Selling CD's

Hi Donny,
I think it's great you have a CD.

Hard for me to say what a fair price is but I think the package does matter.
At least it does to me.

I bought some that had paper labels. I didn't listen to them.
I won't use or play CD's with paper labels and to pay $10
and get a paper label at the least matter's to me. Cheap and
ripped off comes to mind. ( + shipping)
People that don't care can download.

I believe any professional in marketing would agree
that the package is very important. I would think it
goes without saying. I have bought crap package's
from big name players though. Just don't understand
that. 

Glad you at least went with lightscribe. Sounds to me
like you do care about the package/pricing  and trying to
do it right. Congrats!

Michael

I have my own Steel Guitar instrumental CD's (two and working on third).  I sell them at concerts for $10 each and no one balks at the $10 price.  When I was touring with Tommy Cash he would even let the band members that had CD's (myself and the bass player) put our CD's on the table with his "product" for sale (and it helped to sell them). 

I use ink jet printable CD blanks and have an Epson printer that I use to print on the CD's.  I also have jewel case inserts and even plastic bags that will shrink wrap to make them look more "commercial".
 
My last CD sold so many that it went "aluminum"...
 
EDIT/ADDED: I burn the CD's at 8X so they are compatible with most all audio CD players. Using 8X as my "standard" I haven't had any that I've sold come back because of playing problems.   If you burn them at higher speeds there can be playing problems such as skipping or even not playing with some older CD players.  Most IDE (PATA) interface CD/DVD burners will go down to 8X (some older ones slower), most of the newer SATA burners will only go down to 16X and that speed can be problems on some older audio and car in-dash CD players.  I have a bank of 5 USB connected IDE burner drives that I use for burning the discs and can burn 5 at a time with Nero.

My last CD sold so many that it went "aluminum"...

That's funny. At least you made it into the metals.

yes, i'm afraid i've seen the paper glue-press-on disc labels peel right off when they get hot. and dry.
i live in salt lake city, 2nd driest state in the nation, and when it's 6% humidity here, the glue just totally gives.

I'm of the opinion that $10 may be too much, tho.  I subscribe to roughly $1/track thinking - which is what you'd pay for the download.  more than that and it's not worth it to me to buy the CD - I'd rather just download a couple of songs of that CD for a couple of bucks. 
 
I think that for a $10 CD I'm going to want 10 songs on the CD to make it worth my purchase.  even if 1/2 of the songs are dogs in my opinion, I still want my money's worth of volume.

I have a friend who is an independent artist and she created her CD using CD Baby and Diskmakers (or someone like that).  she has 8 songs on it and charges $8/CD.

apple may be "trying to control the market" but if they're the only ones behind it then they're doing a good job (which they're not). 

the $1/song is also the value that I place on it.  as I said above, $10 for a CD, even if it's nicely packaged is not going to be something I would buy these days if it only has 8 songs on it.  so did Apple make me decide that?  probably partially since they're helping to control the value.  but if you, Storm, would buy a CD with 8 songs on it for $10 and I wouldn't - doesn't that also mean that I'm deciding my own value of the CD?

as I said, if the CD only has 8 songs on it and is being sold for $10 then I won't buy it - I'll download 2 or 3 of the tracks (usually from amazon, not iTunes ) instead.  so I'm deciding the value of that CD myself and deciding it's not worth the extra few bucks.

Don't forget about the environmentally conscious crowd either. There are a lot big releases that is simply the CD in a paper sleeve. It's a stiff stock of paper of course. But no plastic jewel case.

batsbrew


i only like wav files.....
can't stand mp3's, even the 320kbps (which is what i use as a minimum)

nobody sells full bandwidth downloads

that is a very good point.  buying a CD is really the only way you can get the full uncompressed wave.  there were some download places you could get some WMA's but even that seems to be a barren area now.

i guess the napster/itunes paradigm shift, caused it all to sit on the $0.99 thing, based on those crappy 2-dimensional sounding mp3's, and folks have learned to accept that as 'the norm'.

the majority of buyers, apparently do not care about sound quality, not really.

so, $10 for a 'real-deal' cd of wav's, seems like a good deal to me, whether it's 8 songs or 10 songs.

i've been offering mine at $7, maybe i'm re-thinking that.

i burn mine at home, always using the Gold Master disc i received from the Mastering House,  and use a LightScribe on the discs, and my own artwork printed for jewelcase inserts.

fine, insert Napster, Rhapsody, whatever instead of Apple. But Apple are the current definers of the $1 per song paradigm and people are believing 1 SONG = 1 DOLLAR. They don't know the quality sucks and they may only be able to use it on certain machines. Going along with that paradigm is where I don't believe you think all songs are the same .....MP3 versus CD quality. Don't try to convince me Beagle that you've always considered each song to be worth $1. I stick to what I said I don't buy the $1 per song 'perceived' value when it comes to a CD. I refused to buy a 10 or 12 song CD for $25 once technology prices started dropping. But $10 is more than fair for any CD.

There are a lot big releases that is simply the CD in a paper sleeve. It's a stiff stock of paper of course.

good point. That one bugs me to no end. Most look like they're photocopied onto cardboard.

Storm


fine, insert Napster, Rhapsody, whatever instead of Apple. But Apple are the current definers of the $1 per song paradigm and people are believing 1 SONG = 1 DOLLAR. They don't know the quality sucks and they may only be able to use it on certain machines. Going along with that paradigm is where I don't believe you think all songs are the same .....MP3 versus CD quality. Don't try to convince me Beagle that you've always considered each song to be worth $1. I stick to what I said I don't buy the $1 per song 'perceived' value when it comes to a CD. I refused to buy a 10 or 12 song CD for $25 once technology prices started dropping. But $10 is more than fair for any CD.

There are a lot big releases that is simply the CD in a paper sleeve. It's a stiff stock of paper of course.

good point. That one bugs me to no end. Most look like they're photocopied onto cardboard.

no, I won't try to convince you that.  and you're right, I even admitted it earlier when batsbrew brought it up that wave quality is certainly worth more than the $1/mp3. 

I don't understand the need to "bash" apple or any other corporation for the assumed "standard" pricing that has evolved. Some sites or artists sell lower quality mp3 downloads at .79, some at .99, whatever. You could create your own price structure and sell them for .03 on sites like cdbaby, or just open your own facebook/myspace and offer them for free. It is not like apple or amazon or any of the others are the only game in town, and there are no real rules. This need to beat up on the "big business" monster makes no sense.

A simple cd of 8 songs in a thin jewel case with self created art and some verbage to inform the buyer of what is inside and a link to a website to join a self created fan site at live shows is one (of many) way to go. Why not place a sign that says "$8 or Best Offer"? Don't stand over the cd's, allow the customer to let his/her conscience be their guides, and you may find some dropping a ten, others two or three, and it averages out to five at the end of the night....

The important thing is exposure. Tie your sales to your website. Not a facebook page, show some initiative, and professionalism, and have a real website with your schedule, discography, some free downloads of future offerings, a video or two, mailing list, bio, pics, etc. The point is to drive your business...remember, at this point you are trying to be a business. Act like it, be professional in appearance, spell check and grammar check your site, think about your design, be your own promotion staff.

Who knows, you may someday become that monster big business giant that all the others will learn to hate for no good reason...

Later
Albert