Derek Silvers, the president of CDBaby, was invited to the Apple indie-label presentation about the iTunes Music Store the other day, and he’s posted a lot of details that are pretty interesting to read. Such details include:
- Over 75% of the songs have sold at least once.
- 90% of sales are 1-click downloads.
- Apple is averaging 500,000 sales a week.
- There is no cost to put your music on iTunes, and there’s no up-front advance from Apple.
- All sales are reported to SoundScan, on a song-by-song basis.
- Apple won’t accept money for placement (although exclusive tracks certainly help).
- The independents are being offered the same deal as the majors.
- Top seller charts only reflect the last 24 hours(!)
- Apple pays every month.
- EVERY artist will get listed in new releases if they put something new in.
- Google is offering exclusive discounts for sponsored links into iTunes.
- Artists without a label have to go through an iTunes partner, they can’t do it themselves.
I hate this; every time I read or hear more about how this is working, I get insanely starry-eyed. I still haven’t seen Apple make a move that makes the IMS less appealing than any record store we have in town.
How is it that one company can have their shit together so well? And how is it that that one company is Apple?