Trent Reznor of NIN Makes $750,000 Even When The Music is Free

Trent Reznor, frontman of Nine Inch Nails (NIN) released an instrumental album that comes in four volumes – Ghost I-IV. He’s been giving away Ghost I for free and even uploaded some of the tracks on torrent sites for free download. In spite of all this free music he’s offering, Trent Reznor sold 2,500 copies of his deluxe package which went for $300 each – all of that in 3 days. And all of that went entirely with no backing of any label or marketing. Trent Reznor went entirely free agent in October last year.

So the business model he chose is working out well. Nine Inch Nails is well recognized band and has huge base of fans and followers. This fact surely helped make Trent Reznor $750,000 even when a lot of his new music is available for free. This is a business model Radiohead chose, only NIN is doing it a little different. Radiohead decided to let their fans choose how mcuh they want to pay for their latest album. Nine Inch Nails offers entirely free samples, but not whole set.

Entire collection of 36 songs from Ghost I-IV can be had as digital download for $5, two disc CD version is available for $10, extensive collection is available for $75 and contains both CDs and a DVD which allows fans remixing and altering of NIN songs. The deluxe version costs $300 and there was only 2500 copies made. Each is personally signed by Trent Reznor and contains both CDs, a DVD, vinyl records and some additional material.

Further Reading:

• Trent Reznor (NIN): ‘I Would Like People To Support Artists’

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