Source/Link (I think) can be found at:
http://www.discmakers.com/community/resources/ffwd/2008/WhyMakeCDs.asp

9 ways releasing a CD can help your career in the current music industry environment.
By Andre Calilhanna | November 2008

Ron Rip DigipakThe news surrounding the music industry these days might make you wonder if anyone is buying CDs any more. Major-label CD sales are down again. Downloads are up. So the question on the table is: As an independent artist, do you really need to make CDs these days?

There are many factors to consider, and what is true for major-label artists does not often translate to independents. As a matter of fact, amidst the last few years of continuously declining major-label CD sales, Disc Makers has seen continued growth in new CD jobs ordered, and indie-only CD Baby has seen consistent increases in CD sales. It speaks to the fact that one revenue model does not fit all markets, and the ingredients for success for a major-label artist vs. an independent are simply not the same.

I know what many of you are thinking. “Of course Disc Makers is going to tell me I need to keep making CDs!” Yes, we are a CD manufacturing company, and that gives us a particular stake in the subject. It also gives us a unique perspective, and a front-line view of what the demands of the market and our client base are. In addition to that, we’ve leveraged some of our great connections within the music industry and reached out to gain insight and commentary on the question of the viability of the CD format. Here are a few things to consider.

1. CDs legitimize you. Imagine you need the services of an attorney, and you meet someone who claims to be one. You ask for his card, and he tells you, “Oh, I never got around to printing business cards. Got a pen? Got a napkin?” Could you take this person seriously? Just as a business card is the most basic element to legitimize a business person, a CD is the most basic way to legitimize you as an artist.

What major music artist doesn’t have a CD? Physical product, and in this case CDs, demonstrate that you as an artist are committed to your career. Giving a music business professional a CD is the fastest way to get them to listen to you and take you seriously. Don’t make them work to hear your music!

2. CDs are an integral part of the indie revenue stream. Getting paid good money by a club or promoter to play a show is a difficult prospect. So if you’re on the road, even for a weekend jaunt, you need to have something tangible to sell to help increase your take at a gig.

Download cards can and should be sold, but your new fan can't go out to their car and stick a download card in their player to give it a listen in between sets. Having other things to sell – merch, posters, and stickers – is helpful too, but your CD is the main course on that meal ticket.

• 70% of overall music industry revenues come from CD sales. You don’t want to cut off that much revenue potential.
• You make more money selling CDs at gigs than selling downloads on somewhere like iTunes. A CD costs you between $.90 and $1.50 to manufacture. Sold at $15, that’s over $13 profit per unit. iTunes takes $2.99 per album, which leaves you with $7 per sale (assuming you are able to move any product via iTunes and don’t have to pay out any more of your money to a third vendor).
• Major-label CD and DVD sales in 2007 added up to $15.7 billion. That’s an encouraging number, even if it is in decline. Download sales were at $2.9 billion. Download sales are increasing for sure, but they still pale in comparison overall.
• CD Baby has seen an increase of 6% in sales since last year. Since 1997, CD Baby has sold over 5 million CDs. That’s easily over 400,000 per year on average, and growing. People are still buying independent releases.

Any independent artist who tours knows that the majority of CDs they sell are sold from the stage. Think of it as a fan building and fan nurturing tool. It's one of those moments where a fan, or soon-to-be-a-fan, craves immediate gratification and a remembrance of the event. CDs are the best format for live sales. It’s an instant data transfer – you just hand over the disc. And even more than this being an “impulse” buy, it’s truly a matter of you creating a demand and being there to supply the goods immediately.

As a matter of fact, you should consider the act of pitching your merch and CDs from the stage or your merch table as an invitation for your audience and fans to have a direct and personal interaction with you. There is an art to the pitch, and those who take the time to create an interesting approach sell more CDs and gather more mailing list names for future promotions. If your invitation to meet you at the merchandise table includes a drawing for a free CD, then your CD sales could go up 25%-50% and you'll collect nearly 100% of your audience's contact information. That's easy, low cost marketing that will pay off for years to come. Want to really personalize the experience? You can sign a CD. Try that with a download.

3. No connectivity required. In many ways, CDs are easier than downloads. Take them home, pop ‘em in your car’s CD player, a boom box at a party… CD players are everywhere. There’s no web connectivity necessary, no searching around a website – just plug and play. Plus, you can add bonus material, videos, and enhancements to make your CD an all-inclusive multimedia experience.

