[strummin67]

Originally Posted by tiktok

If your market is vinyl-friendly, and you price accordingly for your production costs, you can probably break even...depending on how many you give away. We did a short run of 45's for the last album, and they were good for getting reviewers and DJ's to notice you (when you mailed them out for free...), but people at shows tended to pick them up and say "Cool!" rather than actually buy them. I mean, for a few bucks more they could get the entire album in a format they could listen to on the way home from the gig.

One thing to consider--mastering for vinyl and for CD is two separate things, so if you want to offer both, prepare to pony up for two mastering sessions.

When all's said and done, I believe the most crucial factor to successful merchandizing at gigs is having a really hot woman staffing the merch table. Sad but true.

Agreed.
We always had our girlfriends sitting at the table pushing our CDs.