DETERMINING YOUR BUDGET

In my last post, we began to lay the foundation for planning our project.  We're starting to have an idea of what exactly we want to do. 

There is still a tremendous amount of planning that lies ahead, but before we get too carried away, it's time we start considering what our budget is.

I know that I don't want to spend a fortune to release an album, like I have in the past.  I've since learned that thousands of dollars does not necessarily make a great album. I have spent anywhere from about $2k-$10k in the past on making albums and from that alone I've learned that the price tag doesn't ensure quality.

Furthermore, my goals for this particular record aren't nearly as lofty as some of my past albums.  Since the premise of the book is about any ordinary person having the ability to take charge of their music career-- I want to set a modest budget of $1,000 for this project.

 To some, $1,000 might seem like a lot. I might even seem unobtainable. I can assure you that it is not and to prove it, I will include a chapter in the book on Side Hustles for musicians that details ways you can quickly produce funds for your project.

For example, when my band was first starting out, we were all an average age of 16.  We were full-time students and maybe half of us held jobs-- and those were part-time and minimum-wage. Suffice to say, money was scarce.

One of the things we did to raise money for recording, equipment and cigarettes was to get together at night when it was dark and drive down to the golf course.  We'd wade out into the disgusting waters and retrieve all of the lost golf balls from the water hazards.  We would have to pick leeches off, navigate around a dead duck, and many other disgusting obstacles to fill our trash bags with golf balls.

Once we gathered a sufficient amount of balls, we'd take dump them into a bathtub.  We had procured some abrasive bleach cleaner and brillow pads from the dollar store that we would use to scour the balls clean until they looked brand new.  Once cleaned, we'd separate them by brand into egg cartons for sale.

If we were patient, we could get $10 for a case, selling them across the street from the very same golf course or at a garage sale.  If we were in a pinch, we'd get about a quarter a piece from Play it Again Sports.

It was dirty, unpleasant, and not terribly rewarding, but when you're options are limited-- you have to do what you can. This kind of hustle helped me to get my first halfstack.

Anyway, we laid out some of the production goals for the project in the last post and we set a budget in the beginning of this one. Diskmakers has a great quoting tool on their site that will help you determine what duplication package best suits your budget.

Unfortunately, having decided upon a small budget of $1,000 has put some kinks in our plan.

We're going to have to scrap the vinyl duplication from the project.  Even short runs of 100, like we had plan, are quite costly and would put us well over budget even if that were the only form of duplication we were considering.


That happens sometimes.  You will run into obstacles that force you to reassess what your ultimate goals are.  Since the vinyl pressing was only a novelty-- it was stricken from the project.

The quote that fits best into our budget includes 300 CDs in cardboard sleeves, shrink-wrapped,  with a UPC bar code.  To save money, we will be doing the artwork ourselves, but we could consider recruiting a graphic designer from a site like Fiverr to do the art under our direction for cheap.

This quote also includes CDBaby's PRO global distribution services.  This is a MUST DO for any project.  Here's the description from the site:

"Start selling your CDs and digital downloads online at iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, CD Baby and more. CD Baby Pro Publishing is our worldwide digital and CD distribution service combined with worldwide publishing administration for royalty collection. Pro Distribution includes everything in the Standard Distribution package, plus we'll register your songs with collection agencies worldwide, affiliate you with a Performing Rights Organization if you aren't already, and collect all available publishing royalties on your behalf and pay them directly to you."

We will not only have 300 physical CD's to sell, but we will also have worldwide digital distribution of our music. 

I think the most cost-effective way to pull off my plan to have download cards is to include 100 digital download cards in our quote and purchase these seeded note cards from Amazon for $18 and copy the info over to them by hand.



It's a bit tedious, but it was an artistic choice that I wanted.  $18 and maybe an hour of my time was worth it to me. Maybe it will inspire a trend as the industry continues to move away from physical albums.  Maybe I'll be the first and only one to do it.  Either way, it's interesting to me and the world needs more flowers, anyway.

The final aspect of the quote is my compromise for having to cut the vinyl from the order. I included a commemorative plaque for the release.  Discmakers does these really well and they are a great thing to hang in your office or studio. These look similar to the Gold and Platinum certifications artists and labels receive and it makes a great embodiment of your efforts to look back fondly on.

With all of those services, here is the breakdown of our quote:

Price: $447
Cards from Amazon: $18
Shipping: $43.57
Subtotal: 508.57
Est. Tax: $50

Total:  $558.57


As you can see, we've exhausted more than half of our budget on duplication alone. That's okay-- that's not unusual.

