Hi all. I have been asked many times whilst busking or performing, if I have CDs for sale.
Whilst I know of a few buskers who record and produce their own CDs “on the sly” as it were, without paying royalties to the musicians whose music they cover, I could never do this myself. We musicians have both a legal and a moral obligation to give attribution and payment to our fellow creators!
I have over time, invested in equipment and software sufficient to record quality material in a home studio, and I am at present working on putting together enough recordings to produce two CDs.
What I lack is the funding to outlay, up front in one hit, enough money to pay the royalties and the reproduction costs of my first run of CDs, and that’s where my plea for help from friends, family, and strangers comes in.
I have calculated the anticipated costs of producing 600 each of two CDs. Obviously I’ll be giving some away for promotion etc, but if I can sell 1000 CDs at a retail cost $10.00 each (which I think is a reasonable cost for a self-recorded quality CD) then I will make enough to be able to continue to produce more if needed, under my own steam, as it were.
Royalties (and GST)
I plan to record 26 songs (two CDs of 13 each). Four of these are in the public domain and three are originals of my own composition, so these seven attract no royalty payments. There are 19 songs for which I need to pay royalties up front, and also up front with this payment (to APRA) is the GST (Goods and Services Tax) on all of the saleable units.
Whilst these costs are relatively small (for each individual CD), they need to be paid up front. Royalties and GST at this stage come to a total of about $750.
Production Costs
Reproduction of the CDs from a master can be done in two ways, depending on the number you wish to make, and the desired quality of the outcome.
Duplication is usually limited to small runs, and is a process of “burning” the CDs much like can be done with any home computer. Replication is usually for larger runs, and is a process whereby each CD is “stamped” from a master (injection moulded, actually), a process which requires specialist manufacturing facilities.
Whilst I could opt for buying a heap of cheap imported blanks and burn them myself or have them burned, I believe there would likely be too many quality issues to contend with and if I intend to sell them, I could not bring myself to use such a potentially inferior method. Hence my choice is to have my masters replicated, which also means even the discs themselves will be produced right here in Australia, a bonus (albeit a small one :)) for our local economy!
The best Australian price I could find for replication, including printing on the CDs and printed cardboard folding wallets, comes to a total of $1540 or about $1.30 per unit, which is a cost I could probably not match even if I did use cheap imports and printed them myself.
Crowdfunding
I have decided to raise funds via the popular method of crowdfunding. I am using “GoFundMe” and I only lose around 8% of total donations to the collection/processing of funds.
GoFundMe
You can check out my campaign and donate if you wish HERE ON MY GOFUNDME PAGE.