If one thing is clear, the landscape in the music industry is changing. This is nothing new. We’ve been in business since 1946, and we’ve seen plenty of formats rise and fall. Digital downloads and transfers are clearly a model that you ought to pursue to their fullest extent, for both revenue and promotion, but CDs still represent the huge majority of revenue in the music industry. The fact is, some customers just don’t do downloads. You’ll lose a sale if you don’t have a CD for them. Even your grandmother knows how to use a CD.

4. Permanence (no crashing computers and lost data). Your music is virtually permanent on a CD. Hard drives crash and MP3 players die, it’s a sad fact of life. But if you have a disc with the content on it, your message or album is not lost. And of course, if you own a CD, you can easily rip MP3s for storage or use with your favorite media player and still have the disc as a backup and for use with your stereo, car, etc.

Register here for The Complete Recording Guide5. A CD tells a story. The artwork that comprises your CD package allows you to further illustrate your album’s artistic statement. A great looking CD and your specific choice of packaging say something about you and can help you further connect with your listening audience. Plus, listeners experience the track sequence, pacing, and breadth of your work exactly as you intended. Singles certainly have their place and can spark interest in your act, but albums are the only way for you to create a thematic and sonic statement of where you as an artist are at the time the disc is recorded and released.

Someone browsing through iTunes may skim right over your band’s name or song titles. But that same person, given the opportunity, might pick up your CD package based on the appeal of the artwork alone. CDs are a one-stop, self-contained collection that deliver music, graphics, artwork, lyrics, photos, and credits — all in a neat, compact package.

Not to mention the fact that after spending months (or years) composing, refining, rehearsing, recording, mixing, and mastering, there’s a real sense of accomplishment in having something to physically embody the sweat, money, and tears that went into the work you’ve created. Digital files are a great way to deliver tunes, but nothing beats having a CD to represent the completion of your artistic efforts.

6. Shopping your music? CDs are the way to go. CDs remain the preferred format if you’re shopping your music for film, TV, multimedia, gaming, or licensing opportunities. An overwhelming number of music editors and journalists still prefer a physical CD and press kit when being pitched an emerging or even an established artist. Radio stations still utilize CDs in their selection of music for airplay. If you choose not to press CDs, your chances for success and exposure on the radio are virtually non-existent. Even a site like Pandora.com, an online music streaming service, requires music to be submitted on CD.

And while many artists now feel no need to court major labels to achieve success, if you do want a label’s attention, CD sales are the most important metric they’ll consider. If you prove you can move product, you’ve got a chance at impressing a label.

7. CDs sound better than MP3s. CDs sound better than an MP3 download, because they’re not compressed like an MP3 file.

8. It makes a swell gift, too. Want to reward members of your fan club and street team? There’s no better way than giving them a limited-edition CD with music recorded and packaged especially for them.

9. What’s true for majors isn’t true for indies.The majors are selling fewer CDs, it’s true. Retail music CD sales are down anywhere from 9-14%. But you are not a major-label artist (at least not yet). Remember that the model for each is significantly different.

To really sell downloads in significant quantities, you need people actively seeking your music to buy. This requires a large and established fan base, and/or a popular hit single, and/or a tremendous amount of money spent on promotion, and/or a significant buzz on the web. As an indie artist, you may not have any of these things yet, you’re still building your name and awareness about yourself and your music. Chances are you’re giving away songs through digital distribution to promote yourself.

As an indie, you rely on hand-to-hand music sales, personal contact at gigs, something tangible you can hand to someone as soon as you’ve sparked an interest in your act. Nothing does that better than a CD.

Have comments? Additional reasons you think CDs are important that weren’t mentioned here? Email us at
FastForward@DiscMakers.com and we might add your input to the revised edition of this article.


Special thanks to Gene Foley (Foley Entertainment, Inc.), David Hooper (MusicMarketing.com), Martin Folkman (Music Resource Group), Jeri Goldstein (PerformingBiz.com), and everyone who contributed ideas.

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Folks, ideally DiskMakers should NOT have one of their ads appearing as an article/post here on DMusic/Boycott-Riaa's servers (as I am just now posting at this moment.) The THING I am trying to get across is for each of you who are reading this is to get a "feel/idea" of how "things are affecting" the commercial music market AND ARE BEING reflected in their communications at-large with the public.

lol,

You want something along the lines of what "I am trying to get at" even STRONGER?

http://azoz.com/newsarchive/2008/11/mp3logo.html

George (as always) is a step or 2 ahead of me in his "feel" for what is really going on in the world at-large.


[small]yes leflaw, i know this shouldn't be here without a paycheck to you from DiscMakers, but they ARE one of the VERY FEW music service companies who make a living as (as far as I have seen/experienced/heard) only by HELPING (in exchange for $) the indie music community instead of exploiting them. DiscMakers has a fairly good track record and now own/involved with CdBaby. cut me a little slack. (lol) Andrea and I have just moved to Chattanooga and are training at new day-jobs taking up a WHOLE HELL of a lot of our time. What little free time I have had lately is little. I certainly WANT to write/find better articles, but give me time to settle in.[/small]

I have to argue with almost every point in this article.