We'll be saving a significant amount of money by recording and producing our album on a home computer.  However, we will need to be thrifty going forward because we still have to consider mastering, artwork, promotion, etc.

We have a pretty good start!  In the meantime, start scavenging golf balls, aluminum cans, and spare change.

PLAN YOUR BAND

As I shared with you earlier, I am in the midst of writing a book called "Plan Your Band".  My ultimate goal with this book is to essentially write a manuscript for my younger self when I began my music career 20 years ago.

When I started my music career, the internet was just becoming a 'thing'.  Twenty years later, the internet has become not only it's own medium, but a tremendous, invaluable resource for aspiring artists.

Still, there is plenty of mystery, confusion, and plain, old misinformation surrounding the music and entertainment industries. I want my book to be a tool that provides clarity to navigate those treacherous waters.

While I have been writing this book for some time now, only recently have I decided to actually release an album to coincide with the book.

Despite a lengthy sabbatical from music, as the book project progressed, I found myself reinvigorated with a passion for music that I had not felt in some time. Plus, it makes perfect sense that I pair the book with something that displays the applied techniques from the book.

It would probably be easier to do this after the book is finished, but since music production can be a tedious process, I figured I'd do both simultaneously to ensure that both could be released in conjunction with one another.

Again, while some of the book has already been written, NOTHING has been done with regard to the music side of the project.  This post marks the first real foray into the planning of that project.

Let's begin with what I plan to accomplish with this album.

For starters, I know that I'd like to create a full length album.  While this was the standard for many years, it certainly looks like the industry is reverting back to the practice of many artists foregoing the album in favor of releasing a series of singles. Since the vast majority of music today is consumed by way of streaming or digital downloads, it's often impractical and cost-prohibitive to bother with releasing a collection of songs when you can promote songs individually.

The reason I've decided to go the album route is merely a personal decision.  I like the idea of having a body of work that reflects a particular point in the artist's life.  A collection of songs that was written and recorded within the same time frame tends to share a common vibe.

It would most definitely be easier to release an EP or a series of singles, considering that I'm writing a book at the same time, but I would strongly advise against choosing anything simply because it provides the path of least resistance. Doing so could result in feelings of regret when the project finally wraps up-- and by then, it's already too late.

So, I have that much planned already.  I want to create a 10-12 song album. The next logical question I might ask myself would be "How do you plan to release this album?"

Once again, I find myself bucking industry trends.  Many artists today are avoiding doing physical albums (CD, Vinyl, Cassettes) altogether. Again, unless you're a country artist, there's a good chance your fan base doesn't buy CDs anymore.  Unless you're an indie artists, its likely your fans don't own record players or purchase vinyl.  Plenty of artists today are making handsome livings strictly from the digital marketplace.

Nevertheless, I appreciate having a physical embodiment of the work.  I like holding an album in my hands, studying and admiring the artwork while listening. I plan to not only press some CDs for this project, but for the first time in my music career, I'd like to press some vinyl, too!

That's not to say I haven't learned anything in my 20 years in the business.  I plan to do short runs of each printing for the first time in my life.  I had always purchased a minimum of 1,000 CDs whenever I put out music. To this day, I have boxes of unsold albums in my garage that aren't any use to anyone.

At that time, it wasn't much of a jump in price between a short-run and a thousand pressings. I optimistically thought, "Better not risk having to do a reprint once these sell out!"

With the benefit of hindsight, I think I will print no more than 300 physical copies of the album and 100 or less copies of vinyl.  To be perfectly honest-- I'm not sure I even know 100 people with record players.

Along with the short-run of physical media, there is one thing I've always wanted to do with a release, but I'm still not entirely certain that it is possible yet.  Well, it's possible, but I don't know how probable it is.

Discmakers, my go-to manufacturer, now owns CDBaby, a tremendous resource for independent musicians.  CDBaby offers something called "Download Cards".  Essentially, this is something physical that can be sold a shows that enables the purchaser to obtain the music digitally via download from the link and code printed on the card. A fantastic idea.

I wanted to take that cool idea a step further.  There are companies out there that print onto cards that are filled with seeds.  Once the printed item has fulfilled its purpose, they can be planted in the earth to produce flowers or other kinds of plants.

I wanted to have the download cards printed on the seed paper so that once the album is downloaded and backed up to the user's device-- they can turn the card into flowers!

I'd like to try that with this project. We'll see how that goes.

So, for now, we know that we want to create an album, press 3300 CDs and 100 vinyl and possibly obtain download cards that can be planted after use.  We now have the early stages of a plan for our band.

Stay tuned!