THE FREE WORLD (Hypebot) –
On Friday, Hypebot posted an article by Tech Dirt's Mike Masnick on the rise of indie artist Corey Smith, "From Weekend Warrior To $4.2M By Giving His Music Away For Free". A number of readers questioned whether Corey had actually achieved this level of success as an indie artist self-releasing his own albums. Corey Smith's manager Marty Winsch responds:
This discussion was brought to my attention the other day so I thought that I would jump in and clarify. 2008 gross touring was $3.5 million with another $.5 million on top for physical merch, CD, and digital music sales bringing the total to approx $4 million. Again, let me make sure this is clear. The $3.50 million in touring was the GROSS ticket sales figure, not what our take was from these shows.
Corey has scanned over 450,000 downloads and approx 70,000 albums. Total albums sales though are in excess of 85,000 being that not all physical sales have been scanned.
Those of you who have been running the numbers and calling b.s. were right (as they stood) as are/were those of you who are/were saying that this model might be right for Corey, but not right for every artist. It is easy to make certain assumptions when you are given partial information and I am sorry that I did not jump in until not to clarify these things. We are very open about Corey with his fans and those who are interested in learning more so please feel free to contact me if you would like to continue this discussion.
Thanks for continuing a spirited and very necessary discussion.
