From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V11 #82 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Friday, March 25 2005 Volume 11 : Number 082 Today's Subjects: ----------------- CD Baby ["Xenu's Sister" ] RE: CD Baby ["Michael Quinn" ] Small world Happy Rhodes story... ["Mark B" ] Re: CD Baby [dmw ] Re: CD Baby [Troy J Shadbolt ] Re: CD Baby [robert bristow-johnson ] Re: CD Baby [Troy J Shadbolt ] New Maria McKee 4/19 [jjhanson@att.net] Re: CD Baby (the $4) ["Xenu's Sister" ] RE: Free Jorane tracks ["Xenu's Sister" ] Fwd: Re: CD Baby (the $4) ["Xenu's Sister" ] RE: Free Jorane tracks/what to see between ct and new mexico [Jason Gordo] **RACHAEL SAGE IN NYC TOMORROW (FRIDAY) & MONDAY!** [SpiritWe@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 03:10:58 -0800 (PST) From: "Xenu's Sister" Subject: CD Baby Happy said she'd think about using CD Baby. She mentioned them being expensive, and I can see now why. They take $4 per CD sold!? Ouch! She sells them herself on her web site and gets full price. Of course, the convenience of not having to ship so many yourself would be a factor. I'm just curious though. All these glowing reviews, and not one person has indicated they thought $4 per CD was outrageous, which is my first reaction. Why is it not? How can indie artists afford to have someone else take so much of their money? I have no idea. I'm not trying to be combative, I'm just asking because I'm completely clueless when it comes to this. Vickie __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 09:22:20 -0500 From: "Michael Quinn" Subject: RE: CD Baby I agree, I'd prefer to buy CDs directly from the artists. $4 per CD is a lot to charge for essentially hosting a web site and dropshipping CDs (if I understand correctly what these people do). - -----Original Message----- From: owner-ecto@smoe.org [mailto:owner-ecto@smoe.org] On Behalf Of Xenu's Sister Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 6:11 AM To: ecto@smoe.org Subject: CD Baby Happy said she'd think about using CD Baby. She mentioned them being expensive, and I can see now why. They take $4 per CD sold!? Ouch! She sells them herself on her web site and gets full price. Of course, the convenience of not having to ship so many yourself would be a factor. I'm just curious though. All these glowing reviews, and not one person has indicated they thought $4 per CD was outrageous, which is my first reaction. Why is it not? How can indie artists afford to have someone else take so much of their money? I have no idea. I'm not trying to be combative, I'm just asking because I'm completely clueless when it comes to this. Vickie __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 09:39:30 -0500 From: "Mark B" Subject: Small world Happy Rhodes story... During the Equipoise recordings I was speaking to KB and asked how everything was going. He happened to mention that everything was good except for the fact that Happy wanted a real bagpipe player for "Out Like a Lamb". That's funny because my best friend Bob's brother is an award winning bagpipe player. So I make a call to Bob, Bob calls his brother Andy, Andy calls Kevin and Andy gets to play on Happy's album. Funny how the universe works isn't it! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 09:50:31 -0500 (EST) From: dmw Subject: Re: CD Baby On Thu, 24 Mar 2005, Xenu's Sister wrote: > I'm just curious though. All these glowing reviews, and not one > person has indicated they thought $4 per CD was outrageous, which > is my first reaction. In terms of things that are open to unsigned and indie artists, I think it's a tremendous deal. By comparison, I think Amazon (at the indie level) takes $5.50 or so, AND there's an annual fee even to stay in the program. CDstreet recently changed hands, so their deal may have changed or may change soon, but they took a bigger cut when I had my discs for sale there. I originally tried to price my old band's record so that I saw about $6 per copy (which was our break-even -- no profit, just covering our outlay -- on recording and duplication costs). At CD Baby that meant I listed the CD at $10, at CD street I think $12 and $13 at Amazon. Everybody else we looked at online distro through required some level of exclusivity (i.e., we couldn't sell through other partners) that we weren't willing to live with. (This was in late 2002, so there are a few new players we didn't talk to, but I still haven't heard of anybody with a deal as artist-friendly as Derek's.) ...and out of most bricks-and-mortar deals that get discs in stores, the artist is lucky to see AS MUCH AS four bucks on a sale. And as an indie artist or small distributor, you don't have the muscle to insist on payment when you ship the product -- you wait until they sell it before you get paid. I also think $4 is pretty cheap for end-to-end fufilment. It costs me over $1.50 in direct costs to mail a disc -- postage, envelope, bubble wrap + packing list paper/toner -- that I pack myself without even factoring in the time I expended packing and keeping stock on hand or my indirect/overhead costs (electricity, wear-and-tear on equipment). If I had to pay somebody even minimum wage to do it, I think my real costs would be higher than $4/disc - -- there are economies of volume that I just don't have. