Gerd Leonhard, author of Music 2.0 wrote a blog post recently entitled “The Future Revenues for Content Creators: Attention Revenues UP, Copy Revenues DOWN — get used to it.”

It basically says that digital copies of music are getting harder to sell, so musicians should ’sell the experience’ such as selling concert tickets, live video performances and so on.

What he and others are essentially saying is that the ‘perceived value’ of digital content such as mp3s are declining. Now we all know that just because an mp3 can be copied a million times that there wasn’t some serious effort and sometimes expense put into the recording. But the point is that you can’t fight the perceived value, whether it’s right or wrong. So we need to create something that has a higher perceived value – ie. something that can’t be copied and digitized. This ’something’ is access to you, the band or musician.

The problem with so many services out there whether it be for selling cds, mp3s, or posting your band’s profile is that you often get lost in the pure volume of bands that are out there. You also often give up a share of each sale for the privilege.

With the advances in technology, specifically recent internet developments you can now build your own private members area and sell access to this area for so much a month. Call it your ‘Backstage VIP Pass’, ‘Insiders Club’ or even teach people how to play an instrument or write songs. The point is you are now selling an experience of accessing your behind the scenes videos, photos, and stories or your unique way of teaching how to play a musical instrument.

You need to stop worrying about selling things that can be copied and work on creating an experience that has high perceived value and can’t be easily copied. These sites are known as ‘membership sites’.

It might be a good idea for you to learn how to build and market your own membership site.