Desire Avenue

The following article about the current economics of the UK (and worldwide) music industry makes for a rather depressing read.

http://prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_ ... hp?id=9735

Interesting read indeed Rob.
With a friend of mine working in the music business he already told me once that albumsales aren't that important anymore. Since it's very easy to sell mp3's on an artist website it'll be only a matter of time before the recordcompany's are cut out in the musicindustry. From then it'll be all about the agencies that arrange large worldtours and get part of the profits from touring and of course the publishingcompanies.

And this is going to happen to the booksmarket in a few years too.
I've signed a contract with a large company to publish my debutnovel. In the contract was already included profits from bookreadings as soon as the novels would be distributed as electronic files. Sony has produced the first version of a digital book, which will use a chip that you can insert to read a new book.

I'm very curious wether the bookmarket will show this same decline in sales in a few years when the digital book makes filesharing possible.

As for the duth people on the board who wonder if they can buy my book somewhere.... It was never released. They wanted to market me as a gay-writer because that would garantuee sales and asked me to rewrite the novel to turn the straight couple into a gay couple. As I refused this my book was shelved.

Just last year they realised that we weren't gonna solve this problem. They've given me permission to publish it elsewhere, although I really have no interest in doing that anymore. I'm really sick of the current atmosphere in the publishingworld. It's all about sales and revenues, not about quality. And I guess that same atmosphere has lead to decline in sales in the musicindustry, people were fed up of being ripped off.

Very interesting article.
What I'd like to know is the knock-down effect on non pop/rock musics,quality music that isn't primarily commercial,music that exists for music's sake,which has always had to rely to some extent on the profit margins brought about by popular music.
And I'd also be very interested to see how it all turns out eventually .

So if the only way for artists to make any money is by live gigs and T-shirts,what hope is there for Stina ?
BTW-has Stina ever produed a T-shirt ?and if she did ,what image would be on it ? [what]

Well if she ain't gonna tour,she ain't gonna sell the T-shirt.
The Dynamite star would look good on a cream t-shirt.

barrett wrote:BTW-has Stina ever produed a T-shirt ?

nope but I hear she does a nifty line in second-hand(head) wigs.

pgss wrote: I've signed a contract with a large company to publish my debutnovel.

You've written a book, Paul? Wow.

I never knew you were into writing?

I've been into writing all my life. Translating my life into words can really calm me down when I'm losing the plot. And I like to create persons and stories that are on the edge of things, breaking through boundaries in many ways. I really can get carried away by that.

I'm also very much into reading. I read almost anything that I can lay my hands on. Currently I've just finished reading HP7. But other writers I like include Douglas Coupland, Bret Easton Ellis, Mike Gayle, John Irving, Zadie Smith and ohters.

Writing a novel is quite an achievement, that's amazing.

Kudos on the novel!