I'll address some of this after work tomorrow because it's late, but I can assue you that you'll get paid your digital sales along with regular CD sales at the same time from CDBaby, and the payout is dependant upon whatever dollar ammount YOU set, with a minimum of only $10. I have mine set for $20, so whenever I get a total of CD sales and digital download sales that come to a total of $20 COMBINED, they cut me a check and send it out ASAP. I also noticed this at TuneCore's site:

Say you've got a five-song Album you want for sale in the iTunes U.S., Japan and iTunes Canada stores as well as on the Rhapsody service. The costs would be:

iTunes U.S. store $0.99
iTunes Canada store $0.99
iTunes Japan store $0.99
Rhapsody service $0.99
Five songs at $0.99 each $4.95
First year's maintenance $9.98

GRAND TOTAL $18.89

Not exactly cost efficient....

Here's a quickie from CDBaby's site about Digital Distribution:

The Deal

Think of it like traditional physical distribution:
You are the label. (You own the music and all rights.)
The retail store is now Apple iTunes, Rhapsody, Yahoo, ringtone companies, etc.
CD Baby is just the distributor that gets your music to the retailer.
They pay us. We pay you.
We do not take any rights to your music. This is not a record deal.
You are just "lending" us the right to be your digital distributor, for the albums you tell us distribute, for as long as you want.
You can cancel at any time. We will never tie up your rights or make it hard for you to leave.
PLEASE NOTE: you cannot change ANYTHING about your album once it's been sent out for digital distribution, and we cannot accept partial albums

The Money

NO startup cost. This is a free service for CD Baby members.
We keep only 9% and pay you 91% of all income from your music.
You always get paid the week after we do.
It's NON-Exclusive, but...
Just like in the physical world, there can't be more than one distributor bringing the same album to the same store. Otherwise, when the album sells, how would the store know which distributor to pay?
We will never prevent you from doing anything you want with your music.
For YOUR sake, please note : If you sign two digital distribution deals with two companies that will both be sending the same album to iTunes, Rhapsody, Yahoo, Napster, etc - this will hurt you, because the retailer will usually remove the album completely until you decide which distributor has the exclusive right to be selling that album through them.

Legal Permission

To give us legal permission to distribute your music, you must own or control the copyright for the sound recordings and musical compositions.
If you didn't write the music yourself, that's OK, but you must get permission, and pay the publishers their mechanical royalties.

How long does it take for you to send it to all the companies?

2-5 weeks, once you've given us ALL the info we need, and we've received your CD. We have to encode it into 17 different formats for 40 different companies, so that's why it takes a while. Plus we have to verify all your songwriter and publisher info is correct before we send it out into the world.

How long does it take to show up on the music services once you deliver it?

Each company is different, but in general it takes from 3 weeks minimum, to 4 months maximum. (Usually 2-3 months.) Once we send it to them, it's out of our hands and they do what they can to get it imported and active in their service. We push them to get it added as soon as possible, and they always do it as soon as they can.

How much do I get paid?

Every company is different, but the average is 60 cents per song downloaded, $6.50 per full-album download, and 1 cent per listen or stream (when people listen to your song as if on a radio station, but don't download or buy it). Remember we only keep a 9% cut of the total income, and pay you 91%.

My friend downloaded my song yesterday - when do I see that in my report - and get paid?

Most companies only report to us every 1 - 3 months. Apple, for example, sends us the monthly report about 4-6 weeks after the month is finished. Meaning: you won't see your January sales until the first week of March. Some companies report a full 3 months after the quarter is done. But we ALWAYS show you everything we get as soon as we get it, and add the money to your account immediately.

Discmakers or purchase your own duplicator.

I’m getting close.

Now my question is: how to price these buggers? I have received advice from a friend, who says “Don’t sell yourself short! Charge $15!” But I see professional CD’s routinely selling for $10. I plan to give a fair number away to friends and family, but what do I charge for the rest? And what price do I set on CD Baby? (I.e. perhaps it should be $10 if they buy from me but $15 if it’s bought from CD Baby?).

Thanks in advance,

Sam

I've spent the last little bit trying to figure out how to make the people at diskmakers happy as far as sending them "templates" so they can print my disk covers. They don't make it easy; it appears you need professional quality software to do this. This alone may make me choose someone else.

Sam

ORIGINAL: Maxprizm

I checked out your tunes and they are simply great. Very relaxing, great musicianship.

Yes Sam... Gorgeous stuff! What piano are you playing?

Have a look here for some pretty reasonably priced short runs:

DiskFaktory 100 CDR Short Runs

You can upload artwork and even upload the audio files if don't need control over crossfading. 10 day turn-around.

Good luck.

Sam,

I don't remember off hand what I priced my CD at for CDBaby, but they sell it for just under $13 at thier site, and Amazon sells it for about $13.50. Each retailer can decide how much to sell for. What you're doing is deciding how much you want to make off each one. You can also set a different price for wholesellers. People like to be able to (and expect to) buy things a little cheaper online, but I wouldn't go too cheap or they'll think what you have must not be very good if you have to almost give it away.

As to Disc Makers, I imagine yoou could just send them something as a typical image file as long as you follow their size and quality guidelines, like a 150-dpi bmp etc.

Yes Sam... Gorgeous stuff! What piano are you playing?

Art Vista's VGP. Out of the box, no effects necessary. I love this piano and keep trying to tell people about it. I think people ignore it because it's too cheap ($120 or so).

Thanks for the compliment,

Sam

there's a sale at officemax.. 100 cd-r memorex for $14.99. should I get them? it's dirt cheap. I plan to put labels on them, will it work?

As long as your burner has no trouble with that brand. Burners tend to be finicky and like certain brands better than others. Maxell works great with most burners, but I haven't had any problems with Memorex the few times I've used them.