Since DB mentioned making his music available to us, the fans - I have been thinking how best to put his idea into motion - for him and for us. Now obviously, DB will release whatever he's comfortable with by whatever means he wants. But here are my thoughts on the subject (pardon the rambling nature).
1. The one-at-a-time mp3 itune type thing. I can see the beauty in this for sure. With very little effort on DB's part (and mine) - he can put tracks online per his timetable - maybe 3 at once or go a month without any. We can set it up here on the site where people can pay maybe a buck a track - and download the available music. There can be a comment section for each track where everyone can chime in on their thoughts - allowing people to get an idea of the track before plonking down their $1. If DB's serious (and I have no doubt he isn't - as told to me by Jeff Wells and his peak into the DB vaults) - then this could net us a lot of music at a VERY reasonable price. Easy for him - cheap for us. Now here are the cons. First up, mp3s aren't everyone's bag. It does take more than minimal effort to download an mp3 - and then even more to put it onto CD. No offense Gene - but even our resident doctor had trouble with the picture gallery. Downloading and burning mp3s might keep some people away from the music. If DB sets the price at $1, then he'll really only see $.66 a track. This is due to the fact that we would have to use Paypal for the billing and their fees would eat $.33 of each purchase. So, doing the math - if he put 10 tracks online and 100 people downloaded them - DB would net $660. And speaking of paypal - they don't support every country - so maybe Kathryn or Coen (or Mick!) wouldn't be able to join in on this endeavor. So there's some plus and misuses there.
2. Going the Cafepress CD burned to order route. Cafepress.com launched a new service a few months back where you send in a CD of tracks and they will burn them to order for a pretty decent price. The way they work is that they have a base price for their products and whatever you charge over that price is profit for you. Their base price for a CD (which can be any number of tracks up to 74 minutes) with a screen printed label on top (actually printed on the CD - not a sticker) is $4.99. For $8.99 you can do the cover-art thing in a jewel case. But let's just go with the CD alone in the paper sleeve for this argument. Shipping to anywhere in the US is $2.25. Using the $660 figure from the mp3 route - if he charged $11.60 per CD with ten tracks (with shipping to the US totalling $13.85) - selling 100 CDs would net $660 for the same 10 songs. Cafepress will make however many CDs people order - 10 or 1000. We could do some type of cover-art thing here on the site. Non-US people could get in on this as well (albiet with a higher shipping cost). Sound quality would be better with a CD than with mp3s. Ok now the cons. This route would force DB to chip in a set number of tracks for each new CD - and he did mention that he would like to release tracks as the mood strikes - maybe limiting what he'd decide to put out there. The end price per song would be higher for us - although not much higher. I know there are places that will duplicate CDs for less money - but this place will do it on an as-needed basis. This week, next week , next year.
Ok - so those are my thoughts on the subject. With that said, David, be assured that you have my full cooperation and assistance in whatever method you prefer. Personally, I would rather you go the CD route. But any method that gets your music out there is fine by me.
Thoughts?
Dan
