Let's Break It Down: How Many CDs Have You Sold?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Robertt8
  • Start date Start date

How Of Your Own CDs Have You Sold?

  • Less Than 50

    Votes: 145 46.9%

  • Less Than 100

    Votes: 29 9.4%

  • Less Than 500

    Votes: 64 20.7%

  • Less Than 1000

    Votes: 22 7.1%

  • Less Than 5000

    Votes: 19 6.1%

  • 5000+

    Votes: 30 9.7%
  • Total voters
    309
I played in a band in the late 90's early 00's. Rock, some drop D, mostly what you hear today on the radio. We made one album, one EP, sold both around 300. We did alot of shows up and down the east coast. We hardly ever had stuff to sell, we sold out right away, but had no foresight to order more. Now i'm gonna put al my stuff online for free, i have no illusions of granour, i have a good job and a hot wife. People can get it for free, plus its not THAT good.
 
It's less of a headache to not sell as much as you were hoping for when you've cut costs down by recording/mixing/mastering it yourself, duplicating the cd's yourself, making your own artwork, pressing it yourself (if you can), and using the right resources to get it out there.

I'm doing everything on my CD on my own except pressing it and printing out the label covers (don't want to pay the extra money on the ink I'd be using).
 
All this brings only a question, what's your goal with your music?
Do you want to be famous? Do you want to express yourself?
Do you want to have fun? Score Chicks? Make money?

Me personnaly, I have a good job and I've done enough concerts to be tired of all the shit that comes with it. It's fun to be on stage but all the crap related to it to actually get on stage finally just don't cut it for me.

Now I only do studio projects for self gratification and personnal achievement.
I have some stuff in my head that is obsessing me non-stop until I got it out and finaly feel relieved (for a while).

I'm sure a lot of people know what I'm talking about, being obsessed with the same riffs over and over or having a complet song/album in your head and the only thing that keeps you from getting it out is time, money and talent.

Sometimes I feel it sucks to be an artist. But sometimes it's great. I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about.
 
CarcPazu said:
All this brings only a question, what's your goal with your music?
Click to expand...

That's the key point! I was offered a record contract about a year ago, but guess what: I said "no, thanks" coz I'm not in for the money or fame or other vein motives -- but for the pure joy of creating and enjoying music. :D
 
I agree, i have no reason to 'drop everything'. I'm still pretty young (26), but i have a wife, and a good job, a beagle, adn tons of student loans. We're saving to buy a house, stuff like that. My music is a huge part of my life. All of my fun $$ goes to getting studio gear and such. I play around town at open mics, and bars with my friends, i even plan on traveling around here and there. Its all for fun and self gratification, i see all these ads in my city for people wanting to go tour and stuff, its mostly kids who live with their parents. I'm more into looking back and seeing my tunes evolve and still have a life outside of a nightclub.
 
my ultimate goal with my music would be to self sustain.
if i can make enough money off my music to continue making music and maybe buy a case of beer than im fine. but even if i made no money, i would still make music. its all for the love, and theres no greater feeling than performing, its a drug.

oh, and i have sold 0 records. im still working on my first.
i'll worry about selling it after i make it.
 
Being self sustained by music sound awesome, but it is very very difficut to achive. Think about your long life, which means probably a CD release every year or so over a sustained period, whith sales in the tens of thousands. Dunno how that can be achieved without a major label backing up.

I wouldn't mind having an addtional income from CD sales, though, and maybe run a professional studio on the side that covers the gear expenses. If my music and studio operation would, at some point, cover the gear purchases, I'd be more than happy.
 
Smurf said:
Since I posted last in this thread I am up to 15 sold........so that is about 2 a month since I put it out there 8 months ago.....
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Smurf, have you been doing shows during that time, or purely online promotion? The 2-a-month - is that purely online sales or sales because you played shows and people bought as a result at the show or afterwards?

Just curious.
 
I sold my Madonna CD. OK it was free in the mail. Then I sold it for $1.00 at the CD exchange shop. :)
 
Available Venues

Seems that the consensus is that you have to gig to sell CDs. With that in mind, what are all your opinions of the best venues to play original music? Are there places more willing to let you play our own tunes? Are there regions of the country more in tune with creative artists?
 
I've been releasing CDs (solo and with my band The Pillbugs) since '93. I used to have lots of luck in the early days of ebay. The first Pillbugs CD (1998) was a double CD (32 tracks) and when it was initially released (we ordered 1000 copies) it stalled locally at about 300 sold. Then a friend helped me learn the computer and sell them on ebay. I sold the rest of them all in less than a year.

We somehow cut out a niche by making music (what seemed to us) unlike what most people were making. We made very retro-authentic, diverse, melodic, almost Beatle-y excursions, marketed ourselves as "the world's most psychedelic band" and people believed it, bought it and were not disappointed.

We made an album that we wished we could find when we were looking for new music and then tried to reach people exactly like ourselves through words and description.

Then eventually we got picked up by an indie label for our second CD and again we wanted to draw attention and do something very different. This time we included a 3D Viewmaster reel of the band inside the jewel case. It was silly enough to work and we sold out the first 1000 within 3 months.

This ended up getting us attention from all different directions and though we are not huge or even making enough $$$ to do this solely for a living, we at least have a decent international fan base to keep as plodding along.

The really cool thing is- my first solo CD which sold out completely in the late '90s now goes for around 50 bucks on ebay (for a mint opened copy when it ever shows up).

So my belief is: If you make good music (I mean music that blows YOU away- If you're music doesn't blow you away then it won't reach anyone else either) then it tends to (with some maybe slight to very heavy promotional push) take on a life and momentum of it's own.

