There is another issue that you may have to learn by experience...!

A major 'trip hazard' when burning a master for CD production is the failure to test for the inherent errors in the master CD itself. There are plenty of web pages on the subject, but in short you must keep the C1 errors down as low as possible ('acceptable' is often given as 220 per second!!), but there should be no C2 errors at all, or the CD plant will reject the master. 'Jitter' is another consideration.

It is not enough to burn the CD then verify it, believe me! The verification process corrects read errors on the fly, just as a CD player might - and it just isn't good enough for a glass master.

I use a programme called 'Opti Drive Control' to check my masters, but not all drives are supported. You may have to burn in one drive, and test in another!

Plextor and Lite-On burners are favoured by most mastering engineers. You also need to use the highest quality CD stock, and burn at the speed recommended - often as slow as 8x. Some CD houses still ask for 4x, but that can often throw up as many errors as faster (16x or more) speeds.

Discuss all this with your CD manufacturer BEFORE you start mastering - it will speed up the lead time no end!

As for the overall sound of your CD, bear in mind most people will listen in the car more than anywhere else, so make sure you do, too!