Example: I sold an album on Bandcamp for £7 and recieved a net £5, doesn't seem a lot until I compare that with streaming royalties from Spotify. 1.78$ over the last few months. Another example: I have set my Bandcamp album prices at £0 or pay more if you wish. Someone purchased an album for £2. I thought hmphh did you really want it and if you valued it enough to purchase, why not a tenner?! But compare that to my Spotify streaming royalties and it's a whole lot more. One album sale for £2 on Bandcamp makes me more than several months worth of Spotify streaming royalties.
So. I will consider my online streaming music as like a business card. One does not ask for money for a business card. Bandcamp is my shop, where fans can take a card - listen for free or download for free or pay a decent amount for an album, to support my work.
At least with Bandcamp I can set my own price and explore the market over time.
In the end it is collaboration, intelligent sharing of content and news, creative marketing and branding (establishing a focused vision and personal integrity of presentation) which gathers interest in an artist's work.
Meanwhile my Facebook "business" Page continuess to p**s me off with how ineffective and restrictive it is in letting me build my work on a wider scale than those dozen local friends who always Like every post I make (because that means I will also Like their locally limited posts of arbitrary works).
The question is: how to reach out to a much wider population of potential customers?
This website is part of that effort. I do not know who the visitors are, but I get a lot more visitors here than to my Facebook business Page and thank you x
And if you really like my music, then please go to my Bandcamp site and give it a gifted listen (I love people to listen to my music - it is the biggest compliment), or even bung a tenner for an album (tbh that trounces the pleasure of being listened to for free :-))
