Nine Inch Nails the Latest Artist to Give It Away for Free
By Jane • Mar 3rd, 2008 • Category: Publishing News • •More and more artists, be they writers or musicians, are giving away their product for free in digital form, in hopes of driving physical sales. (Look at the related articles on the right to see more examples) Nine Inch Nails is the latest to jump on this bandwagon.
Their newest album ‘Ghosts I-IV’ and its 36 track record can be downloaded as of today.
Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. Jane also does not like to talk about herself in the third person, but apparently this is the way that this biography thing works (although in a true biography, someone else would be writing this blurb). Anyway, currently Jane loves urban fantasy authors Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews. She's really excited about this year's crop of historicals including Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady and Sherry Thomas' Private Arrangements and the upcoming Loretta Chase Her Scandalous Ways.
She's looking for a good contemporary author. Email her with a recommendation!
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Just an FYI - You can get the first 9 tracks of this album for free, but if you want all 36 tracks it’s running $5. Still an incredible bargain if you like their music, but the entire album isn’t free.
I think Radiohead something similar to this a while back when they released In Rainbows independently. Their new album was free to download, with the hope that users pay by the honor system, paying what they thought the value was. My sister (who follows the music industry) reported back that the average amount “paid” was a relatively low amount, less than the average CD price. She wasn’t sure if it garnered new fans, or if it bolstered CD sales when the hard copy CD was available (1/1/08), or if it sold more concert tickets.
From my sister, who went for the $10 download (which includes two cds upon release in April):
I don’t have any way to gage NIN fans, so it’s not clear to me if the “free” download sold more albums or not.