by MusicByOctavia » 17 Feb 2013 22:12
I'm not gonna post my exact sales numbers, but after taking into account the licensing fees, royalties, Paypal fees, and online store fees, I only need to sell about 70 copies of a song at 99-cents each for me to break even. Some generous people pay more than than the dollar I ask for, which is an option on Bandcamp.
Right now on Youtube, I have about 2,500 subscribers and 200,000 video views. 11 of my 16 Youtube videos have been featured on Equestria Daily, so a lot of people have heard my music. All it takes is 70 of those viewers to be generous enough to buy that song, then I break even. Obviously, some songs are more popular than others, but that's just the nature of the business. I've found that as long as a song is inexpensive, easy to download legally, and professional quality, it's not too tough to find 70 people to purchase one.
As far as I know, I'm the only brony musician that actually goes through the process of acquiring licenses to sell pony songs. In addition to all the paperwork involved in getting a license, the songs must also be 100% original recordings, meaning there can't be any samples from the show used in it. No using an auto-tuned version of Cadance's vocal track from This Day Aria, no adding your own vocals over the background track from At the Gala, not even a single "yay" from Fluttershy, otherwise you can't get a compulsory mechanical license to sell it.