OryCon

Hi--

To those who are after Steve Dixon and others to record...

There's a little matter of economics here. I know a bit about this, having produced some things myself and watched others and worked in the retail business for a while. I haven't ever lost serious money on a project.

Cat Faber knows of a place that will press and print 500 CD's for $1000. That's the manufacturing cost. I like a project best when its manufacturing cost is no more than 10% of the retail price--1000 dollars for 500 CD's starts out being a little high. The rest of the budget, including studio time, studio materials, promotion, etc-should come to no more than between 20 and 25 per cent of the retail price. So, for example, on a $15 CD, the production cost, including manufacturing should be (when divided up across the first run) should be between $5 and $6 a unit. You will then clear $3 a unit on any you sell to a distributor at a 40% discount off retail price and $9 off any you can sell yourself.

I was able to place many of my projects with people by being able to offer a large discount and still make money. I am pretty sure that it's possible to release a fairly *straightforward* album within those budgetary constraints especially if people are willing to help out in three ways:

1. Loan of equipment/talent/time (or trade for stock)
2. Helping sell CD's (for less than the standard discount)
3. Word-of-mouth promotion.

The budget is set up so that you have a fighting chance of breaking even on the first run. This matters, because filk albums have a relatively small end market so far, and the friend who buys one CD isn't likely to buy another.

If you want to jack the budget up, you have to be very sure where you're spending that extra money because it has to become possible to spread your initial cost out across more than 500 copies (500 seems like a small number until they're sitting in your garage). Most of the people I know who've done this spend their lives hawking CD's, touring, booking themselves and generally playing pro musician, which may be their objective--but it isn't mine, and it may not be the objective of someone who has a busy full-time job.

And, given the economics of the thing, you're at a tremendous disadvantage if you can't perform and sell your CD's at your performance. It's the difference between $3 and $9 a unit. So, while peo;le keep asking me to record a CD, and asking others to do so as well, I have to think about the economics of the thing, because losing money is no fun and it tends to be hard on marriages, personal lives, and self esteem.

S0...how interested are people in seeing recordings from Northwest filkers? I ask, because there's a way to deal with the economics that just might work if we can pull it off. The idea would be to start a cooperative, pooling money and talent to get the job done. I have a bit of technical experience and a good ear, as does my husband (who worked for Universal Recording at one time)--but not enough time to do all the technical work. Likewise I have some money and some equipment I could loan to the cause, but not quite enough equipment. I can teach, and there may be others out there with artistic, bookkeeping or other talents who could help out.

I am inclined to get in touch with people who've had experience setting up other cooperatives to see how it all works. If for example, $1.50 of every CD sold goes back into the cooperative but you don't pay for an engineer, don't pay for studio musicians, don't pay for ANYTHING except studio materials (mastering tape)--you'll meet your budget and the cooperative, if it works right, makes enough money to keep itself going and maintain its equipment and (hopefully) nobody gets burned out in the time department.

It's an idea, but it would be nice to think about, because we DO have a lot of talent up here. And, clearly, there's something not quite right about the business way of doing things for many filkers.

Oh, enough already. I enjoyed the con, I hope everybody else did too.

Anne Received on 11/11/97