One of the interesting things about selling underground music that has
little or no promotion is what you can (and cannot) achieve from word of
mouth. We distribute many releases each week that no one has ever heard of.
Maybe people have heard of the band or the label, but the actual release is
a brand new surprise. We can sell some of those releases to our stores based
on descriptions, sound samples, the label or artist's past releases, etc.
Those stores in turn can sell some to their customers in the same way. These
are records and CDs that the indie store now owns, in most cases they cannot
return them, so they have a vested interest in pushing them to the customers
they think would like them. But because they can't return them they buy VERY
conservatively (and in some/many cases not at all). But if the release sells
well for them they will keep selling it and selling it, turning more and
more of their customers on to it ("hey Bob, we just got in this new CD from
blah blah I think you'd dig it, check it out"). Still with no promotion.
Contrast this to sales to chains. Chains buy everything 100% returnable. The
people on the floor are not the people who ordered the record so whatever
info there was on the release, the sales reps at the chain stores don't have
it. Since they don't have that info and since if the record doesn't sell
they will simply send it back, many CDs that COULD sell at the chains--even
with no promotion--do not. At the indie stores you have PUSH distribution.
The music is pushed all the way to the consumer. At chain stores you have
PULL distribution where the consumer has to know and want your product and
get it. That really only works with records you promote (heavily in some
cases). What often happens is the label/distributor is good at convincing
the chain store buyer to pick up the release but with no money/promotion to
convince the consumers at those stores to buy it, the product eventually
comes back. Maybe if the guy at the chain who bought the record worked the
floor this wouldn't happen (but at a chain how could one person be at all
the stores?).
So you can have good, but relatively small, sales at the indies on a record
with no promotion where you might have zero sales at the chains. But if the
record doesn't "catch fire" at some of those indies you won't have any
reorders and your sales will flatline. We see this ALL the time. We can get
records into stores based on what they sound like, how good they are, and
often the stores will be able to sell them (they definitely want to since
they are usually going to have to keep them), but if they don't get a good
enough response there won't be any reorders (instead the stores go "what's
new") and sales will basically die. That's where promotion for the indie
releases really help. If there is a steady (albeit small) stream of people
asking for, looking for that release the stores will keep stocking it.
That's what happened with Elson's CD. We pushed it and got a decent number
of stores to pick it up, most if not all, who had never heard of E-Trinity.
And I'd like to think most of them did okay with the release. But without
any promotion there wasn't any real reorders so once we got all those stores
to try the CD that was all the sales we had. As anyone in distro will tell
you, the real business is in restocks of catalog. And if there isn't a
steady demand you don't get restocks. That demand usually has to come from
promotion (or touring, etc).
Dirk van den Heuvel
President/GM, Groove Distribution
Deep. Jazzy. Soulful. Groovy Dance Music.
http://www.groovedis.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Elson Trinidad [mailto:elson_at_elsongs.com]
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2006 8:32 PM
To: acid-jazz_at_ucsd.edu
Subject: [acid-jazz] Re: Promotion, Distribution...
At 05:39 PM 4/7/2006, you wrote:
>In the end it seems it's all about distribution and promotion. If you
>produce your recording you ultimately have to get it in shops. Without
>the budget to promote your recording the sad truth is noboby cares.
>Check out the $1 bins of used record shops and they're full of indie
>releases.
>I suspect that even if you have a distributor you'll be lucky to recoup
>your investment. Many releases sell in very lower numbers, even in the
>dozens. How are you going to get back $2K on that? It seems one would
>be better of giving the music away and selling t-shirts or merchandise.
>Pretty sad, but true.
I made an electronica CD in 2001 and either sold it at live shows or at one
point had our very own Groove Distribution sell it. Thing is, the CD sold
real well right after its release, and I think Groove asked for another
shipment. Some of the DJs who are and were on this list played tracks from
it in their playlists. But as time wrought on, sales slowed down and they
returned half of the second shipment back to me. It's currently on sale on
CDBaby.com where it gets sporadic sales here and there. I did recoup the
costs of the CD's production eventually, but then again that was five years
ago. And I still have a couple hundred copies sitting in boxes in my room...
>What I wonder about people with digital music is what happens when they
>upgrade they're computer or their iPod? Or what about when it crashes?
>Or when the tecnology shifts again. Or is music that disposable?
Backups. Storage is cheap these days. I keep a partition specifically
dedicated to my MP3 files and my iTunes directory is on there.
But yeah, a CD, record, cassette, 8track, etc is a tangible product. Someone
can show their grandchild a copy of a Beatles album bought in the '60s.
Someone on this list can show their children an Acid-Jazz CD bought in the
'90s. But a download? Hmmm...
Elson
Elson Trinidad . Los Angeles, California, USA
e l s o n @ e l s o n g s . c o m
The new shade of soul: www.elsongs.com
Received on 2006-04-08 20:13:44