Why are we doing this? Right now, you're probably thinking: these guys are crazy. Well, actually, Bravoflix was founded by a pair of musicians who understand your pain. Below is a simultaneously startling and sobering graphic from one of my fav journalists and info designers, David McCandless, over at informationisbeautiful.net....which lays out with crystal clarity how artists earn money online. Basically, what the graphic shows is that, in order to earn a monthly wage equivalent to minimum wage in the U.S., you'd have to sell 143 self-pressed CDs at $9.99 each...every month. OR your fans would have to download your hot single 12,399 times on Amazon or iTunes at $.99 each (since the artist only gets 9 cents per download). OR, your track would need more than 4,000,000 streams in one month on Spotify.
Are you kidding me?!?
At Bravoflix, only direct sales of physical CDs, pressed and sold by you directly to your fans, earns more. Bravoflix is, however, by far, the most lucrative way to make money online with your digital media assets.
If you're an artist, there are a few other new and effective ways to make money via the internet—whether it's raising the necessary do-re-mi to record your next album via Kickstarter like some of my buddies in the classical crossover band Quattro did (nearly $14,500 from just 130 fans...! Of course, they're insanely talented and tireless and effective self-promoters so that's no surprise!)...or you can use other crowdfunding sites, like the tried and true ArtistShare, where Maria Schneider garnered enough dinero to fund her Grammy-winning album without ever having been available in retail stores. (Amazing!) She told me and a room full of Eastman students about the site waaaaay back in 2000.
The point is: the internet is a very real way to earn money as an artist. But YouTube, Vimeo, and the rest—while awesome promotional tools—are not a viable channel to revenue for most. If you think posting a work by Xenakis that you videotaped at your graduate recital is going to get enough hits that it'll help your quartet mates pay their rent through click-through advertising income, think again. Bravoflix is changing that, however, and at the very least, it might just help you keep the lights on a little longer. Together with other web-based tools, we'll make sure you're going to be all right...
The point is: the internet is a very real way to earn money as an artist. But YouTube, Vimeo, and the rest—while awesome promotional tools—are not a viable channel to revenue for most. If you think posting a work by Xenakis that you videotaped at your graduate recital is going to get enough hits that it'll help your quartet mates pay their rent through click-through advertising income, think again. Bravoflix is changing that, however, and at the very least, it might just help you keep the lights on a little longer. Together with other web-based tools, we'll make sure you're going to be all right...
Now, when you upload a video to Bravoflix, we'll actively promote that video to our prospective patron list, and give you $5 a month for every person we convert to a subscriber. Example: If—out of a 1000 people who receive our e-mail—your video turns on just 100 enough so that they join Bravoflix in order to watch it—then we'll send you a check for $500 a month.
Sign up at...
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