General Music Chat

file sharing is totally different than the tape trading days. Tape trading were friends of friends sharing, and file sharing is the whole world lifting music from strangers. So, what do you do, make MP3 encoding illegal?

It never hurt the Grateful Dead OR Metallica, who both built their fanbase on tape trading and bootleg demos, and not with just friends either.

Dead on.
Plus you're right. You can sell more Merch than CD's.
T-shirts used to go over very well.

file sharing is totally different than the tape trading days. Tape trading were friends of friends sharing, and file sharing is the whole world lifting music from strangers. So, what do you do, make MP3 encoding illegal?

It never hurt the Grateful Dead OR Metallica, who both built their fanbase on tape trading and bootleg demos, and not with just friends either.

Dead on.
Plus you're right. You can sell more Merch than CD's.
T-shirts used to go over very well.

How much are you selling your CD's for? I'm guessing "at cost" or just below if investing in a fanbase - what price might that be out of curiosity?

Don't forget to include the production costs when determining per unit costs. Discmakers has 1000 digipak Cds for $990. If the cost to produce five tracks is $1000, the total costs are $2000, or $2 per unit. Count on giving away half, leaving 500, which all must be sold for at least $4 to recoup costs.

Don't forget to include the production costs when determining per unit costs. Discmakers has 1000 digipak Cds for $990. If the cost to produce five tracks is $1000, the total costs are $2000, or $2 per unit. Count on giving away half, leaving 500, which all must be sold for at least $4 to recoup costs.

Well, that's less than a beer here in my neck of the woods - but people might prefer saving their cash for the beer

I know short run cd-r's are good for promotion, but some people might have a problem with buying them...unless they're really cheap.

Don't forget to include the production costs when determining per unit costs. Discmakers has 1000 digipak Cds for $990. If the cost to produce five tracks is $1000, the total costs are $2000, or $2 per unit. Count on giving away half, leaving 500, which all must be sold for at least $4 to recoup costs.

Well, that's less than a beer here in my neck of the woods - but people might prefer saving their cash for the beer

Gonna need a coaster!

Don't forget to include the production costs when determining per unit costs. Discmakers has 1000 digipak Cds for $990. If the cost to produce five tracks is $1000, the total costs are $2000, or $2 per unit. Count on giving away half, leaving 500, which all must be sold for at least $4 to recoup costs.

Well, that's less than a beer here in my neck of the woods - but people might prefer saving their cash for the beer

Gonna need a coaster!

Ohhhh snap!

Hey I like the beer coaster idea! You could even use "coaster art" on the cover and have some fun with it. Might sell twice as many.

Another way to go is to do a small run and test market your music to see if there is demand before committing $1-2K of hard earned gig money. You can have a short run of 50 done for about $2 ea. If you sell all 50 the first night, order 1000 more. If you still have 40 left after 6 months, you made a wise business decision by test marketing first. Care to guess how many local bands have 900 CDs of their first pressing still in the closet after 5 years?


These guys are pretty reasonable and they offer quality mastering services as well:
http://Sarecording.com/cdr_dup.htm

We did a demo type run of 3500 cds for $1000 from a local rapper producer who just had to many cds. I ran across the ad in CL and jumped on it.

I would say weve sold at least a 1000 at 5 apiece, but weve also given away a bunch of them too, of course they have paid for themselves so its all good to me.