[Dixielandjazz] Re: Royalties

[Stephen Barbone]

> TCASHWIGG at aol.com wrote (about CDs)
>
> I now sell all my own products direct to the consumer and at 1/2 what the
> Major Labels charge, manufacture it for the same price as they do within cents,
> about $1.00 each and sell them for $10.00 to $12.00 and make plenty of profit
> to pay myself and any artists on the recordings with me a royalty.
>
> We also make enough profit to be able to give away as many promotional copies
> as we need to potential employers and reviewers to promote ourselves.
>
Hear Hear Tom. I also pay sidemen royalties on  CDs. A soon as I hit break-even on manufacture costs, sidemen get $1.00 per CD sold. At gigs, we sell CDs for $15. Or $17 post paid. When we do "Charity" functions, we also donate $5 per CD to the Church, Charity, etc. Like Tom, we are not going to get rich on CD
sales, but we do move a lot of CDs thus insuring that we do not have boxes of them in storage somewhere, and we spread the joy of the music.

Last month, I paid more in royalties to our bass player then his quarterly royalty check from the Chubby Checker record of "Let's Twist Again" which is about the only other royalties he still gets these days.

How about the rest of the band leaders out there. Do you share CD revenue with your sidemen?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone