Uncommon Cents

Music has totally been turned on its head in the last few years. Remember when we went from vinyl and cassettes (and if you’re really old, like me, 8 tracks) to compact discs? Those compact discs were also a lot more expensive than vinyl was (vinyl LPs were going for about $7.99 back then; CDs went for about $15), but lots of us went ahead and paid money to rebuy music we already had in the new format, sold on the optical discs.

It’s about a quarter century since the CD revolution. In the last few years, we’ve had two other music revolutions: the burnable CD revolution and the MP3 (and AAC) revolution. The bands that get together in someone’s garage have been able to put together CDs that play as well as those from the big music labels. But CDs are also threatened by the fact that today, music is downloadable and playable on computers and portable music players (iPods). While singles largely went away with vinyl records, Amazon and the iTunes Store have made getting just one track for 99 cents or less. The success of the iTunes model is clearly evident–it’s second only to WalMart in record sales. The opposite of success is also clear–remember Tower Records?

Something else that’s very clear about the music industry is that the people who make money on record sales are almost never the artists–it’s the record industry. Honestly, the garage band musician who performs in a local community and sells CDs that are burnt on their home computer makes more per CD sold than the musician who is signed to a label. Now, the artist signed to a label is going to likely have better distribution, but that is changing as well–see Jonathan Coulton for details.

The truth is, it’s much easier, cheaper, and convenient for to buy music online than it is to go to a store–and considering there’s now very few actual music stores, there aren’t that many places to go to–and buy a CD. For those artists who promote themselves independently, they can also find ways to increase their bottom line–directly selling to the public, both on CD and online. It’s a way for the consumer to spend less and get what they want (instead of buying a CD where you like three songs and don’t like 13 others, you can get the three you want for less money) and an opportunity for the artist to get more money per sale, which is what we all want–well, unless we’re the recording labels!

Today at Uncommon Cents, this blog was The Perfect Storm. The day started for me with realizing that my post had been selected to be the guest post of the day over at Tricia’s great Blogging Away Debt, followed by Mrs. Micah reviewing this blog over at StumbleUpon, the most traffic (by more than triple!) I’ve had in a single day, followed by a second positive review over at StumpleUpon. So I’m blown away by how things have gone today here at the home of (hopefully) simple personal finance.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working hard on building up Uncommon Cents, trying to write quality posts and network with other personal finance blogs out there. I’ve learned a lot and had fun, and I’m hoping to do more of both. I also am hoping that eventually Uncommon Cents can make a bit of money (although to date the older but much more niche A2Unplugged has done a bit better), and in my dreams it would become my fourth source of income (behind my full time job, my part time job, and my investments). I’ve watched my traffic and Feedburner subscribers grow slowly and just last week told someone that growing a blog was something like growing a plant: that with enough love and care it would definitely grow, but you couldn’t rush it.

Then over the long weekend All Financial Matters cited the Working Backwards: What’s an Index? post in their blog, which started a big upswing in traffic over the holiday, and today The Perfect Storm hit, which gave more traffic in a single day than I’ve had all week (and this week was already the biggest week in the blog’s history). In the end, hopefully, more traffic means that the Uncommon Cents message gets to more readers, and it also means more dollars (as well as more attention–quote from the Macalope, “the blog’s just a desperate bid for attention”).

I was over at the hospital this evening and ran into a unit secretary I know pretty well who was working the night rather than day shift; turns out she started an adult residential care home for the elderly recently and can’t work days on Wednesdays because she can’t find someone to watch her clients during the day. She said she just started the business and, like any business, it starts slow but it could pick up if things go right. She also said she invested about $70,000 in home improvements and hope that things go well enough that she can pay that off in a few years.

So the week’s events got me thinking; of all possible business endeavors, blogging is among the cheapest. This despite the fact that many, including myself, don’t really consider it a business; right now it’s a hobby that I hope will grow into a small part time income. Even with this week Uncommon Cents is small potatoes in terms of traffic, especially compared with some of the personal finance greats like The Simple Dollar and Get Rich Slowly. But at the same time, unlike my friend at the hospital, I didn’t have to make a five figure outlay to get started: I already was paying for this server space for my podcast, so all I had to do was get a domain name, install WordPress in a new directory, select a theme and tweak it a bit, and start writing. So if there’s still power in the press, the Internet makes the press available worldwide, instantly, and cheaply, and a blog can be started for free or close to it, might blogging not hold a ton of untapped potential for not just dollars but huge amounts of influence? It’s clearly not for everyone–not everyone can write–but today, for the first time, anyone who can write can not only get their message out cheaply (or even freely), at lightning speed, to a worldwide audience, censor and edit free, they also have the possibility of getting paid for it.

And if that’s not an entrepreneurial opportunity, I don’t know what is.

Here’s hoping to some more Perfect Storms; enough to blow the winds of entrepreneurship this blog’s way!