For those who have been struggling to get their CD heard—even though it is going to totally revolutionize music, man, because it’s totally like if Pavement and Radiohead got together—there is both good and bad news. The good news is that your local Best Buy will be willing to stock that CD. The bad news is that it requires a $250 non-refundable upfront fee. Oh, and your band will have to use Best Buy’s preferred vendor, J Distribution’s RegionalCD.net.
The hits keep coming, too. Every additional release requires another $100 fee, and to set the CD up for iTunes requires an additional $50 per release. But there is pay! An amazing $5.15 per CD sold! Unless it’s an EP, in which case it’s $3.65 per CD sold. So, for the first LP, a band will need to sell 49 CDs to make a profit, and an additional 20 for each CD after that. EPs will require 69 sales for the initial payback and 28 for each subsequent release.
So, if getting into Best Buy is the only thing between your band and greatness, fork over the cash and hope that the record industry isn’t as dead as Brian Eno thinks it is.