1. CDs legitimize you.

That's what I thought 10 years ago, but this is simply bullshit. If it doesn't come from a major label, it is not considered legitimate.

2. CDs are an integral part of the indie revenue stream.

How many indies are making money selling CDs? Not me, that's for sure.

• 70% of overall music industry revenues come from CD sales.

And they keep 85%. The majority of the artists' revenues come from touring.

• You make more money selling CDs at gigs than selling downloads on somewhere like iTunes. A CD costs you between $.90 and $1.50 to manufacture.

An mp3 costs nothing to manufacture. And you don't need to buy 500 or 1000 ahead of time.

3. No connectivity required.

Uh, I'm staring at a pile of CDs. I click on them and nothing happens. They appear to require some sort of external device.

4. Permanence

Unless you scratch it. Or perhaps this a reference to the boxes of unsold CDs in my closet.

5. A CD tells a story.

Printing it costs a fortune. The insert is the most expensive component of the package and the same information can be conveyed for free -- and big enough to read -- on your web site.

6. Shopping your music?... If you choose not to press CDs, your chances for success and exposure on the radio are virtually non-existent.

This does not change because you print CDs.

7. CDs sound better than MP3s.

Many people say LPs sound better than CDs. That doesn't mean anyone is listening to them.

8. It makes a swell gift, too.

Yeah. Your closest friends don't expect to pay for a copy anyway.

9. What’s true for majors isn’t true for indies.

This is really the only part I wanted to actually argue about. The rest was knee-jerk sarcam.

In the last 8 years, the majors' sales have dropped by more than 50 percent. And yet, they still have 85% of the market.

If "what’s true for majors isn’t true for indies" why hasn't the indies' market share improved?

Back under item 2...

• Major-label CD and DVD sales in 2007 added up to $15.7 billion.

According to the RIAA, in 2007, the total value of all physical products shipped (not necessarily sold) was slightly less than $7.5 billion. The greatest value the RIAA has ever claimed to have shipped was $14.6 billion -- in 1999.

The $15.7 billion figure has no basis in reality. As this is an advertisement, this alone is enough to delete it and move on.

[/i] • Since 1997, CD Baby has sold over 5 million CDs. That’s easily over 400,000 per year on average, and growing. People are still buying independent releases.[/i]

Take a good look at those numbers. AC/DC sold a million copies of their new release in the past 2 weeks, and you can only get it at Walmart or Sam's Club.

In 2 weeks, one band has outsold CDBaby's entire sales for 2 and a half years. 400,000 units a year sounds good, until you divide it out among the tens of thousands of acts and realize that if you're selling 2 copies a month, that's better than average.

If you want CDs, do enough live shows to move them, or can find a retail location that will accept them, by all means, go ahead and have 1,000 pressed.

But don't do it based this ad.

Oh yeah, one other thing. If you use CD-Rs, eBay won't let anyone resell them.

"Many people say LPs sound better than CDs. That doesn't mean anyone is listening to them."

Change "anyone" to "anyone besides the true audiophiles and true fans" are listening to (buying) them...

...and we are in %100 agreement.

George, the MUSIC ITSELF isn't what is being sold, it is the "keepsake" DISC that is the product.

You and me have always both agreed that the MUSIC itself is FREE...

.mp3's and transferable files on the interweb are JUST ads!!!

I say, "vinyl BEATS/TRUMPS a CD" (when it REALLY matters) as far as if you are REALLY gonna give your fans a physical good in return for their dollars.

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No!

Indies should NOT "give away CD's" at their shows. (Sure, they SHOULD put the music online for free!)

But, the DISC (Cd or vinyl or WHATEVER) is the "keepsake".

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Oh, nevermind me. I'm typing to fast and I only had 30 mins online tonight.

No!

Indies should NOT "give away CD's" at their shows.

I didn't say that. The "give them to your friends for free" part was under "use them as gifts."

I said if you have enough people at your shows, by all means, order CDs.

George, the MUSIC ITSELF isn't what is being sold, it is the "keepsake" DISC that is the product.

I've got every Led Zeppelin album ever made, except for the "Mothership" collection. I've never seen them live. They're not keepsakes. I just wanted the music.

I've seen Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Pink Floyd and Yes several times each. Looking at their CD covers does not relive the experience. Playing the music does, though.

