With the cost of manufacturing and all, is it still worth doing that? Or is it more sensible to do digital download only releases? Are your fans still wanting to buy physical hard copies?
 
It is my hope that physical hard copies still matter. But I am not confident that that is the case. It seems everyone is downloading. I am old fashioned I guess, still thinking that the concept of an album in it's entirety in a form that I can hold is important. 

Do both Downloadables and CD: 
I think TuneCore still distributes both formats, Downloadable (most retailers) and CD (Amazon CD-on-Demand) however, if you're not keen on yearly fees with TuneCore but if another distributor don't offer CD-on-Demand; shoot them an Email to see if you can do both (Downloadables and CD) separately. All the best! 

As a fan(I'm not a musician), I like to buy a CD when I they're sold at a show that I enjoyed.  It's like a souvenir.  I don't think a download would have the same effect at a show and they can't be autographed.  So, it might be worthwhile to replicate a few CD's to sell at a gig. 

As a musician, I think I'd be disappointed not to have a CD.
 
As a fan, I hate those things. I buy CD's because they're often the only (or the most inexpensive) way to get high quality audio. But the only thing I do is to unpack them, rip them and then put them on a shelf somewhere where they gather dust and take space.

+1 to what rain said. The only time i buy cds is when i bump into an artist at a live show or street musician.  The moment i rip the CD it is never opened again.  My son has never purchased a cd in his life.  It's an almost foreign concept to him.  i think it is worthwhile if you do shows where you can sell merchandise on the spot, but otherwise they are just coasters with writing.

For buying music online, it's hard to beat the instant gratification of a download. But if you perform live, chances are you'll sell more product at the gig than you do at CD Baby.
 
Buying CDs at the show is still popular, even with younger crowds. It's a physical memento to take home from the show. You can get it autographed. You can read the credits. You can listen to it in the car on the way home.
 
But get some cheap USB flash drives, copy your album to it, and offer it for sale as an alternative to a CD. Some fans will buy both. And don't forget the T-shirts!
 
 

I guess it depends on how many you would expect to sell to some extent. On a personal level I still prefer to buy cds - one because I refuse to have itunes or anything apple for that matter, two because I still like to have an object to hold and look at and three because household contents insurance often does not cover the cost of digital downloads, but does cover cd's so if your computer / gets stolen or destroyed somehow you'll get a new pc, but you won't get your music back from itunes unless you want to pay again.

paulo
if your computer / gets stolen or destroyed somehow you'll get a new pc, but you won't get your music back from itunes unless you want to pay again.

All content purchased from Apple can be re-downloaded at anytime - music, movies, apps like Logic. You can access them from any authorized computer and whatever you've purchased that is not installed or downloaded on that computer will automatically be listed as available downloads.

ha-Rain-Paulo had me worried there-but then if you don`t backup your library you deserve to lose everything.
cheers

Sylvan-Bitflipper is on the money,as usual.
USB drives are great because not only do you get the song(s) in mp3 or wav you can also fit a short video/pics and all sorts of promo material you couldn't fit on or in a cd/lp .
of course,nothing beats vinyl and costs are coming down............