@louisck Reports His Content Experiment Sold $500,000 Worth Of Downloads
It’s always heartening to see an experiment in disintermediated content succeed and it couldn’t have happened to a better guy. Louis CK began selling his one-hour comedy special on his own website for $5 a pop last Sunday and, as of today, he’s reporting he’s made over $500,000 from 110,000 downloads. This is a profit of over $200,000 on a concert that cost him about $170,000 to film and edit (most of that paid with ticket sales) and a website that cost $32,000 to build (which suggests that I’m in the wrong line of work. Carlos Mencia: Call me. I know HTML).
He breaks down the finance below:
Basically he’s proven that someone with a dedicated fan base (arguably a huge one) can make his or her own way in the world without the studio model. This should make a large number of folks who “curate” content for sale very, very nervous but it also points to the need for modern entertainers to understand every little thing about their industry. You can’t just be “talent” anymore unless you really want to be. However, by lying back and waiting for a “producer” to make things happen you’re risking a loss of financial opportunity and artistic control. You often can’t have it two ways but, to be fair, not everyone can be Louis CK.
To his credit, Louis learned quite a bit from the experience. He spouts philosophical below.
Amen, Mr. CK.