This is the hard part about competing in the art market.
And this applies if you are a musician, writer, painter, sculptor, or whatever.
Of all the art available for purchase, you are not only competing with everything that was made this year.
You must also compete with everyone’s back catalog.
I mean, if I have $30 to spend on a music album and a book, why should I buy what you sang or wrote?
I might very well prefer The Eagles Greatest Hits and a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird.
And that’s the obstacle.
Of the 13 million songs available for purchase in 2008, 52,000 made up 80 percent of the industry’s revenue. Ten million of those tracks failed to sell a single copy. Today, 77 percent of the profits in the music business are accumulated by 1 percent of the artists.
-John Seabrook, The Song Machine