During my six year tenure as lead guitarist with the Howard Lyons Band, he sold over 800 cassettes at gigs. Cassettes! That began back in the mid '90s, when cassettes were already obsolete, yet they sold in spite of it. Have things gotten that much worse only a decade later?
By the way … on the strength of those sales, by a self-produced independent artist, he got signed to a deal with S.O.A.R. (Sound of America Records, specializing in native/indigenous artists).
It is… cynacism and wisdom are both age-related afflictions 
^^^ Thanks Ian … that is a really depressing graph.
Consistent with this one:
Oh well, seems we have our work cut out for us … when the going gets tough … the tough get going!
Facebook peeps don’t give a crap. They want cheap and cheerful; 15-30 second youtubes, and mind-numbingly dull info from (or about) their friends or they just sit there playing stupid online games that most haven’t worked out go on forever but it passes the time of day. Have we gotten this bad where we don’t think anymore and want people to think for us and we’ll go with that cos we can’t be ar5ed?
What a sorry state we’re getting ourselves in 
That all said … 
I’ve just spent three hours driving from Aberdeen to Edinburgh with Mark’s music spinning in the player and it’s worth keeping on and every head-beating-against-the-wall hour spent trying to promote it for the sake of the music alone.
Some stuff has intrinsic worth and merit and to gauge that by the ease of selling it is a category error.
A while ago, on the basis of one CD sale to someone in Sofia, Google Analytics showed a subsequent spike of visitors from Bulgaria (wtf? 
) probably on the back of that CD being ripped etc. I still have folks from there show up and browse around. It’s not route 66 but it’s one way I get my…
(Great playin’ on the record, Nick!!)
Dave, I’m chuffed you like it!
At the moment I’ve sending off promo copies to lots of places. Mostly “specialist” internet radio stations, and some print media (thanks Nick, for the ‘Progression’ lead), BBC’s ‘Introducing’ music site, which guaranties a listen at least…
I’m also gently schmoosing a couple if industry ‘insiders’ without coming across as an ar$e. But whether anything comes of that, I don’t know.
In the meantime, if anyone else is in the slightest bit curious, click the link at the bottom of the page.
You know you want to…
PS - As of today, I have a fan page on Facebook too! Redirecting... stop by and say ‘Hi’
Actually, they have. CD sales today are about half what they were in 1999, and digital sales have only made up a fraction of the difference.
I still say the best (and maybe the only practical) way of achieving significant sales is to establish a following on the live circuit, and hopefully get picked up by a label that has the resources and distribution to get your music heard by a wider audience
I’ve been told (by someone who knows) that getting ‘picked up’ happens almost always by way of referral within the industry… which apart from being spotted at live gigs, often includes Youtube referrals these days as well.
Interestingly a local Government run music funding agency has recently changed its rules, qualifying criteria now includes the level of attention the applicant (artist/band) is getting on Youtube. So as well as other critera like audience size at gigs etc they now have a minimum threshold of Youtube views that must be achieved before the funding application will be accepted.
So, certainly here you need to already be making yourself known, creating a ‘buzz’ to a good extent both through gigging and online activity (youtube) before this funding agency will even look at you as a viable contender. And I suspect it’s that x100 if you’re to have any hope at all of a record company of any note taking any kind of interest in you.
I may have been up for it when I was 18 but now… ??