Band CD questions

[Paul S]

I suppose I have two questions, really, but it is mainly about how much to charge.  My lot had our last gig recorded off the desk and we are going to put the best 14 tracks onto a CD to sell at our gigs.   This would end up being around 65 mins, maybe a touch more.

 

Who has done it and how much do you charge?  Not necessarily a live one but a CD of your band's music to sell at gigs.  Not interested in online sales/downloading at the moment.  

 

The other thing is related to this - would you charge more for a jewel case CD than a card sleeve CD and is it worth the extra expense of having done?  

 

Muchas gracias  

 

 

[Skybone]

I've been looking into it for our album, but it doesn't seem to have gone very far.  

 

I think if you're looking at doing CD's, you're best starting point would be how much it's going to cost to get the CD's reproduced in the first place, and how many you think you'd need.

 

When I checked the other month, the duplication cost, inc. covers, was between £300-500 for 100 CD's, so if we assumed that it would be say £400 for 100 CD's, then the "unit" cost would be £4 per CD, and you'd need to sell all of them to get your money back.

 

If you sold them at say £6 each, that's £2 "profit" for each CD, and you'd be able to give a small number away for "promo" purposes without affecting making your money back. If you factor any "profit" made from the CD's would go into the band coffers, you would want to try and make them as profitable as possible, but also price them so that they're "affordable" and more importantly, "saleable" to your crowd.

 

Maybe, at the next few gigs you go to, check out the other bands merch tables, and see how much they're selling them for.

[Lozz196]

In my last band we charged £8, dunno if price has gone up as I left 3 years ago. We used to sell a fair bit, and even back when we started in 2014 there were bands selling theirs at £10 or more. 
 

I always thought less than a tenner, it’s that subliminal message of getting change from a note, even if it’s only £1.

[Rayman]

Give it a nice printed cover of some sort, make it look as professional as you can, and charge a tenner.

 

If people like your vibe, they’ll pay a tenner. 

[Skybone]

Charging a tenner also means you don't have to carry a ton of change.

[Paul S]

I think this is going to be the way forward - get the better quality jewel case, which costs an extra 55p a pop, then charge a tenner so we don't have to bother with change.

 

Cram duplication seemed a popular choice when someone previously asked about CD printing and they charge £2.20 plus VAT a unit for 100 printed CDs in jewelcase plus 2 page insert

https://www.cramduplication.co.uk/cddvd/

 

Ta!

[ossyrocks]

13 hours ago, Skybone said:

I've been looking into it for our album, but it doesn't seem to have gone very far.  

 

I think if you're looking at doing CD's, you're best starting point would be how much it's going to cost to get the CD's reproduced in the first place, and how many you think you'd need.

 

When I checked the other month, the duplication cost, inc. covers, was between £300-500 for 100 CD's, so if we assumed that it would be say £400 for 100 CD's, then the "unit" cost would be £4 per CD, and you'd need to sell all of them to get your money back.

 

If you sold them at say £6 each, that's £2 "profit" for each CD, and you'd be able to give a small number away for "promo" purposes without affecting making your money back. If you factor any "profit" made from the CD's would go into the band coffers, you would want to try and make them as profitable as possible, but also price them so that they're "affordable" and more importantly, "saleable" to your crowd.

 

Maybe, at the next few gigs you go to, check out the other bands merch tables, and see how much they're selling them for.

 

£4 per unit seems really expensive to me.

 

It's been a while I admit, and prices have gone up a lot since, but the band I was in about 10 years ago were paying less than £1 per CD, for jewel cased inc. artwork, printing, barcoding etc. I'm still in touch with them and could find out where we got them done. We used to buy in the order of one or two thousand at a time though, and get re-prints done when we ran out. We had four albums at the time, and simply couldn't store the volume of CDs at home. We charged £10 per CD and they sold well, sometimes CD sales exceeded gig fees, so it's a great way to top up what you're getting paid.

 

Rob

[BigRedX]

Are these your own songs or covers?

 

If they are covers and you are having them professionally duplicated (CDRs) or replicated (proper glass-mastered CDs) you will need a MCPS licence whose cost is based on the number of covers and the production run of the CD and will need to be paid for up front. All the CD manufacturing brokers I've used in the past make you sign a form either stating that you own the copyright on the songs or that you have the relevant licences with details before going ahead with making the CDs. All the CDs I have produced have all been originals so I've always been able to tick the section that says I own the copyright, but a quick look at the MCPS web site reveals that 100 CDs with more than 25 minutes of non-original music will cost just over £70 with VAT for the relevant licence.

 

One thing to watch for duplicated CDRs is that their life-span is considerably shorter than glass mastered CDs. Properly looked after about 15 years before they are unplayable if you are lucky, often a lot less.

