I'm a musician and host of The Unstarving Musician podcast. Liner Notes is my biweekly newsletter that shares some of the best insights garnered from the many conversations featured on the Unstarving Musician. Topics covered include, songwriting, touring, sync licensing, recording, house concerts, marketing, and more.
Unstarving Musician | When being everywhere means being nowhere
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Happy Friday! What if the best business decision you could make is accepting your music is “unmarketable”? Not in the sense that nobody wants it. But in the sense that it’s never going to compete for Spotify playlist placement alongside mainstream artists. Singer-songwriter Abe Partridge makes genuinely niche music–psychedelic surf rock, genre bending stuff, and a unique brand of acoustic Americana. Beautiful if you’re into it. But it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. So here’s what he does with those projects: He keeps them off major streaming platforms. Three Insights from this Episode1. The Streaming Paradox For niche music, being on every platform means being nowhere that matters. Algorithms can’t figure out how to categorize experimental music, so they show it to essentially nobody. You generate $2 from 500 streams while spending hours managing your platform presence—time that could be spent reaching your actual audience through direct channels. 2. The Revenue Math that Changes Everything One person buying your album directly = 2,000-3,000 streams in revenue. One person at your show buying an album and a t-shirt = 7,500+ streams. Physical sales net you $10-15 profit versus $2 for 500 streams. When you have an audience willing to buy directly, optimizing for streams is optimizing for the wrong metric. 3. Owning Your Niche vs. Competing w/Everyone Mainstream artists need millions of casual listeners because each one is worth pennies. Niche artists can build careers on a few hundred truly committed fans who buy every album, show up to shows, and tell their friends. When you own your niche, you’re not competing with the entire music industry—just whoever else is in your specific space. That’s a defensible business position. 🎧 Listen to Episode 344: The Economics of Niche Markets for Creatives Want the Implementation Frameworks?
If you’re not yet a Liner Notes subscriber, the free edition covers highlights from this and 300+ conversations. Liner Notes Insider gets you the complete frameworks. Peace, love and more cowbell, P.S. This isn’t anti-streaming advice. Abe has projects on streaming platforms where it makes sense. This is about being strategic: understanding where your music fits in the market and building your business model around that reality instead of fighting it. Share this email and/or read it on the web Stay in touch! Feedback, comments, complaints? Reply to this email. I'd love to hear from you. 📭 Support the Unstarving MusicianIf you find value in this podcast, please consider a donation via our online tip jar – click, tip, done. Or visit UnstarvingMusician.com/CrowdSponsor to learn about the many other ways of showing your support. Your support = love 💟 Introducing SparticupsJust in time for the holidays, I've immortalized my beloved cat Sparticus in an awesome coffee mug. Spartacus was a 15.5 pound tabby who Sami and I adopted in California. He traveled the South and North American continents with us and lived his last days with us in Querétaro, Mexico. This cup features one of my favorite pics ever of him. This mug design was originally a gift for Sami – now it's an homage to the most gentle cat we've ever known. Starting a podcast? Or ready to level up your existing show?Podcast Startup gives you the systems and strategies I've developed from producing 250+ podcast episodes—without the trial-and-error that cost me years. You'll get actionable frameworks for:
Whether you're launching your first episode or adding video to your show, Podcast Startup eliminates the guesswork. Learn more at UnstarvingMusician.com/PodcastStartup. Affiliate Partner ResourcesKit – Email Marketing for MusiciansKit (formerly ConvertKit) is an email marketing and audience building software that helps musicians like you turn your passion into a full-time career by connecting you to your fans faster. Start a free trial. Dreamhost Web Hosting Get a Website Built for You — 100% Free! You don’t need to hire a designer, mess with templates, or figure it out yourself. The team at Dreamhost will create a beautiful, mobile-friendly website that’s ready to launch — completely free, when you sign up for a year of web hosting. Limited time only offer. Get started! Disclosure: Our affiliate partnerships pay us a small commission if you purchase using the links above – at no extra cost to you. Thanks for your support! Where to Listen to The Unstarving Musician Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts Click here to listen on Overcast Click here to listen on Spotify Click here to listen on YouTube Click here to listen on Pandora |
Liner Notes
I'm a musician and host of The Unstarving Musician podcast. Liner Notes is my biweekly newsletter that shares some of the best insights garnered from the many conversations featured on the Unstarving Musician. Topics covered include, songwriting, touring, sync licensing, recording, house concerts, marketing, and more.
If I asked you to rank the revenue streams that grow fastest for independent musicians, what would you say? Streaming? Touring? Both wrong. According to music business educator Amani Roberts — a Berklee-educated DJ, USA Today bestselling author, and college professor who’s coached artists through this exact exercise — the two income sources with the most growth potential are private events and direct fan-to-artist platforms. Many, if not most, musicians do not prioritize either one. I...
Streaming pays you $0.004 per play. A direct sale through Bandcamp nets you around $8 on a $10 album. To earn that same $8 from streaming, you need 20,000 plays. Most independent artists release everywhere immediately, training their actual fans—the people who would happily pay $10-15—to stream for pennies instead. Ezra Vancil took a different approach. He sold his last album exclusively to his email list for a year before releasing it on streaming services. His new double album employs a...