If you picked door number four then you are correct.All my past releases have been assembled using a cottage industry philosopy. I made the design, printed the artwork and labels, burned the CD-R's, cut out the print outs, folded the covers, put the covers in a CD case, stuck the label on the CD, and placed the CD in the case. All very labour intensive.
It usually cost me about $5.00 per CD. There were mailing costs for about 40% of the CD's which increased costs to $7.00. Then I gave them away. I have never, ever sold a CD. Sometimes I received a gift back (a Cd of original music, mixed tapes, live performances by artists I liked, etc).
Back in 2000 I had to cap one of my releases, "the disappearance" at 100 CD's. It received a fair amount of radio play on CBC, positive reviews and I was getting a lot of requests for it. Once my personal expenses exceeded $600.00 it was time to cut my losses and I moved it to the original mp3.com where it hit number 11 in its genre. I received a polite email that in order to move into the top 10, I would need to pay a marketing fee of $9.99 USD per day. Everyone needs to make a buck and hosting all those songs wasn't free.
For my latest, I went with a CD duplicator and I must say it was quite easy and cheap. Here is the cost breakdown for the CD`s (all dollar amounts are in Canadian Dollars).
75 CD's with two sided color covers, ink jet printed CD's, a nice frosted jewel case............$201.00
Software to create CD-Text.....................................................................................................$30.00
Artwork through Fiverr...........................................................................................................$32.00
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$263.00
or $3.50 per CD.
My time was significantly reduced from the old cottage industry style and I have tax receipts so once I incorporate I can write off these losses.
Now that I have these CD`s I need to figure out a plan for them. Do I sell, give away as promo material, horde them at home? How do I compliment them with the digital release?
My main goal, from when I set my SMART goals was to release an E.P. (digital and CD formats) and end the six year drought. Now that I achieved that goal, its time to develop a marketing plan to become a little less obscure.
