The Manager’s Corner- Pressing Vinyl- Is it worth it?

by Chris Daniels

I’ve managed my own band since the 1980s and despite the amazing changes in technology, success in the music business is built around some tried and true elements: great music & performance, really hard work and timing (often mistaken for luck). The book I wrote for my UCD class on artist management is called “DIY: You’re Not in it Alone” and that is exactly what you need to understand … you have partners out there willing to help…and you should count on them.

Vinyl. For some this is like getting excited about old Playboy magazines in your Dad’s garage. Yeah, they’re interesting, fun to look at, but they don’t even compare to the 80 zillion digital porn sites on the internet. Yes, some folks love the feel of that old paper that folds out, but is there any comparison to endless hours of computer heavy petting?

The fact is vinyl IS a valid medium and, in point of fact, some of the hottest moving merch and retail sales items an artist can have in his or her tool kit – provided – and this is important – your niche audience actually likes the medium and will support it.

According to the Mirror in London, UK sales of vinyl are up 100% from last year with some 15,000 albums being sold every week. While they still only make up about 1% of the sales, for the UK they will sell almost 20 million dollars in vinyl in 2013. About 90% are bought by men and almost 5% of those who buy vinyl don’t even own a record player! In the States the figures are similar with the sales of vinyl up almost 40% over last year.

But what makes it worth it for an up-and-coming act in Colorado to risk the expense and extra work needed to bring your recording to this 65 year old medium? It’s pretty simple: if you have the fan base to support this kind of technology it’s worth it.

Does that mean if you have 5,000 likes on your Facebook fan-page you should press vinyl? …no, not at all. What it means is that if you perform enough shows to move enough merch to cover the cost of doing the vinyl, you might be wise to do it IF and only if your audience will support it.

So here is how you build it. (A) You need to ask your Facebook, Twitter and any other fans how many would buy a vinyl album if you released it. (B) You need to discount that figure by about 30% to cover the number of people who say they will do something and don’t …like your friend with a truck who  says “anytime you need a hand” and then he doesn’t show up when you need him. (C) Now take that figure and run a quick formula on it.

The formula is a standard break-even formula (BE = FC/P-VC)

This means the number of vinyl albums you need to sell in order to cover your costs will be equal to the Fixed Cost (FC) like your studio costs, cost of mastering for vinyl, album art and the cost of pressing the vinyl divided by the price you get at your shows (LPs get an average of $15 and up) MINUS your per-unit expense (variable cost like shipping). So if you spent $5,000 recording, pressing, and on artwork and you are getting $15 an LP AND it costs you a prorated cost of $1 per album to ship them to you – your formula is $5,000 divided by $15 – $1 ($14) = 357 albums must be sold before you cover your costs.

In this example – if you are playing enough gigs to be assured of selling a minimum of 357 albums, then it is worth it. Notice I did not include retail stores. And the fact is that great folks like Paul at Twist & Shout and Andy at Albums on The Hill in Boulder love good selling vinyl…so if you are doing a lot of shows around the Front Range, then they will most likely like having your record in their store.

The first resource to consider is mastering. Mastering for LPs is a totally different thing then sitting down with your buddies and your computer to master your album. Mastering for vinyl involves lots of technology and a great understanding of things like “inner groove distortion” and two-side sequencing and much more. In Colorado, Aardvark Mastering is pretty darn good and they can help you with info on pressing and setting up the art, etc. Check them out at aardvarkmastering.com/

These things will get you started. Companies like CD Baby will take LPs for sale. And one final thought. Remember that 5% who bought the LP without owning anything to play it on?? … my guess is that figure is closer to 15%. And for that reason, and because even people who bought the album will want to listen to it on their iPod as they head to class (or whatever), I encourage you to put a free “download” card in the LP packaging because you will increase the traffic driven to your music at sites like iTunes if you do. You can get them from CD Baby and other aggregators like TuneCore for as little as 50 cents per card … and it will really make the person who buys your LP happy! If your music, act or band is at the point where vinyl makes sense, spend the time to do some research into what it would take and how it would work for you, and especially what your fan base interest might be…it all starts there.

Tags: Chris Daniels, the manager's corner

Category: Shop Talk