reKiosk is taking a cue from both the spread of social networks, blogs and indie publishing to create a new platform for indie musicians and writers to sell their wares. Here's how it works: an artist goes to the reKiosk site and sets up their own reKiosk store with all of their goods. Indie publishers, bloggers, Twitter personalities etc. can then set up their own rekiosk store and include other peoples music, books or whatever. Here's the rub: the artist gets 70%, the "recommender" gets 25% and reKiosk takes 5%. The Brooklyn-based indie label Paper Garden Records just set up a shop of their own.
reKiosk is trying to provide incentive for the web at large to do the marketing and promotion via their own social circles, while providing the store front and service to make it all happen in. The catch: you have to buy the work in order to resell it. "Any user who buys a digital file can then become a distributor, selling to their own sets of friends and followers and retaining 25% of each subsequent sale. Meanwhile, the file’s original creator always reaps 70% of every sale," says their press release. Not a bad catch mind you, but if you're thinking that you'll just set up an Amazon-style store, this is definitely not that kind of experience.
Founded by bro /sis team Aziz and Darya Isham, reKiosk is hoping to redefine the idea of recommendations and online distribution. They cite Amazon and iTunes as people that they're trying set themselves apart from, and look at the web as a platform instead a one-way street to push things at consumers.
“reKiosk is a way to sell directly to your fans, and have your fans sell for you. We believe that the digital age means that writers and musicians shouldn’t have to give their products away – we’re solving the distribution crisis by creating a platform that allows anyone, anywhere, to open a digital storefront and sell what they love,” said Aziz.