Self-publishing music CDs

May 24, 2005 8:40 PM

What's a good resource for self-publishing music CDs?

I'm basically looking for the equivalent of Lulu or CafePress for self-publishing music - upload your work, set a price, make it available for anyone to order. (Yes, I know Lulu offers this for downloadable music, but I want to make an actual mail-orderable CD with jewel case and self-made album art.) Is there a good-quality service such as those that will do this? Thanks in advance.

posted by Noah to media & arts (9 comments total)

CDBaby is your best bet. Here is an NPR piece on them.
posted by blahblahblah at 9:24 PM on May 24, 2005

CDBaby is, as blahblahblah stated, precisely what you're looking for. It's a tremendous service and I've never heard any musician with anything bad to say about them.

However, they're a little pricey. I think they take a $4 commission on album sales which, in the magnitude I've had luck selling CDs, makes it much harder to recoup production and printing expenses. It is worth it for what they provide however, particularly as you seem more interested in reducing the hassle than in making money. Another drawback is that one can only ship them five CDs at a time. For a band with strong initial sales, this means that they sell out quickly and often.

The other drawback to CDBaby, which is also their strength, is a complete lack of editorial control. Anyone can sell their CD on the site but, you know, anyone can sell their CD on the site. This means that albums on the site will not self-promote in the least. The odds are astronomical against someone browsing the site coming across your music and making a purchase, despite the fact that CDBaby has made great efforts to make the site browsable and genre-searchable. That's the nature of indie music, I guess.

A fair number of bands promote themselves through shows and their own websites and basically have CDBaby handle order fulfillment. It's a nice compromise, though if you limit yourself to PayPal and checks, you can keep the costs down to $1.50-$2 per CD by mailing the discs out yourself. That's a hassle and doesn't scale well.
posted by stet at 10:11 PM on May 24, 2005

Yeah, I know about CDBaby (I did the album art for someone who sells her music through it), but it's not quite what I'm looking for. I want something that will make the CDs for me: a site where I upload my MP3s and album art, with the CDs made on demand for anyone that orders them, similar to the way CafePress does T-shirts and Lulu books.

As you say, eliminating the hassle is my only real concern, I don't care about promotion. I just want something that will save me the trouble of printing the booklets, burning and mailing the CDs myself, if that's possible.
posted by Noah at 10:28 PM on May 24, 2005

Likewise, I've not heard anyone bitching about CDbaby. If you set up with them, they will also get you into the iTunes Music store for 9% off the top.

[self-interest-answer-link] I can help you get the discs made in small quantities, though not one at a time, and not with the fulfillment services. Please email me from address in my profile.
posted by omnidrew at 10:52 PM on May 24, 2005

Another drawback is that one can only ship them five CDs at a time.

Hm, are you sure about that? I sent them 50 copies of my CD, and they received them all and are selling them.

Yeah, I know about CDBaby (I did the album art for someone who sells her music through it), but it's not quite what I'm looking for. I want something that will make the CDs for me: a site where I upload my MP3s and album art, with the CDs made on demand for anyone that orders them, similar to the way CafePress does T-shirts and Lulu books.

discmakers will make CDs that way, but they don't sell them for you, they just make a quantity that you specify (at least 100, and only in increments of 100). I had a bad experience with them, though - not very personalized service at all, and when I called their support guy was not helpful. I placed an order with them and then cancelled it.
posted by ludwig_van at 11:15 PM on May 24, 2005

You should create a myspace account as well, IMHO.
It is full of sleaze, but they host promotional blogs for a lot of established bands, there is a lot of "browsing" through bands/musicians that occurs, and I can name three people off hand that have spoken to fans after a show only to find that they first heard them on myspace. You don't have to get all bloggy and everything, just treat it like a site, and perhaps link to other local people you like.

Oh, and unless Lulu changed, they do music as well. What's more.. with their profit system, you could release a promotional CD, tell them you want 0% profit, and they will also take 0% profit, a pretty nice way to handle a 3 song sampler or something.
posted by Jack Karaoke at 12:19 AM on May 25, 2005

As far as I could tell, Lulu only offers to sell your music in downloadable form, not CD form. Discmakers comes closer, though the 100-disc minimum investment makes me wary - and again, not made on demand to order... so it looks like I'll have to make the discs myself after all. (In which case I may as well use CDBaby down the road.) Ah well.
posted by Noah at 1:36 AM on May 25, 2005

Mixonic or DiskFaktory might be closer to what you're looking for. They use CDRs, but usually "silver" CDRs where the data surface looks like a pressed CD. And the on-disc thermal printing is great - much more professional-looking than a Neato label or inkjet CD printer.
posted by anthom at 1:20 PM on May 25, 2005

I've never heard of any service offering on demand burning and packaging, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist though..

Depending on where you live, and who you know.. there might be a bedroom/P.O. box label running near you who will make short runs for you, and keep them in stock. If you want to find such a local setup, you could look online, or just pick up fistfuls of fliers at local clubs, etc.. A couple links to peruse.

You're right about Lulu, they never did CD delivery.
posted by Jack Karaoke at 7:45 PM on May 25, 2005