I thought that this was interesting. Does anybody have any additions, disagreements, comments to share?

http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2011/09/top-10-ways-to-screw-up-your-album-release/

Bob

Bob

I am not sure that I agree with the idea of not releasing without label support...If this were the case then we would have never had Minor Threat, Black Flag and many others that were trailblazing bands in creating what are now some of the largest indi labels in history...just my two cents...

I will add a few notes, based on my own experience.

1. Don't release an album without lining up distributors in advance.
2. Don't release an album unless you have an adequete promotional budget.

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I've heard that the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. That applies to releasing CD's as well. If you are such an obscure band that your previous work is virtually ignored than any new CD you release will be as well.

This is a great topic. I'm sure I knew it all before but that didn't stop us from making the same mistake over and over again.

PolloGuitar wrote:

Here's another one, though more of a pet peeve: Don't
have your girlfriend design your package and don't
design the package yourself, unless either of you are
pros. You paid for a tuner so you could sound good,
right? Pay for graphic design so you look good.

Yes! Nobody will buy shoddy looking design work. Now, more than ever are people who know how to do this type of work, ask around if you can't find anybody, you might be surprised at who can do this for you.

I work for a large printers and a portion of my job is fixing and converting digital files. I see a lot of unprofessional stuff come out. Even if you are able to make something that looks nice on your screen, it could still look terrible when it prints.

We sent the wrong Master to be duplicated on our first album. Had "bonus" tracks on it that weren't meant to be on the album.

He didn't say, "Don't record" he said it isn't a good idea to just put an album our and expect it to sell without having a fan base that wants to buy the album.

And I'm sure Ferenc is okay with just putting out an album for fun without any grand ambitions. I believe he was intending it as advice for people who actually want more than 100 people to buy the album.

Online isn't really a great avenue for selling CDs. We sold a hundred or so online but we sold 5-6 times that amount at live shows or in shops(over a couple years which still isn't that good).

Las_Barracudas wrote:

I don't know,..I kind of think an EP is a good way to
promote your music and gain new fans?? Lets say
some folks see you once and really dig it, a recording
might keep them interested until you perform in that
area again?

I've had advisors recommend giving them away as
promotion (3 song CDs).

I am a firm believer in releasing an EP as a subsequent way of building interest in a band. I know that our EP has sold more and more over the months it has been out. Sending the EP out to be included in Podcasts and radio shows has been a great help in promotion and building interest.

I do agree with the underlying point though. Simply releasing a recording is not automatically going to mean it will sell. It is just the start of the process. The work starts afterwards. Playing out live is always the best way to build interest.

At the same time, a record is exactly that, a 'record' of what you have accomplished musically. I have released records in the past that have sold very well and others that I still have tons of copies of sitting in my closet. Either way, years down the road, I have a tangible record of what I have written that my children will be able to take with them long after I am gone.

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GeologyRocksCA wrote:

PolloGuitar wrote:

Here's a piece of advice: Don't release a CD with
the
expectation that anybody will care. You and your
buddies recorded a CD? Big deal, that's as easy
these
days as turning on your computer. Play shows, get
fans,
and when they start asking for a release, then it's
time to put one out.

Did you intend this as serious advice or a rebuke to my
post above? I can’t believe that you really feel a
musician (not to imply that I am one) should not record
unless he knows there is sufficient demand for it? I
have a couple of your discs and seen you play enough
times to know that you are a gifted guitar player. I
would hope that you would still want to do something
with it even if your band had not played together in
several years because you live a continent apart.

I am pretty sure that there are a lot of people in
virtual bands like ours that are unable to play gigs to
promote their music. As a consequence, their best
opportunity to generate interest is to plug their music
on an online community (like Surfguitar101). I can’t
speak for the quality of my playing (or lack thereof)
or if our brand of surf is compatible with what many in
Surfguiatar101 appreciate, but I can say that our
guitar player “Mark Kuhn”, is pretty darn good and that
he writes excellent music. I can also confirm that the
effort that went in to recording our latest disc
involved a little more than turning on a computer. It
also involved the consumption of many beers.

No band should have the expectation that people will
care about their music. All they can hope for is that
people will give it a chance.

My comment was in no way directed personally at you or your band. I stand by it as serious advice, something left off the original CDBaby list- of course they wouldn't put it on their list, as they are in the business of selling other people's music, and make a fair share of their money from the fee they charge bands who upload music with little chance of ever selling anything.

Yes, of course it is important for an artist, no matter how obscure, to make their art available. Please put out a well designed CDR that sounds good and/or make it available online, absolutely.

But do they need to pretend to have a "Release" for their vanity project? No.
In the "olden" days, a release date was a massive coordination of manufacturing, marketing, advertising, palm greasing, tour scheduling, t-shirt design, scheduled interviews, and on and on.

At the end, maybe lots of people cared or no one cared. Maybe the music didn't live up to the hype, and maybe it did, let the consumer figure it out. And maybe the publicists failed and didn't work a genuine artistic statement that fell into obscurity but became a legendary album.

These days a release (and I am being purposely sarcastic here) has come to mean that you finished mixing a demo using headphones at 2AM last night, and you want feedback.

All that said, there are some people around here who whine when their album goes unnoticed. Maybe nobody heard it. Maybe it wasn't very good. Maybe you are way ahead of your time. One way to figure it out is by playing live and guaging audience reaction. Song doesn't go over? Rearrange it. Drummer sloppy? Get a new drummer. Work on your art, so that when you set a release date, you've created something that other people will care about.

**Please note that the pronoun "you", as used in this post, does not refer to anyone in particular, but is the plural form meaning "you all".

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GeologyRocksCA wrote:

I fail to see how a CD produced by a non touring band is any more a “vanity project” than a CD put out by any other non corporate backed band.

Because bands that don't play live or do any sort of local promotion will sell considerable fewer records. And I'm sure he is okay with that, he just is pointing out that people should be aware of this fact. Recording an album is fun, why not do it. It is really easy these days, playing live and selling copies is the hard part.

GeologyRocksCA wrote:

Jake, Obviously playing live is the preferred method
but sometimes that is not possible if the band members
are too far apart. Who knows, maybe one day bands will
be able to play live together while separate via live
instantaneous holographic feeds but until then, they we
are just SOL.

Is it a vanity project for an artist to paint something
when they do not have a famous name or a scheduled show
at a gallery? Even if they did have a famous name,
does anything painted by a famous name mean that it is
good? I saw a painting on sale for $50,000 in San
Francisco years ago that looked like the artist signed
his name to something his kid finger painted.

I know full well that people in my situation are
fighting an uphill battle for all the reasons both you
and Pollo mentioned. But thanks to Brian we have
Surfguitar101, where we can at least present our music
to people who like this genre in the hopes that they
will listen and if they like it, they will wish to buy
it or comment as to why they didn't like it. No one is
expecting album sales comparable to "Dark Side of The
Moon".

'Dark Side of the Moon'? No, my expectations aren't that high. 'Dark Side of the Spoon' by Ministry? That is more where my expectations are...is that asking too much?

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