CD's on Demand

I thought everyone knew this - but apparently not, so this is just a short heads-up!

I was amazed yesterday when two artists separately told me that they didn't have CD's for sale at their shows as they couldn't afford a full production run of 500 or so.

I was amazed that they didn't know about small scale replication.

Of course, you can burn CD's at home and do pretty good quality artwork but often the on-body print lets that method down.

For some years I have been sending people to Kunaki - a service where you upload all the parts of your CD to a site and they make them individually on demand. The quality is great and you get a full colour on-body print. These are replicated CD's not made from a glass master but for small runs they are perfect. You can then link this online CD to your band website so that you hold no stock and each time a CD is needed Kunaki makes it and ships it.

Of course, you can then also order, say, 10 or 20 at a time yourself to sell at gigs.

You can also use these to stock a CD Baby store etc.

Amazon offers a similar service with Create Space. I don't think it's as good as Kunaki.

There are more too - just search for 'CD on Demand'.

That's all. Hopefully this has switched on a lightbulb for those that didn't know!

Get an extra 5% from your iTunes sales

You might not think that matters that much, but it all adds up.

iTunes now accounts for 80% of most of my client's income outside of their own direct-to-fan sales from their websites, so adding another 5% to that makes a noticeable improvement.

And it's relatively easy to do.

What this post teaches is that you should swap bare links to your music on iTunes for 'affiliate' links. Now, if you don't know what an 'affiliate' link is, the short answer is that it's a link that the vendor (in this case iTunes) tracks to see where people coming to their store are being sent from. And, if the visitor buys as a result of coming through your link, you get paid a commission.

This is a massive business online and if you've never heard about it, go and search it up and have your mind blown!

As a musician though, you should follow the advice in this post and use affiliate links to your own music on iTunes.

BTW, the same thing applies on Amazon and various other digital music retailers.

The major­ity of artists already have their music on iTunes, thanks to sim­ple ser­vices like CD Baby and Tunecore.  You get 70% of the money every time some­one buys your album.  But if you are send­ing you fans to iTunes, you need to sign up for an iTunes Affil­i­ate Account to earn an extra 5% every time one of your fans buys some­thing after click­ing on your link!

Read the whole post here.

 

Monetize the thing around the thing you used to sell!

This is a great post about how one of the Nimbit guys got a deeper connection with a band that he saw at SXSW than he thought he would, simply becuase they went the extra mile.

The title is something that Martin Atkins said about how you need to surprise your fans with that little thing extra that they didn't necessarily espect.

Read the piece on the Nimbit blog.

Which music sale makes you the most?

Image by steffenz

This post is written from the point of view of the fan buying music and advising them which way will return the most cash to the artist.

But, as a basic primer for you, the artist, it works just as well.

And, in short, what it tells you is that the direct sale to the fan is the one that will make you the most cash. Sort of obvious, but it reminds me that Ian Rogers of Topspin says that you're not in the business of selling 79 pence / cents single track downloads. It just doesn't work.

You're in the business of selling the music experience of your band to the core element of your fanbase - and that starts with selling CD's or album downloads to them. Learn about the direct to fan model from Topspin, Nimbit (this link is their direct to fan training) or Bandcamp.

Say your favorite band is putting out a new album and you've decided to buy it. You want to make sure that when you do, the band gets as much of your money as possible. Where do you shop? Best Buy? Your local record store? iTunes?

Read it here.

What is an Album now anyway?

Image by kevindooley

When someone who's worked at a major label with superstar acts wants to tell you something about how to succeed as a musician, you can bet that you should be listening.

That's the case here in this great piece on Hypebot about how the Album is dying and what it will become.

I don't agree necessarily with the overall view of the piece, as the format showcases music and great music is at the heart of what we all do, but there are two sections that are required reading for artists.

One in the middle of the post where Ethan 'defines the Album':

• Branding: an album serves as a tent pole around which to rebrand a band. Logos, type faces, color, visual identites. This also applies to non-visual things such as: message, statement, platform, etc.
• Visuals: both with and without music, related closely to branding
• The Hook: something that serves as the tweet worthy summation of what this Album is aiming at
• The Angle: a unique method or action which serves as an easy method for someone to write about the record
• The Timeline: the sequence of events and windowing of releases culminating to…
• The Release: Not the end game, but rather a stop along the way
• The Music: Can’t forget about this? Or can you?

And at the end, where he sets out rules for a release:

• Announce the release when it is ready to ship. Lead times should be at most 4 weeks from announcement to “in hands”
• Self-direct all publicity and promotion. Own the visual language/identity, own the messaging.
• Fans matter more than radio stations, website exclusives, etc. Giving a video to the NY Times ahead of your own YouTube won’t get you a good review: don’t do it.
• Hear it and buy it: don’t put anything up to hear, watch or experience if it can’t be purchased. Reward loyalty for your fans through exclusives.
• Make your fans product evangelists. Everyone wants an iPad because everyone they know wants one or has one. Make your release so amazing that you want to tell the world about it.
• Own your press: disintermediate, be selective with interviews and use the channels at your disposal (video, twitter, etc)
• Make it an event. Time it properly, make all messaging unified and coordinated.
• Let the Release define itself: if you can’t summarize it in one sentence, keep winnowing it down until you can. It might be an app, a collection of songs, a video album, etc

These are both critical things to understand and why 'just having good music' is never enough!

You can read the whole post here.

 

 

 

Music piracy is officially over!

Is it?

Wired seem to think so in this article. Maybe the future of music is secure!

And given that they make the case well and that buying music is supporting artists - not just behemoth entertainment companies - maybe it's the right result.

So there’s really no reason not to buy—and surely you understand by now that there are reasons why you should. When you buy instead of bootlegging, you’re paying the band. Most download retailers send about 70 percent of each sale to the record companies that own the music. Artists with 15 percent royalty deals get 15 percent of that 70 percent, or about 10.5 cents per dollar of sales. Those who write their own music and own their own music publishing companies—an increasingly common arrangement—get another 9.1 cents in “mechanical royalties.” Every download sends almost 20 cents straight to the band.

Read the blog piece here.