| CD Baby DIY Musician Podcast |
 Dec. 14,
2008
Ep.41 : What's Your Story?
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| A pledge to CD Baby clients from Tony van Veen |
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Curious about what’s going to happen to CD Baby now that Derek has moved on to greener pastures? Here’s is what I pledge:
CD Baby will remain independent
CD Baby is a vibrant, healthy, independent company. It will be run as such going forward. CD Baby’s management team will make decisions that are best for CD Baby and its customers, period. We will not force CD Baby clients to buy CDs from Disc Makers, nor will we force Disc Makers clients to distribute with CD Baby.
We will continue to accept all artists
CD Baby’s success is based on our philosophy of not applying any filters. Every artist willing to pay our sign-up fee will be accepted and loved, just like always.
We will continue to be non-exclusive (except for digital)
Sell your CDs on CD Baby, and sell them wherever else you want. We’re about allowing artists the most channels to make money from your music. The one exception is when you sign up for our digital distribution program, because our partners like iTunes require an exclusive so that they don’t get the same tracks from multiple sources.
We will continue to allow you an easy out
We’ll keep earning your loyalty each day, and don’t feel the need to tie you in with long term agreements. Want out? You got it. Just let us know, and we’ll handle it like we always did.
We will continue to pay weekly
One of the things that separates us from other companies (who shall remain nameless) is that we pay weekly. Every week we run a report, and then pay on all sales that came in. That won’t change. (One side note: With a change in ownership came a change in bank account numbers. CD Baby's bank needs some time to program the very complex check writing procedures that CD Baby has into the new accounts, so there may be a one-time brief delay of about a week. I promise that it will be one-time only, and we'll send payments as soon as the bank gives us the all-clear.)
We will continue to be friendly, helpful, and quirky
While customer service is a foreign concept at many online companies, we’ll continue to be here for you. And if we’re a bit weird, it’s only because we’re musicians, just like you.
We will be ethical
A business can’t sustain itself if it’s not ethical. We will operate to the highest ethical standards in our treatment of staff and artists alike. We’ll be fair, and we’ll be honest.
We will continually improve
I have gotten hundreds of suggestions from staff on new initiatives ranging from single song downloads to new companies to partner with to getting artists up on the site more quickly. We can’t do them all instantly, but we will continue to make improvements.
These things I promise you, and the CD Baby team shares this mission.
Do you have any other services you want CD Baby to offer? Post a reply to this message with your suggestion(s). I’d love to hear them.
Tony van Veen, proud new papa to the Baby
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We could use some updated, flashy widgets that leverage the collective guerilla and viral marketing power of all CD Baby affilated artists in order to inspire more awareness from mainstream, "Clear channel" type consumers.
Event marketing banners, some branded POP materials that we could buy at a reasonable costs, etc.
Both online and real world tools.
Ex. CDBABY.com/artistname here - branded banner Ads and logos, etc.
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I just think that there is a massive, under utilized street team (CD Baby artists) that could be organized voluntarily in a way that would be of infinite value to increasing popularity and sales for the whole, overall catalog.
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I would like to see cdbaby handle licens for cover songs and getting the infomation that is required for digital distrabution and paying the roylaties for us musians ,and I wouldn,t mind paying 10% to handle the cost for doing that work.Not every musian writes his or her own songs they do cover songs. I know it sounds like a lot, but it would bring more musians to cdbaby.Maybe take a survey to see if musians would lke to see that happen.Musians would have more time to do cover songs. People get known faster by cover songs. Derek once wrote about that in a bullten board.just a thought. Best wishes walter goulet
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Widgets are in the works.
Mechanical license administration is also around the corner. We'll offer the service and pass it through at our cost - no markup. And the cool thing is you'll only pay once you sell a download (you won't have to pay for a bunch of tracks up front before you sell any).
Keep those suggestions coming.
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I wish you could streamline the process for digital distribution set-up. Its been a week (not a few days) and I'm still waiting. I second the part about CD Baby handling the licensing since I didn't major in accounting. I also think that single song downloads are essential. I suspect that the majority of the iPod generation don't download entire CDs. You can download single songs at MySpace. You should be able to do it at CD Baby.
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Dear Tony,
First of all: Congratulations to your nice “adopted baby” !!! :-)
I hope you will enjoy it and won’t forget - even in the long run - the wonderful pledge you made here… ;-)
Even though I am not (yet !) a CD Baby artist, I would like to contribute to suggestions for improvement:
- COVER SONGS
I totally agree to walter goulet’s comment, i.e.:
“I would like to see CD Baby handle license for cover songs...”
I know of a business rival of yours (located in Germany, but offering worldwide service through their software). An artist can upload a cover song there when naming the owner of the copyright and: this company then will automatically pay the royalties to the owner of the rights. I don’t want to say the company’s name here, I just hope you will think about offering this service as well.
- more INTERNATIONAL partner companies for digital distribution
I’m sure CD Baby knows the best partner companies in the USA/ English speaking world, but when you think of the big, big world out there, there is more than iTunes ect..
For example:
Musicload.de is next to iTunes the biggest Download Shop in Germany (and has expanded to Austria and Switzerland). I think you really should take into consideration to make artist’s music available at Musicload.de too.
Every CD Baby artist from wherever and of course CD Baby itself would profit if big download shops in diverse countries would offer CD Baby artists’ work.
Maybe artists of the diverse countries should give suggestions of relevant other download stores in their countries.
And speaking of the big, round world:
Now that you are a big, big company you may want to expand even more…? I know it would be a giant step, but it surely would help CD Baby to be more successful in Europe:
What about a stock of physical CDs in the EU?