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 08:02:07 -0800 From: Troy J Shadbolt Subject: Re: CD Baby hi Vickie, these are my standard answers when i'm getting someone to sign up with CD baby to make their life easier. $4.00 is not so outrageous and here's why. 1. Artist doesn't have to pay credit card fees or maintain a credit card account (we went over that one, you really need to do $2000+ in sales/month to not get buried under the fees) and you know there are people that will pay with a credit card and not use pay pal. 2. Artist doesn't have to pay shipping and packaging fees and customers get better delivery. CD Baby send US Priority mail for all orders, so customers tend to get the delivery within 3-4 days. To mail a CD priority mail, you'll pay $3.32 (did this a couple of days ago). Since people tend to order multiple CD's at a time, CD baby offsets the loss of a single CD order with those orders that are for 4-5 CDs. I rarely order a single CD, I usually wait until I have 3- 4 I want and order together to save on shipping. 3. SoundScan won't accept sales reported by non-SS members and only labels, distributors and retail stores can become members. If an artist wants to attract a label, they need confirmed sales and the only source for that data is SoundScan. 4. Not as much for Happy, but artists on the road can let CD Baby sell their CDs after a gig and not have to worry about it themselves. When Megan toured Canada and the East Coast, we saw a ripple follow behind her after each gig that had she wanted to handle sales herself would have sat for 3 weeks. This way people got "instant gratification". 5. $4 is nothing compared to other distribution outlets. If you sign up as an independent seller on amazon you are going to pay amazon at least 45% of your sale price. Some of the other independent CD stores are less, but you then get to deal with some seriously shady business (Happy already did that). CD Baby does a lot of business and the clients overall have very positive things to say. 6. Perks. You don't have to maintain your own sales on your website, CD Baby does it. If you have a new release and it generates lots of sales, you'll get into the CD Baby best sellers of the week list (which also generates sales) and if you are in the top sellers during different times of the year you can get added to the CD Baby sampler so even more people will hear you. Then there's the credit card processing, the digital rights service, etc that are also available. CD baby has two additional websites www.cdbaby.net and www.cdbaby.org where you can read up on the business forums for the cdbaby members. - -troy Quoting Xenu's Sister : > Happy said she'd think about using CD Baby. She mentioned them being > expensive, and I can see now why. They take $4 per CD sold!? Ouch! She > sells them herself on her web site and gets full price. Of course, > the convenience of not having to ship so many yourself would be a factor. > > I'm just curious though. All these glowing reviews, and not one > person has indicated they thought $4 per CD was outrageous, which > is my first reaction. > > Why is it not? How can indie artists afford to have someone else take > so much of their money? I have no idea. I'm not trying to be combative, > I'm just asking because I'm completely clueless when it comes to this. > > Vickie > > > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! > http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ > - -- troy j shadbolt www.voyuz.net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 12:26:48 -0500 From: robert bristow-johnson Subject: Re: CD Baby on 03/24/2005 11:02, Troy J Shadbolt at tjshadb@voyuz.net wrote: > $4 is not so outrageous ... i fully agree if the artist doesn't have to do anything but supply the CDs in boxes of 120 to CDbaby and walk to the mailbox to get a check for the other $9 to $13. also, to sell the folks MP3s through someplace like eMusic.com could not hurt, in my opinion. - -- r b-j rbj@audioimagination.com "Imagination is more important than knowledge." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 12:02:13 -0800 From: Troy J Shadbolt Subject: Re: CD Baby actually, CD baby only requires you to send them 5 disks to start, and then you can decide how many you want to stock them with; but i think the restock always kicks in at 4 or 5. Quoting robert bristow-johnson : > on 03/24/2005 11:02, Troy J Shadbolt at tjshadb@voyuz.net wrote: > > > $4 is not so outrageous ... > > i fully agree if the artist doesn't have to do anything but supply the CDs > in boxes of 120 to CDbaby and walk to the mailbox to get a check for the > other $9 to $13. > > also, to sell the folks MP3s through someplace like eMusic.com could not > hurt, in my opinion. > > -- > > r b-j rbj@audioimagination.com > > "Imagination is more important than knowledge." > - -- troy j shadbolt www.voyuz.net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 22:56:05 +0000 From: jjhanson@att.net Subject: New Maria McKee 4/19 Just got an e-mail from Maria McKee's camp....new album due out 4/19/05 on Eleven Thirty Records. Peddlin' Dreams Fresh off her first live album ever, Maria releases the record her fans have longed for since 1993s You Gotta Sin to Get Saved. Peddlin Dreams is a return to form for the charismatic former frontwoman of Lone Justice. Over the years, McKee has been feted as the queen of alt-country and her dynamic style and ability to seamlessly switch from plaintive, personal ballads to searing, soulful torch pleas has drawn comparisons to luminaries like Emmylou Harris and Janis Joplin. Direct, intimate and vulnerable, Peddlin Dreams is an exploration of McKee's affinity for American music, drawing from influences such as Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan. McKee has taken the long way home in a rich career marked by many gutsy detours  from neo-punk to Broadway diva, art-rocker to poet. Peddlin Dreams reunites McKee with American roots music and is destined to reunite fans with an artist they love. