Nic Jones Unearthed

Subject: RE: Nic Jones Unearthed
From: Ralphie
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 06:22 PM

Thanks Chaps!

Kit...Oh No ! JPD doesn't work at all !

PJD = Fat, Slim, Boy
JPD = Slim, Fat, Boy
PDJ = Fat, Boy, Slim....(reminds me...must do that bangin remix!!)

Oh Bugger...just call us "Podgedy"

See you there for some songs of misery and mayhem..

Love R xx

Subject: RE: Nic Jones Unearthed
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 03 - 01:44 PM

The above comments about distributors arn't quite right. A £12.99 CD has a dealer price of about £8. From that you would get about £5. So, the dealer is taking 30% of the price the record shop pays, and the record shop is taking 30% of what the customer pays. Obviously, if you increase the price of your CD, your cut will increase in proportion, but it will always be based around the middleman 30% of 30% thing. This may sound like a small cut of the money, but if you sell 10,000 CDs (not too far fetched, honest) thats £50k. There are some extremely good independent distributors who deal with small labels and can get product stocked in HMV, Virgin, Borders etc. They can also broker deals for in-store ads, listening posts (yes, you have to pay for that) and extra racking etc. Some of this might seem unacceptable (playing into the arms of the 'industry')but if you sell copies through folky channels anyway, you have nothing to lose through pressing extra copies for the chains and trying a short distribution deal out. You would re-coup the cost of pressing quite quickly and gain a lot of exposuse and awareness of your product if nothing else.

One final thing - do not think that bypassing the 'industry' will mean you deal with more honest and fair people. There is at least one folk distributor who will take a far larger cut of the profits in return for sitting on a pile of CDs and not offering them to any shops other than his own. Another folk distributor has been known to give as little as £3 for a £15 CD and then not pay at all on the grounds that the only person authorised to sign cheques was ill, and then hope the artist forgot. They got away with this mainly because the artists they tried it on were too young to stand up for themselves / know any better.

Whatever route you take be carefull.

Subject: RE: Nic Jones Unearthed
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 01:44 PM

Thanks for that, Guest. That was very interesting. It's important, I think, that folk music doesn't become cliquie, which will happen if we have to buy direct from the artist. The fact that 'Unearthed' was for sale in Borders is a good thing. Folk should be on sale beside everything else. We should never expect people to put themselves out to buy the music we love.

Subject: RE: Nic Jones Unearthed
From: Leo Condie
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 03:51 PM

The fact that Borders exists at all is a bad thing, though...;)

Subject: RE: Nic Jones Unearthed
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 28 Sep 03 - 05:58 PM

Why? I think Borders is very good. If they are selling copies of Nic's "Unearthed", then they obviously assume that their customers have taste.

Subject: RE: Nic Jones Unearthed
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 28 Sep 03 - 06:24 PM

Due to the vagaries of UK pricing and VAT, it's often lest costly to buy UK-produced CDs from US retailers. F'rinstance, CAMSCO sells "Unearthed (2 CD)" for $24 (US), which comes to 14.70 pounds.I carry Mollie Music, Harbourtown, Fellside, Wildgoose, Veteran, Topic, Musical TRadition, Living Tradition, Springthyme, Osmosys, Old and New Traditions, No Masters and just about everybody else.

Subject: RE: Nic Jones Unearthed
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Sep 03 - 06:36 PM

I can't see anything cliquey about a set-up where a normal way of getting records is to buy them direct from the artist, rather from some anonymous retail outlet.

I'm all for being able to buy them through retail outlets, and that applies especially of course in the case of artists who are no longer able to perhform, but that is a supplementary method. Wherever possible the direct source is better - it means all the money gets to teh artist, and also helps remove the barriers that the music industry erects.

Subject: RE: Nic Jones Unearthed
From: treewind
Date: 29 Sep 03 - 08:21 AM

I think it was the words "have to" [buy direct from the artist] that Ian found cliquey. Of course many folk artists sell most of their CDs direct at gigs anyway, but it's well worth making them available in other outlets, and if you get sufficiently well known then the retailers will account for a much higher proportion of sales.

There's also the fact that commercial distribution gives you much wider exposure, which could mean more gigs, so more direct sales etc....

I've now had experience of making one album entirely home made and sold direct, and another through the studio recording/record label/commercial distribution route. The commercial one makes far less money for us per copy sold, but it's available on line and in the high street shops, and it gets reviewed in magazines and played on local radio. It's got to be worth it for the publicity value.

(We buy at trade price, about £7.50 a copy, and get 10% on copies sold via other channels).

Anahata

Subject: RE: Nic Jones Unearthed
From: GUEST,Alan B
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 06:33 AM

Have just bought Unearthed at last (from Fish Records) - wonderful music, a real treat. If you have not heard it you are really missing out. Ingore the criticism - cover, some sound quality - the quality of the preforamces shine thru & make it all worthwhile