I also think it's very hard to compete when you're doing mainstream music. If you can fill a void then you're more likely to get attention. And IMO there is a bigger void than ever today where really good memorable music should be. If you want to get on a major label then God help you.

I've been doing this for a long time and though I haven't sold over 5000 of one particular title, the sales combined are well over 5000.

And yes- playing live helps incredibly but in certain cities it really can mean nothing. We played for years in Toledo, Ohio and it got us nowhere in the grand scheme of things. But one 20 minute show at The Gig in LA got us more write-ups and attention than anything.
 
I love selling CD's...

I actually been sellin CDs for 2 summers now. Between the 5 different CDs we released, we probably sold near 7000. Not bad for 1 city in 2 summers.
We didnt really go through any duplication plant or anything like that. We did it the cheap way. We had the Photoshop program for for the CD graphics & CD templates, a printer & a cutting board to cut out the covers & stickers, CD stomper for stickers (sometimes we used ink printable CDs), jewel or slim cases, a CD burner & CDs to burn the music on, & quick hands. THAT was our duplication plant. Don't get it twisted though. Do this long enough, it might start to feel like a full-time job.
 
..:.:MeCCaH:.:. said:
I love selling CD's...

I actually been sellin CDs for 2 summers now. Between the 5 different CDs we released, we probably sold near 7000. Not bad for 1 city in 2 summers.
Click to expand...


That's really impressive IMO. Good job!! I'd like to hear more about how you went about doing that.
I'd really like to hear a sample of your stuff too. :cool:
 
i was given this formula-- not neccessarily as how much u've sold, but as far as generating a buzz

tell me does this logic make any sense to u all:

there are 8 hi schools in the area
each hi school should have at least 100 people who know about/have had in their hands a copy of your cd

out of 800 people--if 400 like the project, you have automatic buzz, automatic fan base to work

(the cost of the 800 cds? --
 
That's a good idea, gully ... if your music appeals to that crowd. But the concept is still good ... get your music heard by the most likely buyers.

I've been selling my debut release on the net for a month now (since Nov 1), 30 sold to date ... averaging a little over one per day ... but that's a slanted statistic ... as most of the sales came in the first couple weeks, things have slowed up measurably since. The curious thing is that although I've offered several packaging option price points, most of the sales have been the more expensive full package.

What I've been doing is:

1) Collecting emails and soft trickle marketing (quick, gentle, regular reminders to purchase) via online to a wide base.
2) Created an interactive site for fans, friends and family ... with a discussion forum and online photo gallery. The discussion forum has been pretty inactive, the photo gallery is very active.
3) I do not gig (though I have in the past), and don't plan to gig ... as I bore with it too easily.

I chose the www.cafepress.com route ... where a professional CD-R is generated w/ a printed booklet and jewel case as the orders come in. Manufacturing cost is $8.99/cd for the full package and $4.99 if you send a printed CD w/ a white sleeve envelope. Cafepress is also good from a marketing standpoint, as it allows sales of fan support items ... such as tshirts/pens/coffee mugs and the like. Part of my revenue over the last month has come from these sales.

The main benefit though is that you don't wind up w/ a lot of coasters on your hands. The detriment is that the manufacturing cost is VERY high. BUT- as folks have said above- I don't intend to make a ton of money off of this ... I just want to minimize the amount of money I lose. My life is full otherwise.

My other distribution venue is CDBaby ... where, frankly, I don't plan on selling a ton of CDs. IMO the REAL benefit of CDBaby affiliation lies in the ability to digitally distribute through their associated online partners. THAT'S why I use CDBaby. The minor benefit is that through producing the CD's yourself, you can hit a good pricepoint and make more money than through cafepress.

If you want to see what I've set up, please visit my site below ... and drop me a note to let me know what you thought. I'd be happy to share any thoughts on the process ... as I'm still in the process of building things ... and looking for better ways to gain more exposure to the right people (which is how this post started).

This is a super thread ... for making the music is only a small part of the challenge to be heard ... getting heard is vastly harder.

Best,

Kev
 
I've sold 76 copies of my debut album and given 18 out for promotional purposes since my release in mid September. I sell most during live concerts(about 4 a gig usually). It is a self produced album. I had 1000 CDs made. Though I have only distributed less than 100 CDs I do not regret buying 1000 because I believe you should set your expectations high but be happy with small victories. I am not backed by any record company but have had some encouraging developments.
 
Before my badn broke up, we did a few runs of cd's and some t shirts. We did everything ourselves... welll except screen the shirts. We sold all of our shirts(except one for each of ourselves, as keepsakes) and we sold a a couple hundred cds. The great thing about doing everythign yourself is you can buy a spindle of cd's a few packs of slim jewels, and go to kinkos and get your inside and rear jacket copied, and have 30 cds made in a day. It also means that your production cost is the same for 5 cds or 500. This worked out great as we rarely sold more than 20 cds per show, and we never had a ton of extra coasters lying around.


Simon
 
since my first cd in 2000, i have sold about 500. i hate to admit this, but my biggest seller was a christmas cd! it was mostly original.

i have had help from local radio and a heck of a lot of good friends and community support.

i have been very bad about marketing in the past...
 
We did about four maxi-singles, and averaged 2500 each time, but they were all vinyl. We didn't have any record company backing us, but we did get several independent distributors to order like 500 at a time. Of course we were paid net 30. As far as marketing we went strickly to djs. We gave the wax to the top DJ's in the country as promo copies, and we being djs too, we played the record every chance we got. We ended up with about 200 peices of wax extra each time. Like some of the catz was saying earlier, it's best to order in bulk because it's chaeper.
 
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