Selling Your CDs Online

By David Barber
Commotion Music Promotion, Inc.

For musical artists there are 3 basic ways to sell your CDs online.

(Note: this article does not directly address selling downloads)

1. Get your own credit card merchant account and sell directly. This is expensive and requires an online shopping cart, usually custom. You'll have to fulfill the orders yourself, too (shipping, packing, etc.). Credit card companies and banks charge a monthly fee and various per transaction fees, as well as substantial set up fees, all of which are negotiable and vary all over the place. If you aren't selling hundreds of CDs each month, it's probably not worth the cost and effort.
Some hidden advantages to this, are that you can also get the equipment to handle credit card transactions at your gigs and you can use that to sell your other merchandise as well.

2. Go through a distributor who will distribute to online sales outlets like CDNow.com and many others. They will also offer your CDs for sale on their own website. You can link directly to the distributor's online store to sell CDs from your website.
This is cheap to get going, and low hassle, as they handle the fulfillment and the tricky website stuff. A real distributor is also going to make sure your CDs are available in record stores in the regions where you are playing and probably promote your music as well.
However, most distributors will take a big cut, generally around 50%, so the CDs have to be marked way up or you will just get less.
Companies like CDBaby.com and CD Street.com fall into this category except that they don't do retail distribution. For that reason they may be cheaper than a retail distributor (But then you need that kind of distribution, too. Don't you?) Some of them will only allow you to sell your CDs. They don't want to deal with your other Merch. (You do have other merch don't you?)

3. You can sell directly through your website using a 3rd party company like PayPal.com to process the credit cards. This one gives you the biggest cut per sale. It's basically free to set up and they charge a very low per-transaction fee (2.9% plus 30 cents pre transaction as of the time this was written). You have to handle the fulfillment. But you can sell whatever you want online, to anyone with a credit card.

No matter which option(s) you choose, make sure you shop around and compare prices. Go with the approach/company that you feel the most comfortable with. There are always new companies and websites out there that may be offering some combination or hybrid of the above options. (Beware: Sometimes low prices also mean low service levels and constant problems, and online companies are notorious for suddenly going out of business - taking your stock with them into oblivion) As your band grows you may need to reevaluate your approach and make changes.

You're Nobody Until Somebody Hates You!

By David Barber
Commotion Music Promotion, Inc.

We've seen it over and over again. A band works hard and climbs up to the top of their regional ladder. They're getting the corporate gigs and all the best club gigs and lots of people are showing up everywhere they play. They've been pretty nice to most of the people around them, helping compatible bands by bringing them on as openers, offering up advice, even phone numbers, when it comes to booking and then BAM! The tide turns and everyone starts bad-mouthing them on a message board or behind their backs at gigs.

"Why do they get all the good weekend gigs and we only get these crappy Wednesday nights?" or "They aren't that good, our guitar player can play rings around that guy." or the dreaded "I heard she's sleeping with that booking guy and that's the only reason she got this gig."

All that kind of shit sucks! Right?

But what an excellent barometer to judge how well the act is doing. The act is so successful that others in the scene think it's newsworthy to discuss who they're sleeping with. They are analyzing the guitar playing and trying to figure out why it's so popular. They may even figure out why the successful act gets the better gigs. (Usually, it's because the band is simply better than the bands those haters are in.)

It's human nature at it's worst, but it's nothing to get worried about, it's nothing to argue about and can actually be a sign of success. Most people who perceive an inequity will leap at any opportunity to lay the blame anywhere except on themselves. Nobody really likes to admit the truth, that their own act just isn't as good as those guys that seem to get all the breaks, or simply hasn't been working as hard for as long to get where they are today. The truth is that most of them started out right at the bottom, too and built their way to the top with a lot of hard work. Dissing them ain't gonna make your act any better. Playing better, writing better songs and promoting the hell out of yourself will all help much more.

In business it's generally a bad thing when people bad-mouth you, but like the saying goes, any publicity is good publicity. At least they are talking about you. The opposite would be much worse. Nobody will hire a band or business they haven't heard of. If a talent buyer or prospective client asks about the controversy, there's your chance to set the record straight to one of the few people who even need to know.

You can't please everyone, so some people will always dislike you for some reason. Usually, something completely outside of your control. so don't worry about them. Put your time and energy into the people/projects who know you better than that and who won't hesitate to put in a good word for you. Stay off those hate filled message boards and away from the people who trash talk you behind your back. They'll soon find someone else to pick on (probably, one of their own). There's a reason why the most successful people in the region don't show up on those boards. They're busy working. They don't have time to waste on gossip, bad-mouthing and that kind of bullshit.

Bottom Line: If you're getting dissed, calm down, don't lower yourself to their level by replying back in a hateful fashion and congratulate yourself for achieving a level of success that makes others jealous.