Recuperating/webwork/flights - CD price thoughts

[unclechristo]

Kinda needed slow day - throat still very swollen in mornings. Get worn out quick too. - slowly slowly.

Did some website work and gathered some promo info for gigs in summer/autumn.I posted a couple tracks from Sanctuary and Guiding Light onto my new age page widget

They cancelled my flights to Columbus for Marcon - had to book some more, and get refund. Sorted now but scary for a moment.

Went for Indian restaurant with G. Were served by a waiter I taught in school 25 years ago.

Still having long thoughts about online CD prices. From the year dot I've been selling Cds online and at gigs for £10 - handy as you don't need change. Now you start seeing chart cds for sale on tv for 6.99 at Tesco etc. A lot of my new age albums are selling at £6.69 from Amazon marketplace traders. In the USA $12.99 (=£8.95) seems an average price with some going for less. It is true I do include postage. Plus theres the whole download and Spotify change in music use.

I think the nature of CDs at small live gigs has changed from being a big purchase of a treasured band to a nice little souvenir of a fun night. Dan sells his for £5 at gig now - and sells more for it. There is the promotional nature of it too - you want your music to be heard rather than carted home. Counterwise , you donlt want to sell yourself cheap as it can lower folks expectations. My mom put some paintings in an exhibition - none sold. She was told to double the price - 6 sold. People value things when they pay more for them and it can increase their enjoyment.  Needs more thinkin...

Comments

[surrdave.livejournal.com]

It is indeed strange that a price can be either too high or too low. Stranger, to me, is how it does not follow that there is a right price for everything.

[bardling.livejournal.com]

Have never thought about it that way, but... yes, stuff to think about.

[callylevy.livejournal.com]

Yes, we haven't worked this one out either. And because we have a maximum of two CD titles that we could sell (!) I'm not yet sure whether selling them cheaper would mean people would buy more (whereas with your wonderful range of CDs I can see someone buying a number of different ones). [But as you say, you don't want to be carrying them home again...]

I like your plan re: £10 = don't need change! A few people don't even have that much cash in hand, and have asked whether we take card, and I haven't looked into whether that would be possible. I imagine it would be prohibitively expensive to set up compared to the relatively few sales that would be done on card (though this would probably include T-shirt sales).

[unclechristo.livejournal.com]

I've always find - unless amongst friends - that - with different albums.
you bring 1 - they buy 1
you bring 2 - they might well buy both
you bring 3 or 4 - they buy none
the need to make a decision puts them off.

If stock isn't a problem then offering a deal for both usually works very well and is more likely to lead to both being sold.

It also depends on the gig and audience. I did a 30min slot in Nottm with pal Dan - mostly youngish crowd. He sold 4 x at £5. I doubt he'da sold 2 at £10 - plus 4 folks walk off with his music after just a 30min spot and hes up 20quid.

Also as far as online, you'd like to offer folks a better deal than elsewhere to drive them thru your shop - plus you get more money that way anyhow.

If your with CDBaby - they do a card swiper - you pay them a deposit, get the swiper, you send counterfoils to them. Faffy but affordable.

CD prices and stuff

[sexybass.livejournal.com]

Price sounds Ok to me. I am a sucker for buying CD's at a concert even if the artist's music is not my cup of tea. I always want to support singer/songwriters. Cd's at concerts here usually sell for 20 dollars with no tax. I know at House Concerts we used to sell our Dandelion Wine CD's for a bit less or offer a special deal if people buy two. By the way, the new Dandelion Wine CD is coming along and hopefully will get mastered some time this summer. Do you do your own mastering or do you send it out? It will probably cost me around a thousand to master ours. Sue just bought me WaveLab so I may try mastering on our own Stone Dragons CD (Sue and I) down the road.

Re: CD prices and stuff

[unclechristo.livejournal.com]

mastering - yes I mostly do my own tho the new age company have their own man who masters after my master for piece of mind.

1000 sounds like a lot - I'd be happy to have a go first if ya like for free - if ya like it, use it - if not - no worries. Takes me about an afternoon or 2.

there is a demo mastering software you can use for 10days to have fun mastering here - it has it all.
http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/Ozone_DirectX_Demo/

Re: CD prices and stuff

[sexybass.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the offer Chris but I think we will just take it in to Silver Birch to expediate things. I think Dave wants to be there during the mastering process as well. I haven't loaded Wavelab yet to my computer but have been studying the manual and will hopefully be ready to do my own mastering on my next project.