Where can you sell CDs now that CD Baby stopped distributing them? 🤔

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It’s been over a month now since CD Baby announced they were discontinuing the distribution of CDs and vinyl. Over the past few weeks, we've heard from many artists who were disappointed, angry, or upset over this decision. We were also asked if this meant Disc Makers was exiting the CD manufacturing business (spoiler alert: heck no!).
As he was ruminating about this momentous event in the music industry, Disc Makers CEO Tony van Veen came to some very clear conclusions that he wanted to share with you:
- Why Disc Makers is NOT exiting the CD manufacturing business
- Why it’s actually not a big deal to you that CD Baby stopped distributing CDs
- What CD distribution options are out there for DIY artists
- Where artists sell CDs now
Knowledge is power. Check it out and let us know where YOU are selling your CDs in the comments.
LET'S CONNECT!
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#CD #CDBaby #indiemusician #musicdistribution #music #merch #bandcamp

[@annimax]

Online autograph: BandCamp also lets me set up a drop-down option on my Annimax CD purchase page that lets the customer choose "Autographed" or "Shrink-wrapped" (I have to remove the shrink wrap to sign it...). They also have a nice option right next to it that offers to let the fan pay _more_ if they wish to support you, which some do. I advertise this on my social media pages as: "Want an autograph? I can't autograph a stream or digital download...", with a link to the page that sells CD merch.

[@johndhastings2465]

That's a really good idea about autographs not being on streams or downloads! So simple and obvious. Thanks!

[@markpulsipher5799]

I team up with my local small record store where I live & they are selling my CD'S online through eBay & you can buy my CD in person. I started to make & pay for my own AD'S to sell my CD'S through social media platforms

[@robertquant1122]

Is there’s a place we’re u can sell CDs easier I live in the ghetto Slauson and western and no one buy CDs there only streaming Mayb if I go to the malls or Hollywood I can sell my CDs faster cause people buy music in that area 📀📀💿💿📀💿💿

[@annimax]

BandCamp lets me sell my Annimax physical CDs as merch, has tracking tools, a shipping label generator, accepts customer payment via credit card or PayPal and calculates sales tax.... pretty much does everything except take it to the Post Office. They provide an email form for communication with the customer, where you can populate the tracking number and send it to them. My physical CD volume has been low enough to easily manage it myself.

[@ChiCity1Entertainment]

bandcamp is a great place for current artist and current music and possible history of music issue we have here is alot of the times artist dont have there own music anymore to upload might sound odd maybe to some but i promote history of unknown rap n hip hop material from the 90s and early 2000s so alot of the times its hard to find now but mainstream artist never have a issue with that

[@ModusVivendiMedia]

Everything that you say is very true, but there were still some unique potential benefits that are now gone, except for select titles that other distributors may choose to bring on. Alliance is a feeder into Barnes and Noble and a variety of other online catalogs. I'm not sure if the Alliance inventory automatically copied over to any retailers' databases, or how long it took for a listing to show up, but it at least opened the possibility. The point is they didn't have to actually ship product to B&N in order for it to be listed on the B&N website. Having listings at recognized retail stores could help establish legitimacy with reviewers and others in the industry, even if the stores never actually sold any copies off that listing. It could also be helpful when trying to convince stores to carry a CD for it to be available from a distributor they already have an account with and order from regularly, instead of having to add a new vendor for just one slow-moving title. Being available through a retailer's online store is especially helpful if any of the retailers are in Europe or elsewhere, where they can take care of local shipping and taxes, or even just being a large retailer with preferred international shipping rates and VAT IDs. It can cost $15 postage to ship a single CD from the USA to any other country if you try to do it yourself, even to Canada, and if the recipient has to pay VAT at their end (instead of being able to pay it up front while making the purchase), service charges can double the VAT amount or more (perhaps $5 or more on a $15 CD), plus it's more inconvenient for them to have to pay that to the postal service before receiving their CD. It seems to me some alternatives could have been for CD Baby to start charging monthly storage fees - either right away, or after the first year - the way other fulfillment centers do (such as Amazon's FBA), or to automatically get just a single copy of each CD to start with, then only order more from the label if it actually sells.

[@tonyvv]

You are 100% correct. I imagine CD Baby must have contemplated charging storage fees and probably figured the outcry from artists would be so great that it was preferable to shut down the store.

[@AvithOrtega]

I agree with you. It was also the only way to distribute my music physically. Now I have to send the CDs to my country, and here to send anything to any other country the price for the lowest, longest and most affordable option is 30 dollars! Some shipping services with track numbers can cost as much as 100, and this is because in my country all these things are so expensive. Its ridiculous to think that most of the fans are on USA but I have to order the CDs from a USA CD manufacturer to my country only to send them back to USA for the final customer, wasting so much time and money in the process and turning the CD merchandising and promotion to be unfeasible (not even breakeven).

[@AvithOrtega]

It was also the only way to distribute my music physically. Now I have to send the CDs to my country, and here to send anything to any other country the price for the lowest, longest and most affordable option is 30 dollars! Some shipping services with track numbers can cost as much as 100, and this is because in my country all these things are so expensive. Its ridiculous to think that most of the fans are on USA but I have to order the CDs from a USA CD manufacturer to my country only to send them back to USA for the final customer, wasting so much time and money in the process and turning the CD merchandising and promotion to be unfeasible (not even breakeven).

[@ChiCity1Entertainment]

i wish u guys could bring back the cdbaby cd store in my opinion it was one of the best places to find independent cds for regular price now u cant find them titles for cheap now people taxing for them on places like ebay, discogs, amazon, japan auction markets, etc.. because there not avail anymore. and i mean from 30.00 to 1k+ for them old cdbaby cds its crazy! but yeah theres alot of lost music because of the closure :( and wont be re-uploaded by the original artist to places like bandcamp soundcloud, soundclick etc... it really hurt the independent artist BAD :( atleast in the rap and hip hop community i duno about other genres, same thing happened way back with mp3 them cds are super rare now and sell for hundreds of dollars because they closed there site ...

