winterfire666 Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 we have just completed our debut album and don't know what to charge for it, we are open to giving at away as a digital download too. a few things to note we are a new band and are not very well known, nor do we have a great FB following we have only played 8 or so gigs over a year and only one recently (with the new lineup) we are doing physical copies for a minimal charge to cover costs and were thinking £5 max maybe less. on the digital side do we go cheap (say maybe £2.99) or even free, im a little concerned about undervaluing our music but i want as many folk to hear it as possible. does anyone have any thoughts? cheers Pete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ras52 Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Bandcamp allows you to operate pay-what-you-will with a floor price (that can be zero)... see e.g. Hope & Social who do downloads from free and CDs from the cost of physical production/distribution: http://music.hopeandsocial.com/album/all-our-dancing-days Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redstriper Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 My band has made 4 albums so far, we record and produce them at home for minimal cost so we don't have to recoup much outlay. We burn and print a few CDs to sell at gigs and occasionally by post - we sell them for £2.00 each or a fiver for all 4. They are all available for free download and streaming on soundcloud, Spotify and mixcloud. They are also available on i-tunes, CD Baby etc. to buy at the standard rate. We don't sell many in any format, because fewer people want to own music these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lozz196 Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 We charge £8 for our debut 17 track album and usually sell around 4 or 5 per gig. But then the majority of our audience are the same age as us, 40s to 50s, so are probably more in with CDs than downloads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wooks79 Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 (edited) I've done both the give it away free/pay what you want, and the charge for it ways, and both have been completely different beasts, as the bands were completely different. My current band, Sirens in the Delta (http://sirensinthedelta.bandcamp.com) have our EP online, and are also selling physical digipak CD's using bandcamps storefront type setup. We chose to charge £4 for digital download and £5 for a CD, as we need to cover our CD costs, but if anyone only wants a digital download, its cheaper for them, but is actually more profitable for us than the CD. I also feel that your music should always have a value, if you don't give it a worth, other people may not. As this band is a far more 'get out and gig' band, we wanted to have physical merch to sell to recoup the costs that we have outlayed with studio time/cds/merch etc. I have found if you do charge, people don't mind paying if they want your music. We have also had it put on iTunes/Spotify/Amazon/Deezer/etc, just to have it as many places available to buy as possible. With Dresden (http://dresdenmusic.bandcamp.com) my previous band, we were more of a studio band, with our own studio and producer, so we went the free/ pay what you want approach, as we didnt do a lot of gigs and wanted to be able to get our music in as many ears as we could to increase exposure. As well as using bandcamp we allowed the album to be a featured album on a very large private music torrenting site. This led to approx 20k+ downloads of the album worldwide, which was good exposure and opened other doors and contacts through them hearing our music. We made very little money from people paying 'what they want' but when they did pay anything, it was very nice to see. We didn't make any physical copies so that meant we had no costs to recoup. I guess the common theme here is that whatever you choose to do, bandcamp is a fantastic tool for artists to get their music online, its really user friendly, and can be really interesting with its stats, eg. I have found reviews of my band that I would have not seen without having bandcamp tell me where people had come from to visit the site. I once had a photographer friend tell me that he had increased his business tenfold after taking the advice to increase his prices, as people thought cheap meant crap. I would say charge for it, post a link and I'll buy it. Edited November 13, 2014 by Wooks79 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heminder Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Make a download/torrent available free and charge the standard rate for a pressed CD (around £10-15). People who like will buy it, and those who don't buy it wouldn't have done so anyway. Either way you'll be getting your work out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ambient Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Charge something at least, let them pay more if they want to. i've had a hundred or so download my music, most paid, but when I counted there were 20 odd who hadn't. it got really annoying when people downloaded it for nothing. Why should we give music away for free ? It really annoys me this culture that's grown up about wanting music for nothing, we're partly to blame for giving it away for free in the first place. People will pay £3 for a cup of coffee or a supermarket sandwich, but object to buying music ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterfire666 Posted November 13, 2014 Author Share Posted November 13, 2014 thanks for the input folks, certainly got a bit to think about. i definitely think that if people like it then they would be happy to pay something rather than just expecting it for free, its just a matter of getting it heard in the first place. we have a couple of weeks untill the cds arrive so ill be mulling it over untill then. luckily since i have footed all the costs personally its pretty much up to me, so no band arguments over this one are allowed :^) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diablo Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 OT I know, but I did not realise SITD are in Boro. I hope to get to the Magnum gig on 4th Dec at the Empire. Have not been there for 20 years or so when it was closed down for being a complete drugs den. