[mplpost] Producing and Distributing the CD...

[Dan Kershaw]

At 05:14 PM 06/01/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>Part 2: Producing and Distributing the CD
>[bill usher wrote]
>So does anybody (in the Maplepost extended family) ever get 'signed' and
>financed by a third-party label now?

john switzer was musing about this a while back.  used to be that he'd move 
from one large project to another.  as a producer, the idea of having one's 
own studio wouldn't occur to him.  he'd be in one commercial studio for a 
few weeks, on (say) warner bros. dime, then move on to another project & 
studio for another label, and so on.

now, recording is often a patchwork of different projects vying for space 
on his daytimer. with performers fronting most of the costs themselves 
these days, they economize by having less extended stays in a pro studio 
and more bits and pieces being recorded in project studios like the one 
john has created at fearless films.  needless to say, that also means the 
producer is the engineer, and mixer, and sometimes master-er.

i'm not surprised that third-party label deals are rare.  seems like 
universal and emi and warners bought most of the other labels, and now seem 
to be trading almost exclusively in pure commodities.  i guess they've left 
some room for those indie labels that can boast expertise in a particular 
genre or niche.


>I'm not sure when it was in the early 80s but I remember Kids' Records
>distributor A&M would ship 3000-4000 copies out the door to stores on each
>new release. By the second half of the 80s, that was down to 1500 to 2000 on
>release. Why. Bill Ott would show us the figures... Fewer stores carrying
>many fewer titles. Maximize the shelf space with top sellers and strong back
>catalogue. As the Canadian industry grew and more artists were making more
>records there was more competition for the shelf space.
>
>So, I wonder, how many 'indie' maplepost artists try to get their albums
>into retail? What percentage of your total sale is retail? What kinds of
>distributor deals are there? What about third-party fulfillment operations
>like Joe Radio? What about maplemusic.com? folkweb.com? What's your
>strategy?

my wife used to work for the guy who owned the classic books chain.  he 
figured out that he did 80% of his business on 20% of his stock, so he quit 
classic and started a chain which focused exclusively on bestsellers (which 
did very well until video and chapters complicated things for him).

i think that's also the story of record retail chains (not to mention 
commercial radio!).  the discretionary ordering that the chain store 
manager is allowed is less than 10% of his/her stock - everything else is 
dictated by head office (mostly major label stuff).  so the manager can 
stock 1 copy of a number of indie titles, or he can have multiple copies of 
fewer titles.  fighting over that real estate requires a fair bit of effort 
and energy on the part of *someone*.  if, as a performer, you don't have a 
champion at your indie label or distributor working their relationships 
with the chain store managers to get them to rack your stuff, then i don't 
think it's worth doing yourself.  better to focus on niche retail - places 
like (in t.o.) soundscapes and backbeat records.  which makes me wonder, 
are their national networks / affiliations / listings of, say, independent 
blues record stores?


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