I reached a bit of a milestone last night. 1000 people (actually, now it’s 1019 1020…) have downloaded my book, Music in the Digital Age. I’ve let people decide what they want to pay for it, and have moved the ‘recommended price’ around to see what works.
Having hit the thousand mark, I thought it might be interesting to post some numbers and see what’s happened. So here’s how it breaks down.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the price of my Music in the Digital Age book this evening.
I listened to the Lean Blog podcast in which Mark Graban talked to Leanpub founders Peter Armstrong and Scott Patten, who talked about their philosophy for the business, and it started me thinking about the trajectory and the development of the book.
They made quite a convincing argument for the idea that a book-in-progress start off at a lower price, and then as it grows and improves, the price can go up. The people who have paid very little (or nothing) at the start are thereby rewarded for their input and early support, and there is an incentive to get in early.
Essentially, you could call that the Amie Street ‘demand-based’ pricing model. And it seems like quite a good idea on first impressions.
I'm the Director of MTF Labs, a Senior Researcher at the Industry Commons Foundation, advisor to ArtEO and founder of New Music Strategies.
I'm an author of books about technology, culture, music and radio. I'm also an award-winning broadcaster and filmmaker, a public speaker and lecturer, record producer and festival director. I am closely following developments in emerging technologies and the cultures and ethics surrounding them, and my projects typically focus on issues of justice, inclusion, and sustainability.
Most of my work involves surrounding myself with incredibly smart and talented people who would have no other reason to ever be in the same room as each other. That's when amazing things happen.
I tend to talk a lot about music (often jazz-adjacent and particularly on vinyl, but also playlists and mixtapes). I'm enthusiastic about food and cooking, the intersection of art and science, new technologies, vintage technologies, education, social progress, silence, innovation, narrative, data commons, culture, sound art and the spoken word. This blog will continue to reflect those diverse and shifting enthusiasms. I may also digress.
I'm from Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand, I have Scottish ancestry, I've spent a decade in the south of Birmingham UK, and another in a forest in the north of Sweden.
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