Releasing Your Indie CD with Print on Demand
Looking for a major record deal? Join the club. It’s a club that just about every other unsigned musician is in already, too. But at least you’ll have plenty of company. For every artist who’s signed, there are thousands more who never even get a chance. Getting a record deal is as much about connections and pure luck as it is about raw talent and determination. If you do everything you possibly can to get a deal but keep coming up short, will your dreams be forever put on hold?
Lots of musicians who don’t get signed to a major label try releasing an independent record. They do it entirely on their own – from recording to mixing to producing to distributing to marketing and more. Self-publishing your CD is difficult, and it’s risky. But big risk is a requirement for big reward. If you’re going to self-release your CD, one way to maximize your potential for reward and success is print on demand (POD).
POD is exactly what it sounds like – your CD is printed as it’s demanded. In other words, your CD is replicated only when a customer purchases it. POD technology has a lot of great benefits for artists. Here are a few of them:
Minimizing Costs and Inventory
Most musicians don’t have a lot of money to spend on making their dream a reality. In order to create their CD with traditional publishing methods, they have to spend a lot of money up front ordering hundreds or thousands of copies. If not all of those copies sell, it makes a big dent in their profits. They also need to find a place to store all those CDs. With POD, you only have to pay for CDs as they’re ordered. You aren’t required to spend a lot of money up front, and you don’t have to keep a large inventory.
Maximizing Profits
With POD, you’re only printing the exact number of CDs that you sell. This allows you to maximize your profits because you aren’t paying for any extra CDs. Your profits won’t be reduced because you have a lot of extra stock that never sold. POD allows you to strike the perfect balance between manufacturing and sales.
Total Artistic Freedom
A major label has the potential to bring you major success. However, a major label will also take a great deal of control over you and your music because they have a stake in it. With POD and self-publishing, you’ll retain complete artistic freedom and control over your CD.
If you’re interested in print on demand for your indie CD, you’ll have to choose a POD manufacturer to go with. There are a lot of POD companies that specialize in CDs. Some of the major POD CD manufacturers are CD-Fulfillment, Mimeo, Mixonic, and Disc on Demand. One of the major POD publishers for books is CreateSpace, and they also products POD CDs. Each company has different policies and prices, so you’ll have to do some research to figure out which is the best one for your music.
As long as you’re willing to put in the time and effort it will require to market your CD on your own, POD is a great option for you if you just can’t get a deal.