[@tonyvv]

I frankly think Bandcamp is a better store and better alternative. If the original artist won't offer these old classics for sale on Bandcamp, they would've likely run out at CD Baby and not been restocked. That said, yes, I also think it's a shame the CD Baby store was shut down.

[@stevengovorchin]

Wise words as always. I appreciate how you provide commentary on every aspect of the music business. Long live the CD!

[@annimax]

College radio stations: As I discovered when sending Annimax CDs to major metropolitan colleges like WSOU (NJ, but effectively NY), WZRD (Chicago), KALX (UoCal Berkeley, near San Francisco), these and other colleges either prefer or _take only_ physical CD submissions from new artists. Full jewel cases preferred so it fits in their rack and they can read the spine.

[@Wicked_Fox]

One place is shopify

[@Tickbryan]

Facebook marketplace and Facebook ads are a great way to sell CD’s and merchandise and build your fan base if you are playing live gigs or even streaming performances. Selling music is no different than selling cars or anything else. Create a sense of urgency and WORK IT!

[@ELRADONE]

Yes great clip and good information,I been selling my cd's via my website,but the in store signing concept is a very good point...!!

[@jimwalker55]

Thank you Tony for the simple clarity you always provide

[@philrogersmusician6078]

Always great content. Thanks Tony.

[@Devoted2as]

I'm not sure when it started that we were told to ship our physical CDs to CD Baby in the first place, and am not sure why there couldn't have been warehouse space rented out for so much $ per month to those artists interested in order to compensate the cost to CD Baby. Lately, when I go to buy physical CD's on Amazon, if they say it's "no longer available" I know there are some somewhere, but Amazon can't seem to get them through CD Baby or other places like they used to. All that considered, yeah, we've always sold dozens more CDs right out of our home, or through the p.o. mail, at churches, and while visiting or on vacations ... even in foreign countries. We were kind of concerned about selling that way, however, because there is no official record of sales, like for BMI, to track, in those cases. Have we reordered our physical CDs when we run out? Yes, and probably still will. I assume that CD Baby has basically only it's streaming method to sell artists material as yet, but it could set up a system similar to how Band Camp does that IF it wanted to retain that aspect of the business too. Ahhhh! Lessons learned through time ... we all - creator and producer and distributor - really need to look down the road 5, 10, 15 years and ask ourselves, what's next in technology and in every other possible aspect too. (By the way, thanks for the selling tips, there were some we hadn't thought of that might come in handy to add to what we do now.)

[@annimax]

...and if you read any of my previous comments, I am not employed or endorsed in any way by Disc Makers or BandCamp. I'm just someone who had CD Baby pull physical CD distribution _with no warning_ 2 weeks before release of my debut Annimax album ("debut" = no track record as Tony mentions here), leaving me to scramble and figure out a new solution; I'm sharing what worked for me here. i hope these suggestions help you too, good luck with your new release!🙂

[@tonyvv]

Great suggestions, thanks for posting them.

[@uriel-heavensguardian8949]

Awesome video

[@markwilkins4616]

Always educational...thank you Tony!

[@mikevolpe4851]

Waiting for my first batch to come in from you guys! Great advice here. Thanks.

[@DiscMakers]

Our pleasure!

[@raquelnicolejete3642]

Thank you Tony, this was very helpful! Guest list? You got it! 😎😏

[@tonyvv]

🤑🤑🤑

[@robertsabharwal9787]

CDs are for albums .. nowadays singles are everything.

[@marwilliamson6996]

thank you i am a independent artist want to sell my cds

[@DiscMakers]

We can help you with that! Head over to our website for more info: www.discmakers.com or give us a call, 856-290-8274

[@lees_box]

All true.

[@s.m.1249]

Ok… what about Amazon..!!?? Physical CD… is that viable? Why not mentioned?

[@tonyvv]

Amazon will not let individual artists sell CDs directly from the site.

[@alfarukaliraqi8019]

Hello Why don't you think of making your products print on demand to get rid of storing them in warehouse? So it's easy way for all parties you, the seller N the customer! THANKS

[@tonyvv]

CDs are actually much harder to do on demand than books. Trust me, I know, because our sister company BookBaby does print on demand. The problem with CDs is that you have so many packaging formats - jewel case, wallet, jacket, Digipak - and the board products can't really be done in quantities of 1: the printing, die cutting, folding, and gluing just doesn't scale down affordably to units of one. And since they have different aspect ratios than a jewel case insert (slightly rectangular vs. square) you can't just say "ok, we'll just port all the Digipaks and wallets over to jewel cases for on demand manufacturing. Plus, the artist who envisioned the original package would object. Believe me, we looked into this HARD on a number of occasions and just didn't see a way to do it well, at a price artists could live with.

[@Ted_James]

@@tonyvv Additionally, print-on-demand CDs are usually CD-Rs. They may be higher quality CD-Rs than those that come 50 in a spindle. If you want real, replicated CDs, you'll have to order at least 300. Some of the CD-R releases that I've bought have stopped playing or become very noisy after a period of time. That has never happened with replicated CDs, at least not to any in my collection, and a lot of my collection is 20-30 or more years old.

[@chunkymonarchy5686]

Let’s talk

[@usewithcaution7200]

Can't compare Taylor Swift to an Independent musician without Management and a known Record Label with distribution, can't compete with that. If we had what she has, I wouldn't be writing this comment.

[@post22unboxing22]

can go back do your CDs