Hey everybody, greetings from South Africa.

On the subject of price I would just like to offer my 10 cents (or pence) worth. I'm not sure if it will apply to other countries but in my country I've found that the general public are price sensitive. I arrived at this conclusion by experimenting with the price of my cd at gigs. I started out selling at R100 (cd stores here sell at roughly R150) and would sell on average 2 cds per gig. I then halved my price (R50) and called it a gig special thinking that I'd sell more but only succeeded in averaging about 3 per gig. I incorporated various incentives (free t-shirts etc) but that didn't have the desired affect. Finally I pushed my price up to R70 per cd and suddenly I began to average 6 - 10 per gig.

So, make of that what you may, but I've found that price can make a difference. Perception of value perhaps.

Btw, CDBaby has just reported on their sales figures for '08 and CDs are still a viable option for independent artists:

***Excerpt from update***
1,013,478 CDs sold in 2008, compared to 993,175 discs in 2007, a modest 2% increase (but quite a victory in light of 14% sales declines for the industry at large, IMO).

39,100 new album titles added in 2008, up 7% from the prior year, and proof that CDs continue to be a viable sales driver for independent artists
***

Goodluck to all of you,
Cuan

My blog