Need Advice on CD

[cnegrad]

Greetings,

My wife & I have just completed our own Contemporary Christian Pop cd, with no record deal. Sonically and stylistically it is consistent with the electronic pop that's heard on secular radio these days. The cd will be professionally mastered next week, by a "name" mastering engineer at a well known studio.

With this much accomplished, we're going to shop the cd to some Nashville labels, but have no personal "connections" to take advantage of. If we can't get label interest, then we'll have to sell the cd on our own. Of course, then we get into the whole exorbitant cost of promotion.

Any constructive advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Guitarman]

Hey cengrad,

My best advice is... there are lots of web based outlets for you to sell your cd. Do a search on the web and then you can upload your tunes for customers to sample etc before they buy.

Best wishes,

JD( o}===;;;

 

[cnegrad]

Thanks JD. What keywords should I use in my search? Can you give examples of such sites?

 

[cnegrad]

Anybody have any thoughts about packaging?

 

[mfedderman]

Hey all,

A great "online distribution" hub would be The Orchard can then not only buy your CD @ theorchard.com BUT, your CD will also then be available at bestbuy.com, cdnow.com, barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com and a bunch of other online "superstores". The Orchard pretty much does it all for you. That doesn't mean they do the "promotion" for you. You still have to create the demand for your record and drive people to those site to buy it. The Orchard just makes it available.
You should really check it out. I hope the helped!

-Matt Feddermann
Phase Music

 

[cnegrad]

Thanks Matt; I'll look into it. This brings up a whole new issue: Does anyone know anything about Soundscan? Does it require a "special" barcode, or do I just register whatever barcode that I get? What will it cost me? Is there a website with Soundscan info? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Hidden Driveways]

I've been looking into putting out my own CD lately as well. I've been to many CD manufacturing company websites, researching and comparing prices. One company offered a free barcode on the CD, and it stated that with their barcode when a CD is sold in a store it will register with Sound Scan. But that's all I know about that.

As far as packaging goes, I would go with the classic regular sized jewel case. The digi-pac cases look really nice, but they are twice the cost, and that is money that could be spent promoting your album. The slim cases get lost easily in a pile of CDs, so if you send it to radio the DJ could lose it fast. As far as other packaing goes, envelopes, those clam looking plastic things, etc, I wouldn't bother with them. The idea is to put out a CD, so you're better off putting out something that people will look at and immediately recognize as a CD.

As far as making it available, I am considering Check them out. There is a lot of advice at that site as well.

I would research all of the publications that write about your style of music. Do a large press mailing (100 or more CDs) a couple months before you plan on 'officially' releasing the album. Include a CD, a bio, a photo, contact info. Then keep an eye out for any press you many garner. If you end up with some reviews, take all the good quotes and do a large radio mailing with all of the press quotes (and bio, pic, etc) a week or two before the 'official' release. Of course, research all of the radio stations that play your music (commercial stations + college + public stations). Send to as many stations as possible! Then have a big record release party.

It's a big job, but how well you do all depends on how badly you want it.

Good luck.

 

[cnegrad]

Thanks HD!