Although I’m a few days late on covering this tidbit, the first week of Reznorgasm was indeed a profitable one. As stated before, the first three days after the release of Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV resulted in revenues of $750,000. Double that figure and add a bit more for the first week’s take: $1.6 million. To recap, this revenue was raked in with minimal overhead:

Reznor made the albums available at five different prices, including a free download, without any advance publicity. His marketing campaign, such as it is, consisted of a terse announcement on his nin.com Web site. On Wednesday, he reported 781,917 transactions, including free and paid downloads and orders of physical product. A $300 box set sold out of 2,500 copies within a day. Nine of the 36 songs were made available as a free download. The complete set also was available as a $5 download, a $10 double-CD and a $75 set with bonus visual content.

So, Trent Reznor didn’t do jack crap as far as advance publicity or marketing is concerned. He doesn’t have to worry about handing anything over to a record label. Now, I may not know much about the music industry, such as it is, but I think Trent just smacked them pretty good. In fact, my uneducated opinion tells me that this is the most brilliant record buzz since the “remember to drink the water . . . it’s good for you” campaign that Trent launched last year. Good times, mates.

UPDATE: Some delicious words from Trent follow. While my enthusiasm for this project borders on fangirl delight, I’m just thrilled that somebody with street cred is harnessing, rather than fearing, the true power of the internet:

“I think the way [Radiohead] parlayed it into a marketing gimmick has certainly been shrewd,” Reznor said when speaking to Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Michael Atkin. “But if you look at what they did, though, it was very much a bait and switch to get you to pay for a MySpace-quality stream as a way to promote a very traditional record sale.”

Reznor is referring to Radiohead’s release of In Rainbows as lossy 160kbps (max) MP3 downloads, which many would argue are sub-par when compared to DRM-free offerings from Amazon and iTunes Store (both of which offer 256kbps DRM-free music). Furthermore, Radiohead’s album is also no longer offered as a digital download, as the band openly stated that they were still going to rely on traditional labels and distribution channels for the rest of In Rainbows’ sales.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Reznor continued, “but I don’t see that as a big revolution [that] they’re kinda getting credit for.” In addition to the quality of Radiohead’s MP3s, NIN’s frontman also took issue with the band’s omission of artwork and altogether not taking care of the fans. “To me that feels insincere. It relies upon the fact that it was quote-unquote ‘first,’ and it takes the headlines with it.”