My wife used to make Jerry Riopell's shirts back in the 70s. Her Jerry Riopelle albums are keepsakes, but it really doesn't have as much to do with the music as much as her connection to Riopelle.

A CD is packaging. iTunes has sold 5 BILLION songs without it. Young people do not have the same reverence for it as previous generations. And rightly so.

LPs used to come wrapped in works of art. CDs come with a 4-inch square of paper.

A lot of audio books are now on CD-Rs, so eBay does sell them. I am not totally sure about this, but I think some low-production CDs on the Deutch Grammophon label are also CD-Rs. These are reissues from Europe. Sorry. Wish I knew details. I guess what I'm saying is that they're hypocrites.

Cd's are like Business cards. Isn't a business acrd the stupidest thing you could imagine, yet everyone still uses them after 200 years.

Like toilet paper.

Cd's are like Business cards.

You can get 500 CDs printed for $15?

I'm really not against CDs. But I, personally, am not experiencing any great demand for them. The audience is happy with mp3s.

My kid doesn't ask for CDs any more. She asks to buy songs. I'm just going with the flow on this.

As a collector, the package is as important as the music itself (for me anyway).

But that same person, given the opportunity, might pick up your CD package based on the appeal of the artwork alone.

Believe it or not, I actually did that one time. Back when Blockbuster had a music division, I routinely visited one of their stores, always looking through their large import section. I saw a few copies of a CD where the front cover depicted four guys in colored squares and after looking at it and the song titles, I bought it and was not sorry I did. They (Michael Learns To Rock, aka MLTR) have remained my favorite bands from Denmark. Here is that album, Colours (1993), which appears to have been curiously redone by EMI when they put out Blur's Best Of (2000) collection. Perhaps their are other similar covers by other bands, maybe even prior to 1993. Anyway, it got my attention for some reason. BTW, MLTR is now free of EMI and have control of their own material.

LPs used to come wrapped in works of art. CDs come with a 4-inch square of paper.

That's one of the reasons I collect from Japan, where CDs are also wrapped in works of art. When you get the reissued cardboard sleeves, they replicate the original textures, dyes and enclosures. It is also why places like EIL.com, CDJapan don't appear to be going out of business anytime soon. One thing I found interesting on EIL's site, is the way they described the now defunct 3" CD single from Japan:

3" CD SINGLE
Snap-pack CD / Tanzaku sleeve

The tanzaku is a long strip of paper. The compact disc is 3 inches, or 8 centimetres in certain areas, mostly in diameter, and mostly in Japan. We don't know precisely when the first one arrived. It could have been around 1984 [when big brother wasn't watching]. The last one made its royal appearance in 2004 as Queen's I Was Born To Love You. Twenty years is very young indeed for a mountain but quite old for a compact disc. That's why you don't see many of them around anymore. We call them 'snap-packs' [who knows what they call us] but in their native Japan they're called tanzaku. They are rather special and rather hard to find. Their unique design means you can choose to keep them intact, or 'snap' the pack and display one like a picture, if you get the picture. You can even play the CD when your downloads have crashed. Collecting has never been such fun...

One of my favorite groups from the 70s/80s is the Alan Parsons Project. Some people may know the song "Sirius" as the theme song to the Chicago Bulls. However, if you have the Eye in the Sky album, you also know that that song does not completely end but fades out as the next song, "Eye In The Sky" begins. If you just purchase one of these songs via iTunes, you don't get the same effect. Granted, it may not be a big deal to most people, but certain albums are meant to tell a story and be heard as a whole.

Are CDs going out of style? Maybe. Still, the Japanese market keeps plugging away at "new and improved" versions of the format. Now you have the Universal/JVC venture for the SHM-CD (Super High Material CD), Sony's Blu-Spec Disc (a Blu-Ray hybrid), and now it appears Victor has come out with the HQCD, for which I have not found info on yet, but I assume means High Quality CD. They may all be hype with no real difference detected by the average listener, but there you go.

As for indie artists, they are certainly free to offer their music to fans in any way they see fit. Music is music and if fans are interested in an artist, they will obtain it. I may be a small segment of the market, but that's okay with me. This is just my 2 cents.

My 2 cents...

First, I like an actual cd, even if it is a cd-r, as long as it's cloned and/or mastered from the main disc the others would be made from.

Second, if I can acquire a physical copy of your music, I will go that route before I ever consider paying to "download" it. If I like your music, or I want to hear it, offer up a cd for a reasonable price; 10-12 dollars or what have you, and I'll be happy to paypal it right to ya for the cd.

MP3s are data after all, and we all know backups aren't always an everyday thing. So the cd is always nice to have in the event something "Terrible" happens.