How is bandcamp working for you?

Zork · Post by **Zork** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 7:11 am

So, I started a band early this year and we just finished our recordings. Literally nobody knows about this band. We now put our EP up on bandcamp on Saturday and we are very surprised about what's going on there, to say the least. Let me just give you the numbers: In less than three days, we got like 75 downloads, 18 purchases (it's a "pay-what-you-want" option but you can download it for free), 780 plays and 61 followers. Given that we just crawled out of our practice space, haven't ever played live, have no internet presence or social media whatsoever, we think this is quite a lot. On the other hand we never worked with bandcamp before and have no experience at all with the site as a distribution and promotion tool. So, can anyone shed some light on what's going on here? Is this just how bandcamp works or are we particularly good/lucky?

backwardsvoyager · Post by **backwardsvoyager** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 7:33 am

Tags play a big part in this - reviewers/blogs etc scour bandcamp by looking through stuff with specific tags, listen, and rep stuff they liked. If someone buys your release their followers will see that in their feed, more exposure, etc.

Try googling your release to find out if it's been posted about anywhere. Lots of downloads isn't unusual but if you had 18 purchases in 3 days you very likely got repped by a blog/facebook page/youtube channel somewhere that liked your EP.

Congrats, though. Bandcamp is awesome.

chromandre · Post by **chromandre** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 8:51 am

That is a great response. You should definitely continue releasing music this way.

Zork · Post by **Zork** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 9:22 am

Hey, thank you. Backwardsvoyager was right: we got shared by Weedian on yt, insta and fb. Haven't heard of them before but apparently they have a big impact on the stoner/doom/sludge scene with 1000s of subscribers on their social media sites.

It bothers me a bit that they reuploaded our stuff on their own youtube channel without asking for permission, but on the other hand they share the bandcamp link in the description as well as in the comments. No link to bc on fb and insta, though, only to their own youtube. Dunno, I dropped them a mail, asking to put the bandcamp link on fb and insta as well. What would you do?

Zork · Post by **Zork** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 9:23 am

I actually feel very old now. Haven't bothered with social media in years...

Paul_C · Post by **Paul_C** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 9:43 am

You're doing a whole lot better than me !

19 albums of ambient nonsense since March, 4 purchases, 34 downloads, 563 plays and 4 followers.

I'm fairly sure almost all of those stats come from folk on here, for which I'm very grateful, but I'm never going to be the next big thing

Having said all of that, I'm not particularly bothered and it hasn't put me off making more (I'm only one track away from completing album number 20) and as long as one person likes it I'm carrying on.

backwardsvoyager · Post by **backwardsvoyager** » Mon Sep 14, 2020 9:50 am

Not asking your permission to reupload songs is lame and you should probably pull them up on it (happens a LOT, though).

If the album is already on Spotify etc, you may want them to take it down eventually so people are forced to listen there instead.
Otherwise, having it on YT is a good thing. They've basically gone and done that side of your promotion for you, it's on a channel with 9k+ subs, and the video probably isn't going to make them a cent.

coldbrightsunlight · Post by **coldbrightsunlight** » Tue Sep 15, 2020 4:19 am

You've sold a lot more than I ever have in the last few years

Good luck on that repost/share I guess - though not asking for permission is lame.

I had a listen the other day, decent stuff

goroth · Post by **goroth** » Tue Sep 15, 2020 4:30 am

backwardsvoyager wrote:Not asking your permission to reupload songs is lame and you should probably pull them up on it (happens a LOT, though).

If the album is already on Spotify etc, you may want them to take it down eventually so people are forced to listen there instead.
Otherwise, having it on YT is a good thing. They've basically gone and done that side of your promotion for you, it's on a channel with 9k+ subs, and the video probably isn't going to make them a cent.

This is weird. Our album is out for free on every media there is. And we're an unknown band.
But still, within days of the release there were torrents of it everywhere and it was turning up in strange places.

I understand so little of how to do music business stuff nowadays, so I'm just running with the theory of make music I like, sink money into making the best recordings I can, put them out everywhere...
underpants.
profit.

coldbrightsunlight · Post by **coldbrightsunlight** » Tue Sep 15, 2020 5:16 am

Make great music and the people will come.

Or they won't, but at least you made some great music.

D.o.S. · Post by **D.o.S.** » Tue Sep 15, 2020 5:48 am

coldbrightsunlight wrote:Make great music and the people will come.

Or they won't, but at least you made some great music.

This

manymanyhaha · Post by **manymanyhaha** » Wed Sep 16, 2020 11:06 am

I think it is safe to say that compared to a vast majority of bandcamp posters, your experience is unique, as evidenced by the numbers you've seen posted here. My numbers are even worse than those.

In 2020, because of the proliferation of the tools and means, there is so much amazing music out there, it is overwhelming. Because of this, it is hard for even amazing music to get noticed. Any wave you can catch, ride it for as long as you can.

Zork · Post by **Zork** » Thu Sep 17, 2020 4:06 pm

Hey, yeah, it's pretty amazing. We'll try to put out another single asap and try to just ride the wave. Anyone from Germany/Denmark/Netherlands/Belgium/Poland over here? We're looking for some cool stoner/psych/fuzz festival recommendations over here, preferably smaller ones. Hopefully it will we possible next summer...

goroth · Post by **goroth** » Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:17 am

One of my band's ex-guitarists now plays drums in Spelljammer. They are alright, but nothing to make you go all OMG, but they get stacks of good festival gigs. Hit em up via insta
https://www.instagram.com/spelljammerband/

Bassus Sanguinis · Post by **Bassus Sanguinis** » Wed Sep 23, 2020 7:49 am

Zork wrote:Hey, yeah, it's pretty amazing. We'll try to put out another single asap and try to just ride the wave. Anyone from Germany/Denmark/Netherlands/Belgium/Poland over here? We're looking for some cool stoner/psych/fuzz festival recommendations over here, preferably smaller ones. Hopefully it will we possible next summer...

...like blistering fuzz by three bass guitars and monular synths? Check out my band Fuzzifer https://fuzzifer.bandcamp.com/album/in ... om-2017-ev </end self promo>

I've been using Bandcamp for almost ten years now for my small projects, and I'm pretty happy to be able to handle merch sales and music on the same platform.

ilovefuzz.com

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