On a positive note, here is some news from Audiophile Audition dated October 15. "Web CD Distribution for Independents - Portland-based CDBaby has become one of the leading independent music retailers on the Internet, distributing discs by more than 45,000 performers ranging from the well known in pop circles to the totally obscure. Any artist can sign up with a 35 dollar fee and five copies of their CD. CDBaby keeps 4 dollars off every CD's selling price and sends all the rest to the artist. They have an open-door policy as to what recordings they handle and admit that some they believe nobody will want, sell quite well. Their web site is organized by genre, and each artist links to others in a 'If you like this, then you may also like..." marketing tool. CDBaby is now a part of the Apple iTunes online catalog, has 30 employees and made a profit in their second month."
A visit to the CD Baby site to gather some info was a pleasant surprise. Especially the "about page". The energy and idealism is like a breath of fresh air. Nice to know that there are still some folks that don't follow the piper. Here is a snippett....
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CD Baby is a little online record store that sells CDs by independent musicians. [In'¢de'¢pen'¢dent: (adj.) Not having sold one's life, career, and creative works over to a corporation.] We're just a few people in a cool Portland, Oregon, CD warehouse that looks like a playground. We listen to every CD we sell before we sell it, so we can help you find other albums you'll like. We only sell CDs that come directly from the musicians. No distributors. Musicians send us CDs. We warehouse them, sell them to you, and pay the musicians directly. Cool thing: in a regular record deal or distribution deal, musicians only make 1 or 2 dollars- per CD, if they ever get paid by their label. When selling through CD Baby, musicians make 6 to 12 dollars- per CD, and get paid weekly. In business, and thriving, since March 1998. We're the 2nd-largest seller of independent CDs on the web, 2nd only to Amazon. |
Derek Sivers is the developer of CD Baby. It seems he started out 6 years ago, touring as a musician and selling his CDs. He asked if other musicians on the same circuit would like him to sell theirs as sort of a hobby. He would ride down to the post office on a bike carrying them in his backpack! Those days are over as here are his latest numbers: 48,345 artists sell their CD at CD Baby. 612,435
CDs sold online to customers. $ 4,878,314.82 paid to artists.
Not to mention in his spare time he has created the entire website from front to back on an OpenBSD server using Apache, PHP and MySQL. It is quite impressive allowing you to listen to tracks, view album covers etc. He says it is his favorite hobby now.
Good luck Derek and CD Baby! I don't think you'll need it though!
Source: cdbaby.com
