Door to door sales...

I was bored this evening, so i loaded my album (recorded in Sonar 8.3.1) onto my sister's ipod, hooked up some headphones and went door knocking, trying to sell my album. In just half an hour I sold 8 copies! Give it a go - from now on I'm going to dedicate an hour or 2 every weekend to this and see if the trend continues. Perhaps in this day and age, person to person is the most effective way to market a product?

heh heh, this made me chuckle because I got the image of a guy carrying a shotgun knocking on the door and saying, "You wanna buy my album?"

"YES SIR!"

Great initiative - self promotion is the best, and quite frankly - the cheapest :)

If the Beatles had though of this, they could have avoided that embarrassing appearance with Ed Sullivan. 

WOW!...... $117/hr..... not to many day jobs pay like that..... and I'm assuming...tax free.... If you have a large area to sell in... you can sure make some good money like that.

Free enterprise and capitalism at work!  It sure beats clerking in a big box.

Tax free - lol! Well it could be, but I'll be declaring it all for 2 reasons - i believe honesty is the best policy, and I've just gotten married and need to buy a house. Not sure how it works in the States, but here in Oz you have to show the bank a minimum of 2 years of healthy profit and growth if you're self employed, otherwise they won't even consider giving you a mortgage. I've only just started this game professionally, so I'm looking to declare as much income as possible to the tax office for the next 2 years - then I can think about tax evasion :)

OIC. :-)  I wasn't sure what the iPod was for.  Makes perfect sense now. :-)

jamescollins


OK this is pretty funny - I've been door knocking a bit this week, and have sold 87 CDs for an average hourly rate of $117.42! (I'm selling them for $20 each - this is Australian dollars I'm talking here by the way!) I'm collecting stats for all of this - I'll continue this and report back in a month or so. I'm aiming to sell 100 CDs a week, door knocking between 2-3hrs/day, which is a very realistic target, given that my hourly rate is going up as I become more adept at choosing the good streets to go down. If anyone else tries selling CDs in this way, it'd be great if you posted here...this is really getting beyond a joke now and becoming a serious earner - can't believe it! VS 700C here we come!!

That's outstanding! What will you do when you've sold out Perth?

I'm glad you mentioned that, Andy, cause I hadn't taken the time to listen yet.  I'm glad I did. WOW!  I think Andy's right.  It's your talent that's selling those CD's!  WOW!!  :-)

Wow thanks a lot guys, I'm thrilled that you are down with what I'm doing on that CD - I always thought I wouldn't get much respect here because I was playing works by other composers, so it's fantastic that some of you like it! Craig - in answer to your question, it'll take a very long time to do the whole of Perth! I've been doing it a week and haven't even done a quarter of my suburb. Besides, when I do my next CD, I can just start again. In fact, maybe I should keep a record of who buys a CD now, then next time my success rate will be near 100% and my hourly rate would be ridiculously high?!! Hmmm might start doing that. And Janet, doing a CD of covers is only a problem if you don't pay royalties :) I got permission and bought the necessary licenses for each piece on my CD - I think it worked out to be about $1200 for the first 1000 CDs I pressed, including admin fees.

I think you're right in saying Andy, that much of my success with this is due to the very broad appeal of the music on the CD. I very much doubt that if I took my more genre specific pop tunes I've written and went door knocking that I'd do half as well. Thanks again for the kind words guys, really appreciate it. I'll definitely report back in a month or so and let you all know if this trend continues...

"I always thought I wouldn't get much respect here because I was playing works by other composers."

Are you kidding?  With your talent? 

Sorry guys, it's been more than a month :) I had a very long break from going door to door because I've been flat out recording the world's worst band and the universe's most terrible singer. But that's another story...

I've actually only been out 24 times, each session from between 2-3 hours. I stopped collecting such detailed stats on my expeditions cos it was just a pain in the bum, and I was concentrating my efforts on writing down the address of every person who bought a copy. So now I have a large database of customers who will most likely buy my next CD, I don't have to knock on every door, just go straight to the gold - so beautiful! 

My average hourly rate has evened out to around AUD$110/hr

I've sold 331 CDs from door knocking

Since I began I've been getting a lot more hits on my website, and more sales on there.

Since it's release in around August 09, I've sold around 700 copies - I can only give an approximate figure because I can't remember how many I've given away to radio stations and the like. I pressed 1000 and I have 250 left, so I reckon 700 is about right!

So, it can be done (selling CDs)! I used to sit around wondering why I wasn't selling any - am I no good? Is it because I live in a backward civilization?! Nope, just get off your bum and do something about it - they won't sell themselves. I realise that my door knocking approach would only really work for music similar to mine, but with some unconventional thinking and hard work, I'm sure we could all come up with an idea that works for us to improve our music sales. 

Just for some more giggles, I'll tell you about another one of my adventures...I went to the busiest shopping center in my area, found a good corner next to a cafe and a restaurant, set up a display table with my CDs on it, whipped out a chair and started playing my guitar. It was good while it lasted - I sold 3 CDs during the 20 minutes I was there until security kicked me out. It was pretty funny, I went and spoke to Center Management to try and convince them to let me say - they said they were all just laughing whilst watching the CCTV footage of this guy waltz in, pull out a table and just set up his own shop in the middle of their center! They said I was welcome to stay - but the price of some floor space at Christmas time is $1500/day. Damn.

Anyway, perseverance is the key - door knocking was annoying at the start - if I wasn't out in the 40 degree heat knocking on doors, I wasn't earning money, but it kind of snowballs. The more people I meet through door knocking/concerts, the more people know about it cos they tell their friends, ring up and request it on the radio etc. I'm now signed on to is a very small local record label, and they're going to organise and bankroll an Australian and hopefully European tour for me this year. They're also paying for my next project, in which I'll be singing (can't wait!).

Along with all this, I'm getting more work in my studio too as a result of people I've spoken to.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, you gotta make it happen. I've by no means 'made it' - not even close, but it's a start. Now I'm not worrying about where the money's going to come from for next month's rent, or worrying that my new wife is going to starve! Can't ask for much more than that, I'm making a living from music and loving it.

Happy music making.

Thanks Janet! As I said I've still got a very long way to go, and this may have just been a good run, it might all collapse tomorrow! I can't wait to go on tour and do the next album now...

Way to hustle!!!



that's the way you do it... money ain't for nothing and your chicks for free

My dad's the same Janet! I'm only 25 so I guess it's partly because he still thinks of me as his little boy he has to look after, but it's been hilarious watching him having a ball trying to sell these CDs! He's a school teacher, and apparently he had a massive poster of me advertising the CD up at his school! He throws dinner parties and plays it in the background, flogging them off to his friends after the meal. What a legend!