CD Baby has shared its 2008 performance figures (via TechDirt) and they show modest to good growth. CD sales increased 2% to 1,013,478 units while digital download revenue rose 45% to $25.4 million (that's wholesale, not retail).

Proving that it matters for hits as well as niches, iTunes accounted for 82.3% of CD Baby's digital download revenue (a slight drop from 85.6% in 2007).

How valuable is the long tail? To CD Baby, which aggregates the slow-moving and unpopular, there is certainly value in the long tail. It takes a cut from each sale. But at the artist level it's a different story. The average CD Baby payout was $228 in 2008. The average digital album generated wholesale revenue of only $131. That's $10.91 per month.

To put things in perspective, Lil Wayne sold more CDs than did CD Baby in 2008. The $35 million (retail) in download revenue (not all of which was earned through U.S. stores) generated by 194,000 albums and 2,233,891 individual tracks equals roughly 2.2% of 2008 U.S. digital download revenue.