The magic quarter

It is not a magic coin that I'm talking about in the title, as it could have been in these HP times, but about the percentage of Sellabands that have risen above $0 in parts. Many believers, the Sellaband team included, have wondered what type of person or band would enlist on a site like Sellaband and not be prepared to shell out $10 out of their own pocket, or even their parents', grandparents' or friends'.
My bigger amazement however, is about the fixed statistical nature of this group of artists... since I started recording these numbers on the 21st of April their percentage of the total number of artists has been almost exactly 75%. You might think this changes over time, but no: even of the artists that sign up today, only a quarter will ever get going on the road to 50k.
The statistics: The bandwidth of artists with at least $10 on their account is between 24.95% and 26.05% of the total. One percent at this moment is about 46 artists, so this whole variation is only about as much as the number of artists that sign up in three days... Such numbers never fail to amaze me... (VB)

Underrated: Angie Arsenault

Around the time of the London Calling concert a believer-who-will-not-be-named (just kidding!) listed a number of artists on his site that he thought were underrated. "What's up with this!!??" I thought, as each and every single one of these artists were already on the first three pages of the Artist roster. How can you call artists with thousands of dollars behind their name 'underrated'? This sounds more like investment advice, but Sellaband has no differentiated share price, so one moment to start believing is as good as the other...
Now here's my definition of underrated: An artist who despite clear artistic talent and market potential does not seem to get past $1000 or a 100 parts. Perhaps their music is a bit out of the mainstream, perhaps they don't have pretty pictures up and perhaps they don't show their face on the Sellaband website enough (because they're working hard on their music!?). Perhaps it's just that we need more believers to keep all good artists in the picture.
My perfect example of this kind of artist is Angie Arsenault, a songwriter/singer/piano player from Canada. In the first weeks of her joining Sellaband in April she rose quickly to a couple of hundred dollars, and then she got stuck. I won't guess as to the reasons why, but nothing changed in the quality of her material and the strong way she performs it. She works hard on her music, and puts a new video of a song up on YouTube in her Shattered Windows series every couple of weeks (see photo, videos found through her website). Her full first EP is even downloadable for free, in exchange for your e-mail address!
Wherever Angie is in the roster now, she deserves to be among the page 1 and 2 artists! This artist needs to be noticed! (VB)

Sellabrating the first million!

I'm sure that many Sellabandees, myself included, are already planning to celebrate the first anniversary of Sellaband at the concert in Paradiso the 16th of August. We all wish that by then we can also celebrate the 8th or 9th artist to make the 50k, but many won't realize that by that time we may also be celebrating the first million US$ invested! This calculation is based on some rough statistics: the average growth is about $4000 a day and starting from around $900000 today that will be 25 days from now. Of course, summer holidays can spoil the fun, as the actual daily increase ranges from a high $6000-$8000 right before an artist hits their target to only about $600 (right before Mandyleigh started her final leg of the journey). Given that the Paradiso celebration party is still 42 days away though, I'd give the million a 90% chance by then. And that's based on no calculations whatsoever! I only feel sorry for the Sellaband team, because since the first money has already been spent on making some fine CDs they can't pile it all up at their offices as in the photo! (VB)
Edit 13/07/2007: My estimates in this post were rather conservative. The way things are going now, the first 1M should be reached before the end of July!