Zoë Keating is an artist who’s taken a leading role in talking about new technologies (blockchain, for example) as well as streaming royalties transparency. Her latest interview is with Emily White, author of the new book ‘How To Build A Sustainable Music Career & Collect All Revenue Streams’, with a foreword in the form of a conversation with Keating about her career.
Among the tips: “Email is crucial and it’s still amazing at this point when people don’t use it,” she says. “It’s just got to be all about the email list and it’s worth the money.” Keating also talks about some of the money she’s left on the table, deliberately. “I’m a hardcore environmentalist and always have been,” she says. “Early on in my career, in the 90’s, I decided I didn’t want to sell merchandise because I didn’t want people to buy more stuff.” She reveals she did make one T-shirt but her sustainability requirements made it “the most expensive t-shirt on earth” and she’s not returned to the idea since. Keating also doesn’t do YouTube. “I think that’s just quirky to me. I know that I don’t watch videos myself. And if someone sends me their music in video form I’ll never listen to it as I can’t handle video. I think I’m a highly sensitive person and video is difficult for me. So making a video never occurred to me.”
Keating also tangled with YouTube in 2015 over the contracts for its proposed music streaming service, and her access to Content ID. More than half of Keating’s revenue now comes from synchronisation deals, instead. The full excerpt published on industry blog Hypebot is well worth a read.
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