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ambient Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 If you're selling a CD, then maybe give a code for a free download ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Bandcamp rocks. I've bought more music from that site than all other sites combined! They do FLAC downloads too! People can play the entire album for free on the website to check it out before buying it, then I would offer the download for a few quid and CD for a few quid more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jecklin Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 In terms of helping draw people to your bandcamp send off review copies to as many blog and review sites you can find that cater for niches of metal. Try and find review blogs based in other countries as well. Also search on youtube for reviewers in the vein of the needle drop ( needledrop himself doesn't do stuff not on a label / added hipster tax) Good luck with it all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wooks79 Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 [quote name='Diablo' timestamp='1415917150' post='2605317'] OT I know, but I did not realise SITD are in Boro. I hope to get to the Magnum gig on 4th Dec at the Empire. Have not been there for 20 years or so when it was closed down for being a complete drugs den. [/quote] Fantastic mate, pop over and say Hi if you make it along! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heminder Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 [quote name='ambient' timestamp='1415920257' post='2605361'] If you're selling a CD, then maybe give a code for a free download ? [/quote] What'd be the point of that? People can just rip the CD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ambient Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 [quote name='heminder' timestamp='1415926094' post='2605412'] What'd be the point of that? People can just rip the CD. [/quote] I mean for bonus material I have tracks on my Bandcamp that aren't on albums. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ras52 Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 [quote name='heminder' timestamp='1415926094' post='2605412'] What'd be the point of that? People can just rip the CD. [/quote] Convenience... and immediacy. The CD may be in the post but the punter can download/listen right now. Amazon do this ("AutoRip"). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluRay Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 My band charges £2 for ep, £4 for album on bandcamp, which is cheaper than the itunes/amazon pricing. Most of our distribution is physical CDs in shops or at shows (normally around £5 per CD). But we really only have a paid option on Bandcamp so we can use it for occasional promotional freebies/giveaways, just to get the songs circulating a bit. People are more likely to download it if they think its free for only a day or so, and then it reverts to the paid option. We figure its better to have the extra distribution than worry about a few quid in "lost" sales. Bandcamp has some nice options to create download codes that you can send out etc. We also distribute through Distrokid - which is a really cheap way to get content onto the big download stores. Its around $20 per year flat fee, then they take something like 15% of the price (which is set by itunes etc). The downside is it goes on spotify too. There's something really depressing about getting royalties for $0.002 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happynoj Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 With BandCamp you don't even need to send a code for a free download. You can set it up so that if you buy a CD, it unlocks the digital download as well. I don't know how to do it as I've never done it myself, but I have bought stuff off there that worked this way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 We have music available from bandcamp and while it's a useful resource, IMO it's all a bit too "indie Ghetto" for a lot of people. Ordinary fans prefer something a bit more familiar like iTunes or Amazon. And any band that hopes for a decent sized audience is going to have to go with the m ore mainstream sources for downloads. This shown by the fact that it is possible to download our latest EP for free from Bandcamp, but to get it from iTunes or Amazon you have pay. We have more downloads from the iTunes and Amazon than we do from Bandcamp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterfire666 Posted November 15, 2014 Author Share Posted November 15, 2014 [quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1415971582' post='2605711'] We have music available from bandcamp and while it's a useful resource, IMO it's all a bit too "indie Ghetto" for a lot of people. [/quote] i have bandcamp account as the codes are really handy for promotional uses but i agree it looks more professional to use amazon/itunes and has the potential to reach a larger audience. i have found after talking to a lot of people that as good as bandcamp is, feature wise, most people who don't play music or haven't been in a band have never heard of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ambient Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 I use cd baby too - iTunes and amazon both require UPC codes, you can get them off cd baby for $10. