72 - Freebies for Family and Friends

As everyone who knows me knows, I'm coming out with a new CD very soon. I expect to have them in my hands before October 1. I have about one week left to finish mixing/mastering. The problem with having your own studio is that it's hard to let go of songs. You're still tweaking them.

Side Note - I just posted a song from my new CD on bandcamp. Check it out if interested.

I'm ordering a small order (100) of my new CD, and when I sell out, I'll order more. If I sell out in two weeks, I'll order 1,000. If I sell out in six months, I'll order another 100. All of my friends and family want copies for free. Actually, that's not totally factual. Some of my friends and the majority of my family WANT to support me and want to buy the CD. Others expect it for free. Some artists say "Hey, this is putting food on my table." But my friends and family know that's not true! It's a hobby. It's more important to me than I can say, but it's not my job.

So here's what I'll do. When my friends and family want a CD, I will tell them I'll be happy to burn them a copy for free, but I can't give them a factory-made copy because I need to sell them to get back the money I put in making them. So if they don't mind a hand-burned copy, that's fine. If I give them a copy of the actual CD, I can't turn around and sell that CD for $10, therefore I'm losing $10 every time I'm giving out CD's. I have 100 friends and family members. I could give them all away for free and lose a thousand dollars. Um, no.

Gifts are different. If you give a CD away for a birthday present or other present, then it's the same as a $10 gift.

Anyway, here's my thought - your family and friends are not out to rip you off. They don't understand why you won't give them free copies of your CD. They can get other music for free, but not yours? They've got a small point - it only costs you about 20 cents to burn them a no-frills copy. But it costs you $10 to give them a real factory made CD that you'd sell to someone at a gig. I think all we need to do is make people aware of this and they'll be totally cool with the no-frills burned CD. Hopefully they'll also want to own the real thing. The more CD's you sell, the more money you can put into music, the better your music can sound. (I'm saving up for a better vocal microphone.)