The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we've sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.
Louis CK posts a statement about how his “buy my special for $5 on Paypal” project is going. It’s going great! (he’s also on the BS Report today)
Alex Papademas called it ”the In Rainbows of comedy specials” which I liked. In Rainbows didn’t end up signaling a shift in how we sell records, as many theorized at the time, but I guess it’s still nice to see artists cut out the middle man and see how it goes. I also like CK’s view of himself as a content farm, “every new generation of material I create is my income, it’s like a farmer’s annual crop” …i love that perspective, every year you harvest some jokes, stories, metaphors and turn them into something. or leave them to rot (or be preserved) in your cellar. so simple, so organic, so sensible…. anypal, time for me to go milk the cow, or something! (the milking part is so gross)
(couple more links, while i’m here and all: reddit q&a, npr’s fresh air)