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 17:28:18 -0800 (PST) From: "Xenu's Sister" Subject: Re: CD Baby (the $4) Troy, dmw and Robert, thanks for your posts about the $4. It was enlightning for me, and I hope you don't mind, but I passed them on to Happy too. We all have to remember that this is Happy's first album "alone." She doesn't have Kevin, who was the businessman and took care of all that before. She doesn't have Samson who did see that a lot of Many Worlds were pressed, even if they didn't trust the Internet (they acted way too much like a big label wannabe and didn't take the chances they should have, that's what I think anyway). I have NO/ZERO/NADA/NIL/ZIP knowledge of her business sense or ideas about marketing this album. If I pass stuff like this along to her (as I did the CD Baby comments earlier) she can take it or leave it, but maybe it will help her. Again, **as far as I know** she doesn't have anything like a manager/agent/"people" to do this work for her. And again, I'm 100% clueless as to what Lolo Records has in mind. Thank you. Vickie __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 17:51:10 -0800 (PST) From: "Xenu's Sister" Subject: RE: Free Jorane tracks - --- On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 20:48:52 -0400 Jason Gordon wrote: *blinks at date* Let's do the time warp agaaaaaain! V __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 17:53:19 -0800 (PST) From: "Xenu's Sister" Subject: Fwd: Re: CD Baby (the $4) Sending mail to myself...grumble grumble... - --- Xenu's Sister wrote: > Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 17:49:30 -0800 (PST) > From: Xenu's Sister > Subject: Re: CD Baby (the $4) > To: Xenu's Sister > > > --- Xenu's Sister wrote: > > I have NO/ZERO/NADA/NIL/ZIP knowledge of her business sense > > Before anybody in the know says "But..." I should add that > I realize *Bob* has a good head for business, even if Happy > doesn't (and for all I know, she might). He owns his own studio > (http://www.dangerousmusic.com) and manufactures recording > equipment. He doesn't run a record label though. I'm sure he'll > be a tremendous help to her though. > > Vickie > > > > > > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! > http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 22:48:19 -0500 From: Jason Gordon Subject: RE: Free Jorane tracks/what to see between ct and new mexico some people live in the past - i live in the future... i was looking at the calendar to try and book a flight and forgot to set the date back... so i may as well ask the question...being a native east coaster, what is worth seeing along the drive between connecticut and santa fe new mexico? planned stops right now include cleveland and st louis probably but beyond that my girlfriend and I have no idea what sites to see...any advice??? - -jason np it's just a step to the left... - -----Original Message----- From: owner-ecto@smoe.org [mailto:owner-ecto@smoe.org]On Behalf Of Xenu's Sister Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 8:51 PM To: ecto@smoe.org Subject: RE: Free Jorane tracks - --- On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 20:48:52 -0400 Jason Gordon wrote: *blinks at date* Let's do the time warp agaaaaaain! V __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 00:38:01 EST From: SpiritWe@aol.com Subject: **RACHAEL SAGE IN NYC TOMORROW (FRIDAY) & MONDAY!** HEY Y'ALL! Just a wee reminder that Rachael Sage will be performing TOMORROW (Friday) in New York City at one of our very favorite rooms anywhere, THE CANAL ROOM. We really hope you can make it down! Rachael will also be playing this Monday at THE KNITTING FACTORY, so you've got a second chance to catch your favorite glitterfrau before she heads back out on her national tour in a few days. Details below & hope to seeya there... xoxoxo The Folks @ MPress **BALLADS & BURLESQUE TOUR HITS NYC!** Friday, March 25 THE CANAL ROOM - 8pm sharp* ...w/ Dean Sharp, cahone & Russ Johnson, trumpet for more info call (212) 941-8100 285 West Broadway @ Canal New York, NY *Rachael's set starts exactly at 8pm & she's on first, so don't be late of you'll miss her! === also... Monday, March 28 THE KNITTING FACTORY (Gretchen Witt opens at 8pm) ...w/ Dean Sharp, drums & Russ Johnson, trumpet for more info call (212) 219-3006 74 Leonard Street New York , NY * WINNER, 2004 INDEPENDENT MUSIC AWARD (FOLK) * WINNER, BILLBOARD SONGWRITING CONTEST (R&B) * GRAND PRIZE, JOHN LENNON SONGWRITING CONTEST (ROCK) * FIRST PRIZE, GREAT AMERICAN SONGWRITING CONTEST (ACOUSTIC) * FEATURED ARTIST AT FIRST ANNUAL INDEPENDENT SHOWCASE, MIDEM 2004 ====================================================================== MPress Records | www.rachaelsage.com | www.sonicbids.com/rachaelsage info@mpressrecords.com | fax: 212.481.1073 | tel: 212.481.7234 Bookings, Special Projects: Chloe Jo Berman | mpresschloe@aol.com Label Manager & Distribution: JoJo Gentry | mpressjojo@aol.com ======================================================================= "rich vocals, sparkling piano & yearning poetry" - TIME OUT NY "melodies that will break your heart...unforced passion" - ROLLINGSTONE.COM "lovely & literate folk-pop-rock, socially aware & eclectic" - VILLAGE VOICE ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V11 #82 **************************