I Went To Bed On $4 And Woke Up With $9000

Hi! I'm Benbrick. A Platinum-selling songwriter from London. I've written with Troye Sivan, Utada Hikaru, and had my music endorsed by Ricky Gervais. Previously I've premiered new music on Earmilk, Shortlist and Wonderland.

After yesterdays response I'm premiering my new music right here

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LA PERFEZIONE BREVEMENTE

We are in bloom now

Just as quickly it will pass

Perfection, briefly

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A NEW PIECE OF MUSIC

I wrote this song based on a Haiku that I wrote for an ex girlfriend. I ended up recording it on Freddie Mercury's beautiful Fazioli grand piano in Metropolis Studios. It's a weird story that involves a lot of alcohol - I'd been working on a TV show in one of the smaller studios and it was the last evening we were in the complex. I asked the engineer to show me the main room over and over again until he relented! The pictures below are of the studio. We recorded for about 45 minutes and then listened back to find the best takes. That's also the piano Adele recorded 21 and 25 on.

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SPOTIFY V STEEMIT

It is crazy to think that if I were to upload this to Spotify now I'd hardly earn a penny. As the writer our average earnings are 0.00208$ per stream. I am also the performer of this piece so I'd earn slightly more - but from the publishing I'd need 4 million plays to earn as much as my last Steemit post. I am always looking for ways to reach a new audience, and of course it's nice to be compensated for your work. Right now the music industry is in a very strange place.

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MY STEEMIT STORY

2 days ago I went to bed with a post about my interaction with Ricky Gervais on $4. I woke up with it at $8495.71. It hit the #1 spot on the main page. Within one day I’d made more money via this piece of music than I had in the 2 years preceding it. Of course, we can’t discount the non-monetary value of creating the relationship - but that doesn’t pay the bills in the short term.

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INCREASING THE VALUE OF POSTING

Steemit is now regularly getting mentioned in some of the biggest outlets in the world (Reuters, The Guardian) it seems this is only the start. Indeed, as @KingJohal pointed out on the UK newspaper Daily Mail posted an article ) yesterday that got it’s research from the @oakstone post on The Decline of British English.

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IS IT SUSTAINABLE?

If you are a content creator of any description there will soon be no reason to post your content anywhere else. The short term goals are obvious, and if the user base continues to grow (like it should) then significant ad revenues will be made here too. If we are to make Steem sustainable going forward then one of the long term goals must be to increase the value of postings.

[Pic from here]

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INCREASING THE VALUE OF POSTING

Unique insights and unique stories should be celebrated. We shouldn't be rewarding selfies.

I think we need to develop a value added tax. What I mean is: Does this article bring a unique value to the website? If so - keep 100%. If not - you are taxed for not adding value.

We could decide who has the power to decide if something adds value by their involvement in the site - have you been here X days, contributed to at least Y blog posts, and replied with more than Z words most times? Then congratulations you are uniquely able to judge “value”. Value is subjective so we need to ensure it can't be gamed.

[Pic from here]

What do you think about a "This brings value" flag next to each post?

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HAS THE MUSIC FINISHED YET?

You did click play on the video right? Well, if you didn’t you can do it now.