 

CDs are still relatively easy to make so if you want to sell them your presentation has to look professional. Single wallets are fine for "singles" but an album should really be in a gate-fold wallet or a jewel case - ideally with a 4-page booklet and a printed tray insert and with an eye-catching design. Anything less will look cheap and tacky. Also get your audio properly mastered and edited, a live performance will benefit even more from this.

 

Whatever you decide to charge (personally for an "album" I'd suggest £10) get a Sumup (or similar) card reader. They are cheap to use and a couple of sales that you would have otherwise lost because you couldn't take card payments will more than make up for the up-front cost. I was at a gig on Friday and would have bought a CD from the headlining band but they only accepted cash which I didn't have, and it was chucking it down with rain so trying to find the nearest cash-point was out of the question. Also have someone who can "man" your merch table at all times because the time when your are most likely to be selling stuff is immediately after you have played when the band will be breaking down and packing away the gear.

 

And finally if you just want to make some extra money for the band your are much better off producing a T-shirt where a 200% mark-up is perfectly acceptable and your punters then turn into walking advertisements for your band.

[Paul S]

50 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

If they are covers and you are having them professionally duplicated (CDRs) or replicated (proper glass-mastered CDs) you will need a MCPS licence whose cost is based on the number of covers and the production run of the CD and will need to be paid for up front.

 

I wasn't aware of this, thank you.  I'll investigate.

[Paul S]

License cost £77 and a bit.  Not too bad but it all adds up!

[ambient]

Do people still buy CDs?

[PaulWarning]

43 minutes ago, ambient said:

Do people still buy CDs?

No, well not many, it's all about streaming these days, we get about 500 streams a month for which we get about £2!!! we're really struggling to get our money back on our last CD and we only had to sell 100.

As @BigRedX says T shirts are far more profitable

[ambient]

6 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

No, well not many, it's all about streaming these days, we get about 500 streams a month for which we get about £2!!! we're really struggling to get our money back on our last CD and we only had to sell 100.

As @BigRedX says T shirts are far more profitable

That’s it. I barely sold any of the CDs I had printed a few years ago. I had a batch of 50 cassettes done that sold out within a week.

[Lozz196]

Not sure about now but my last band (I left 3 years ago) used to sell a lot of CDs. I suppose it can depend on genre and age of the associated fan base. 

[PaulWarning]

52 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Not sure about now but my last band (I left 3 years ago) used to sell a lot of CDs. I suppose it can depend on genre and age of the associated fan base. 

a lot has changed in 3 years, bands like Knock Off can probably still sell albums, but I suspect it's less than it used to be

[skidder652003]

we made 100 CD's of an album of origionals. Managed to sell them all in about 2 years at gigs and a few online via facebook. Think they cost about £4 each with nice colour booklet.

We sold them for a tenner so made some profit.

However we have had some cheaper ones made and are selling them for a fiver but it feels this year less people are buying CD's, so I guess its a shrinking format.

T shirts on the other hand have gone great. Think we've sold maybe 50 so far at £15 a pop.

So deffo think T shirts (Black and white to keep cost down and make sure you have size large as the most numerous size!) and here's a really good bit of advice..get a card reader, people dont carry cash these days and if the've had a few drinks will get our their card or phone and buy a T much more readily than using cash.

 

Edit, just seen what Big Red said, exactly that!

Edited May 9, 2023 by skidder652003

[BigRedX]

11 hours ago, ambient said:

Do people still buy CDs?

 

11 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

No, well not many, it's all about streaming these days, we get about 500 streams a month for which we get about £2!!! we're really struggling to get our money back on our last CD and we only had to sell 100.

As @BigRedX says T shirts are far more profitable

 

10 hours ago, ambient said:

That’s it. I barely sold any of the CDs I had printed a few years ago. I had a batch of 50 cassettes done that sold out within a week.

 

Certainly in the genres I currently play (post-punk/goth) our audience likes to buy physical media - whether that be CDs records or even cassettes. 

 

In Isolation have already sold out the Anthology double CD in less than 12 months.

 

Hurtsfall have made the decision to release each song as we record it, as a stand-alone single on line, which works brilliantly for streaming and playlists and means that every song we consider good enough to be worth recording gets the same attention (unlike an album where unless you are very lucky only the first song or two will pick up any plays). However that works against us when we gig because we only have one single on CD to sell.

[Paul S]

Brief update.  I ended up going with this lot:

 

https://www.promodiscs.co.uk/?gclid=CjwKCAjwge2iBhBBEiwAfXDBR0f3Lq4O_DBLcEUHktpFUiUZSpoAcahW3XgG4O9t1uQYkmVTd1knqxoCfaEQAvD_BwE

 

Cost was £146 for 100x CDs packaged in slimline jewel case, 2 page colour insert plus CD printed, posted.  Guy was really helpful ironing out a few wrinkles with the artwork to make it more print ready.  Very happy with that.  I'll report back once they've arrived.

[pbasspecial]

Maybe do a T-shirt with a free cd as you really want people to be walking around advertising your band as much as possible to other potential fans.