Prince Goes Direct to Fans
Prince will once again be selling direct to his fans with a new subscription site lotusflow3r. The current placeholder site is scheduled to go live March 24th according to Newsweek. For $77 fans will get downloads of the new three albums that will be available in as CD's from Target on March 29th, as well as, a robust selection of exclusive videos, behind the scenes action, news and concert info.
The new site and Target release are just the latest experiments for an artist who is no stranger to new music business models. Prince hosted one of the first successful fan subscription sites, which he abruptly shut down 3 years ago despite its success when he apparently felt it had run its course. In recent years, he has jumped from one label to another for the distribution of every new album, while always controlling all aspects of each campaign. One notable Prince self-release combined a free CD with each concert ticket and another gave away a copy with each Sunday UK newspaper.
