CD Baby to ITunes...

[Robertt8]

Well for those of you who are planning to have CD Baby send your tunes to ITunes, you're going to need to sit tight for about 4 months until that puppy is available to be purchased. the amount of time is maddening when you just want to get it up there and get fielded countless questions of "so when's that getting up on itunes so i can buy it?" We're pretty happy now, but 4 months?! Jesus! They claim 3 months max, but i can assure you, that's under the best circumstances.

For those of you that don't know how that works, the eventually send you a link that will go directly to your album so you can attach it to HTML or whatever. this is ours...

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playListId=119522855

and it's pretty cool. it'll actually launch your ITunes and load your CD.

Anyway, i know that many of you are probably going this route, so expect one LOOOOOOOONG ASS WAIT.

 

[grn]

it's actually on iTunes before 3 months, but they didn't send us that DIRECT link until later, but we got people buying it fairly quickly.

 

[DavidK]

Thanks for the heads up Robert. I am gonna stray off topic:

I remember you got your CD mastered. I just read who did it. How different did it sound and were you happy with it? Was it better or worse than you expected? I am in a similiar situation and mine is being mastered by a bigshot in June.

Also, how are sales going?

 

[Robertt8]

GRN: Whats up man?! Actually we got that direct link about 3 months after, but it was more or less empty. the itunes screen showed our album cover, but no songs or info. it wasn't untill a month later (and several complaints to CD Baby) that we got everything in working order, so we're still looking at 1 day shy of 4 months. when did you get yours up? I'm guessing it's taking longer and longer these days as everyone's trying to get up on that thing.

DAVIDK: Yeah we were very happy with Dave Collins ( http://www.collinsaudio.com/ ). He gave us a solid deal. we haggled a bit, but knew when he was offering us a good thing, so we took it. Since we did all of it through home studio, we were hoping that we could possibly make up some difference with the pro mastering, and he did that. there were tunes that he basically helped tame, and of course bring to "pro" audio sound levels. he did that all without compromising the sound. I'd posted a before and after up here ( https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=178699 sadly the link is not working, but you can at least see what people said...if you want, i can try and dig up the original files), and people seemed to agree that it was good.

Sales are going just fine! we blew through our original 300 pretty fast (granted we've had to give one or two away here and there, but that's maybe 20 out of the 300) and then we got a batch of 1000, so that'll keep us for a while. we also had promo CDs made up to send to radio stations (with two cleaned up songs for radio) and i think we sent out like 200 of those (all freebies and postage). Each gig we sell anywhere from 5-10+ (keep in mind the more we play, the more people who come have our CD) and make sure we get emails of everyone that wants to sign up at each gig (usually at least 10 - 20+ per show), but then again, we don't really push it the way we should (at the shows). Our real seller has ben Myspace.com ( http://myspace.com/bagoftoysmusic )...make sure you get up there if you're not already. As mentioned, we're now up on Itunes, which is nice cuz we can sell the tunes without all the packaging/mailing costs. Paypal and CD Baby have been good selling places as well. I'm not sure what type of music you've got, but since ours is kind of "surfy" i sent emails to a whole bunch of surf video production companies and offered our CD for them to use, and we've been fortunate enough to be used in maybe 8 videos on a prominent online surf site, and we've sold many CD through that type of advertising. so between cd sales and gigs where we can make anywhere from $200-$800 for like 2 hours, we're in the clear with like 900 CDs still around...which is pure profit. Everything's going well, and we're happy! Not huge numbers by any stretch of the imagination, but we'll sell at least 1 CD a day (on non gig days), and up to 10 or so on really good (non gig) days. you just never know what you'll get. We're just happy to be broken even, getting the music out there and we're saving up money for our second record so we can hit a real recording studio.

 

[DavidK]

Good for you Robert! I remember listening to the before and after, but I am listening more critically since I am gonna be going there soon. I actually got a record deal with a label, but that in no means says that I dont have to go out there and push it as well. I have a myspace but I havent used it yet. Mine is a classical crossover CD with a million tracks, so I am looking at a smaller audience. I also cannot play mine live, its impossible. I am a pro symphony violinist but its not "legit" classical, its more like Mannheim Steamroller stuff.

Keep up the good work. You have nice web pages, the CD looks great and sounds great, I have heard several tracks in various places.

 

[Bloodsoaked]

How many songs do you sell on iTunes per day/week/month?


Thank you

 

[dirtyp]

I went to the itunes sight and cant figure out how to upload music.

 

[jibran]

You don't upload music yourself on iTunes. Your label/distributor takes care of that.

 

[Robertt8]

How many songs do you sell on iTunes per day/week/month?


Thank you

yo! we don't know yet because it just went up. it looks like it could be another month or so until we actually know for this month. here's CD Baby's FAQ on this topic...

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Most companies only report to us every 1-3 months. Apple for example, sends us the montly report about 4-6 weeks after the month is finished. Meaning: you won't see your January sales until the first week of March. Some companies report a full 3 monnths after the quarter is done.

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Also another odd thing we noticed is that other albums bought by other artists can be in there for a while, then disappear and then show up again. weird stuff going on there...