM!!!"
 
Obviously this all relies on me not completely sucking arse but after 25 years and an uncountable number of packed gigs I could probably allow myself the presumption that I don't suck arse... at least not as a song writer. As a producer/engineer? Probably... but I'm working on that... like a mofo.
 
Anyway, I was in a horrendous mood because of the absolute crap that happened earlier today in the meat world but the humor ya'll have provided and just thinking along these positive lines has me feeling better.
 
Dog bless the Coughie Haus!

Now?
 
...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
perhaps i've said too much...

i'm very sensitive about my oozing chin ear... :-/

Actually Spotify pays around 0.6 cents per play. I'm not sure how this works out in the case of partial plays. I seem to spend half my time on it only listening to half of a track (I do a lot of searching for new music on it). 
 
This may not sound like much, but it all adds up. And it will get bigger as Spotify's user base grows (presuming it will). Currently, a global hit album will earn around $425,000 per month from Spotify. A niche indie album will earn on average $3,300 per month, a classic rock album around $17,000 per month. I guess those figures would have more context if we knew what kind of effect Spotify is having on sales of CD's and downloads. 
 
Spotify projects that its audience will grow to 40m (I don't think it's that far fetched). If it does, then the same global hit album would look to earn $2.1m a month, while the niche indie album would be making around $17,000 a month.