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ambient Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 I use cd baby too - iTunes and amazon both require UPC codes, you can get them off cd baby for $10. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingrayPete1977 Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 [quote name='ambient' timestamp='1415909933' post='2605222'] Charge something at least, let them pay more if they want to. i've had a hundred or so download my music, most paid, but when I counted there were 20 odd who hadn't. it got really annoying when people downloaded it for nothing. Why should we give music away for free ? It really annoys me this culture that's grown up about wanting music for nothing, we're partly to blame for giving it away for free in the first place. People will pay £3 for a cup of coffee or a supermarket sandwich, but object to buying music ? [/quote] This coffee analogy doesn't work though, if star bucks are comparable with a band like kings of Leon then your little coffee brand is no more than a cart in the street so no matter how Nice your coffee is unless you can get a few people to taste it those £3s are going to keep heading to star bucks. As musicians we make out that we are the only ones having to do this,I can't think of a business that hadn't had to sell them selves short initially to get a foot on the door. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ambient Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 (edited) [quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1416076193' post='2606669'] This coffee analogy doesn't work though, if star bucks are comparable with a band like kings of Leon then your little coffee brand is no more than a cart in the street so no matter how Nice your coffee is unless you can get a few people to taste it those £3s are going to keep heading to star bucks. As musicians we make out that we are the only ones having to do this,I can't think of a business that hadn't had to sell them selves short initially to get a foot on the door. [/quote] It's not just my music, or the OP's music that people expect for nothing, it's music in general. The huge problem is that big name bands give theirs away. U2 for instance, and Radiohead with their pay what you want. They can afford to give their music away, it doesn't really matter to them, because they're not really giving it away free. Radiohead made more from [i]in rainbows[/i] than their previous album, and U2 got a fortune from iTunes. The public however, perceive that it's for nothing. It's also not a question of getting a foot in the door, the precedent is set so that it's just for nothing, whether you're an established band, or total newcomers. Edited November 15, 2014 by ambient Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 [quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1415971582' post='2605711'] We have music available from bandcamp and while it's a useful resource, IMO it's all a bit too "indie Ghetto" for a lot of people. Ordinary fans prefer something a bit more familiar like iTunes or Amazon. And any band that hopes for a decent sized audience is going to have to go with the m ore mainstream sources for downloads. This shown by the fact that it is possible to download our latest EP for free from Bandcamp, but to get it from iTunes or Amazon you have pay. We have more downloads from the iTunes and Amazon than we do from Bandcamp. [/quote] [size=4]'Indie ghetto'? I think that term could also apply to most people's bands![/size] [size=4]True, it's usually only proper music fans that support and buy music from smaller unsigned bands that have come across it. Nearly all the bands I see live, or recommendations I get from forums / social media / friends all sell (or give away) their stuff on there.[/size] [size=4] [size=4]For those that don't actively seek out new music only get to hear about new bands passively from radio or TV, who have likely already been signed to big labels, they will probably not have heard of it. [/size][size=4]But any band should release on as many platforms as possible to maximise their potential sales.[/size][/size] [size=4]I feel Bandcamp provides a much better experience than the big name online stores. It feels like a more personalised experience, more like you're buying directly from the band and hence more of the profits going to them - true or not, it's a big reason why given the choice, I will buy from here. Another reason is that I can download music without having to install any software - one of the reasons I avoid iTunes. I had bought an MP3 album from Amazon recently and was [/size]appalled[size=4] that I had to install some crappy downloader tool just to get my hands on the goods! I prefer my stuff in lossless format and this is the only place that offers it - far quicker, cheaper, easier and less wasteful than ordering a CD just to rip it![/size] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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