Am 23.06.10 22:22, schrieb David W. Fenton:
I just don't see the value of having one of these labels as your
distributor.
I haven't bought a physical CD in a "record store" for 5 years or
more.
I haven't bought a physical CD online in several years (though that's
as much to do with poverty as anything else).
The CD Baby model allows you access to all the major distribution
channels for physical CDs if you choose to use it, so I'm just not
seeing what advantage having your CD recorded/marketed by Naxos or
any other commercial label gives you in terms of distribution.
It may seem like that, but out of experience I can tell you that it isn't.
Here is my story: I have my own CD label. Our first CDs were produced
when we didn't have "proper" distribution, and I tried selling through
CD Baby at first. Originally they only sold online through their own
shop, but eventually they started distributing through Tower, and had
digital distribution through iTunes and others.
We sold around 10-15 CDs total with two CD titles, and made next to
nothing with digital (it may even have been nothing). Ok, that's a few
years ago, perhaps things have changed a little. We sold a lot more CDs
after concerts than through CDBaby. We also had a similar thing in
Europe, which sold one of our CDs and eventually had to close.
A few years ago I managed to find a proper distributor. Since then our
sales have multiplied. We first sold only those two CDs while working on
a third (which was only a second volume, so no more popular than the
other two). We made more money in a few months than in the years with
CDBaby, although we get quite a bit less from each CD. We sold enough on
those three to make the fourth CD possible, within a year or so. And in
the last 18 months, with our fourth CD out (which admittedly hit a small
nail, it was the Dussek String Quartets, never previously recorded) we
are actually making money. Not much, but enough to keep going. The
Dussek CD will need a second pressing probably early next year, that
means we have probably sold around 800 through distribution (the rest is
for after concert sales etc), of the 1000 we had made.
Incidentally this is not only because of the added European market, we
sell most of our CDs in the US.
We are also in iTunes, but sell very few that way. My distributor told
me there are a few Euros to be made, but nothing compared to the "hardware".
BTW, you can find our CDs here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/String-Quartets-Op-60-Dussek/dp/B001O5YND0/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Divertimenti-String-Trio-2-Haydn/dp/B000M2DJTA/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Divertimenti-String-Trio-1-Haydn/dp/B000CAKZJO/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sinfonie-Tre-Stamitz/dp/B0000AIT81/
Johannes
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