[Dixielandjazz] Young people and copying CD's

[Larry Walton Entertainment]

Absolutely - I was referring to the million sellers not the few hundred 
we might sell.  Fewer equals higher per unit cost.  I think the little 
guy is better off producing and selling his own CD's  You can buy a 
printing duplicator for $1800 and print your own labels.  Yes a lot of 
trouble but you get a CD that costs about a dollar counting CD, the case 
and printing a folder.  I did that last Christmas and ran about 50 or so 
for my friends and a few clients.  My cost was about the same as 
Christmas cards.  Factoring in the cost of a burner you are still less 
than $2 per CD.  You can have them silk screened for about 50-75 cents 
and buy a regular burner cheaper.  Yes it would take you several days to 
do a run of 1000 but no middle man.

On my Christmas card CD I did the inside folder on my computer with 
photo quality paper which cost me about $0.25 and I don't remember what 
the cases cost but it wasn't much.  The CD's cost about 50 cents.

I would do only as many as you think you might sell at a time that way 
It wouldn't take that much time to do a hundred or so.

I think I spent an afternoon designing the cover and making the CD's.  I 
made them with my second computer while I did other things.  takes about 
7-10 minutes to burn a CD.  It took me an afternoon to edit a concert 
that I did into tracks.  I will be passing out that CD along with 
business cards real soon.

If you do this then there is $12 or so profit to you.  Doing this you 
would make money at $10 a copy and you don't need to have them shrink 
wrapped if you are selling them directly.
Think about it.
Larry
St. Louis
Vaxtrpts at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 11/13/2005 2:41:13 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, 
> larrys.bands at charter.net writes:
>
>     I would feel better if the musicians and composers got a fairer
>     shake and at the same time the people that are doing the copying
>     resent the high cost of a
>     CD.  Let's face it, the production costs on a high run CD are about a
>     dollar or less and packaging is about another dollar.  That leaves
>     about
>     $14 profit for someone and the performers and composer are way
>     downstream on the profits.  It's hard to believe with those kind of
>     profits the recording and distribution industry is hurting much.
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Ah, but Larry, you are talking about people who have contracts with 
> large labels.  Who on this list would EVER have such a thing.  We all 
> pretty much put out our own CD's or record for smaller independent 
> jazz labels who treat us much better.  Even those of us who record for 
> a small label are able to buy our CD's from them fairly cheaply.  So - 
> if they do the packaging, some distribution and promotion, they 
> deserve to make something off of the recording too.  Even with CD's 
> made by us for ourselves, there is NOT $14 profit.  WE are the ones 
> that paid for the studio time, the musicians, the arrangements, union 
> dues and pension, for those in the union, etc......
> Then there are the taxes we must pay, the money that the festivals 
> take for sales, the shipping and on and on.
> The REALITY is that at $15, CD's are placed RIGHT where they should be 
> for us to sell.
> Mike Vax