How we’re profit sharing on Metalabel
A financial analysis of our first cooperative media project + where we could go from here.
I’m building a media cooperative in public and sharing the process with paid subscribers. Join us 👇🏻
CITY STATE was the first project the Elysian Collective released on Metalabel, a new platform that allows artists to collaborate on projects and split the profits. Seven writers and one designer contributed to the series and we sold the collection as digital and print pamphlets. As of last week, we sold 41 print pamphlets and 101 digital editions, earning $732.33 for the project.
This was a fun first project, and it gives me a baseline understanding of how profit sharing works on the platform, but while $700+ in earnings might be great for a standalone project, split 11 ways and discounting costs, it wasn’t a very profitable one. I wanted to understand the platform and whether we could leverage it better for future projects so I completed a quick financial analysis, then reached out to fellow Metalabel artists, as well as its founder
, to learn from their models and see how we could adapt our strategy for our next project.Let’s start with a breakdown of our earnings and expenses, and how profit sharing worked this time around:
Earnings
$410.00 in print pamphlets (41 pamphlets at $10 each)
$208.33 in digital pamphlets (101 at a suggested donation of $5)
$114.00 in shipping (38 print orders at $3 each)
Net revenue: $732.33