Currently any local shop in the EU (and the rest of the world) has to import a physical CD, which seems to be not so easy (they have to pay duty, have extra workload ect.). The effect is: Just to test it, I went to a local store to order a CD from a CD Baby artist (with UPC Barcode) and they said, they could NOT get it !!! (And I knew the CD was NOT out of stock!).
This problem is preventing European artists to come to CD Baby, as I have heard many, many, many times.
Moreover there surely are music lovers in the EU who tried to order CDs in their local shops – and did not get them, BUT who did not order directly online from CD Baby either (because they just did not know it)…
So, just think about it, or maybe you can find
OR RECOMMEND (?????)
an EU partner for the stocking here, which would solve the duty problems and so forth.
- TRANSLATIONS
I can only speak about the German translation on the CD Baby pages and maybe the other languages are better translated, but in the German translation there are some severe and confusing errors !!! To give you just one example that even every English speaker will be able to understand:
go to: Digital distribution -> Optional Sync Rights
the word “optional” (which is the SAME in English and German)
was wrongly “translated” into the word “optimal” (which is again the SAME in English and German). Thus the meaning in German became “optimal Sync Rights”.
This really is just ONE example. So PLEASE let a professional, native (!!!) German Speaker do the translation again.
As I already “admitted” ;-) I’m not yet a CD Baby artist, I don’t know how the translation is in the steps after registration, but I heard a while ago, that there is NO translation at all when it comes to all the very important issues. I don’t think that most people had the chance to learn this “business English”, so you probably would help a lot by translating the crucial facts into the diverse languages.
- Language for buyer in the Shop structure
I don’t know how complicated it would be for you to make it possible that buyers could choose their languages of the shop structure when shopping. You know, I just heard that the “checkout” Button is not at all understandable for everyone… So maybe in the far future you would want to think about offering some other languages for the shop…?
Footnote: To those artists who maybe are now annoyed because of all this speaking about people and problems across your border: Just think about it, the more CD Baby is known in the world, the greater the chance that YOUR music will be found and loved!
Well, I hope you find my suggestions helpful. I didn’t mean to criticise in a negative way but just wanted to give you my feedback (and I hope you do understand it as a positive thing).
I wish you all the best :-)
Rira
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I like to see official CD Baby presence in Japan; actually, I like to see DM in Japan too :)
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How about cd's on demand.
When the customer orders the cd, Disc Maker creates the order an cd baby ships it.
The customer then gets a quality product all the way around from two quality companies... an a quality band.
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CD on demand for retail sales makes sense! This is what kunaki.com is now doing, so maybe Disc Makers could integrate a similar service. The advantage is that the CD could be manufactured and then drop-shipped directly to the buyer instead of first shipping it to CD Baby or the artist who has to pay re-send it (again) to ship to the final buyer's destination.
Michael
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Ultimately, I would like to see a more dynamic CDBaby.com store front. Artist pages. Recommendations based on customer purchases... maybe even customer profiles that have the option of showing purchase and review history.
I understand the bare bones nature of the website, but the times they are a changin' and the internet community is more savvy. That's why as a customer, I usually end up discovering new music and buying it from Amazon or iTunes and not CD Baby--it's so much EASIER to find exactly what I like because they know my taste before I buy anything!
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This is an AWESOME idea!!
T would also help with the birden of needing to outlay 1 or 2 G's every time you need to get more CD's in print. For those of us with three or 4 in print, having to print 1,000 at a time just to get a price break can be pretty overwhelming,especially when you riun out of stock all at once
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you should give us the ability to cross post music videos from
youtube directly onto our cd pages.
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CD's on demand is a great idea, and if instead of having warehouses in Europe you had CD manufacturing facilities in Europe or Japan you would lower shipping costs for international orders.
Mix that up with zazzle.com style merchandising and then when a customer orders a cd, they can get asked...would you like to buy a shirt with that? or perhaps a thong (seems to be the rage these days..)
put all that in a widget that I can put on all my various web locations...and i'm a happy happy guy.
ps - thanks for the pledge - just change the last one from improve to innovate -that's what made cdbaby successful before, and it's the only thing that will keep it alive.
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These would be just perfect!
1. CD on demand - setting up an album should work exactly as it is now, for it has proved successful, and CD on demand could be an additional option.
2. A branch in Europe and in Japan would be still awesome, even if you had manufacturing facilities in these areas for CDs on demand. There are probably many artists here in Europe who don't even think to ship their stuff to America, because it's sooo far away. Or music lovers might also be turned away by the shipping costs.
3. Fancy widgets - definitely greatly increase visitors etc.
4. Somebody mentioned making the site more international with language options. Please, please, please! You can hire me for Hungarian translations ;-)
Congrats Papa Tony for your new Baby! Thanks for this pledge! We will remember :-)
Really, this whole operation is so successful that please don't change a damn thing in the way it's run, etc. Innovations and improvements are always welcome, of course.
Best, Andrea
http://www.andreagerak.com
http://cdbaby.com/all/andreag
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Oh yea, one more thing...can I have a job?
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Rira is right!
If you can handle license for cover songs and have an EU stock of CDs .... that would be just awesome!
Roberto Dalla Vecchia (Italy)
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Yes! Handling licensing admin for cover songs would be a nice additional service! You'd probably have to charge a bit extra, but might be worth it for most artist that will have at least one cover song on their album.
Michael
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help indie artist(cdbaby artist). find away to get airplay.start the cd baby radio network, maybe a group of genre related internet stations under the cd baby umbrella ,with cd baby charts
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Sale-per-track is certainly a good idea, allow me to suggest another angle on this. It would be great if we could upload tracks as and when they are finished (ie not having to finish an entire album before uploading). Bob Lefsetz has written a lot of articles about releasing a song at a time as opposed to releasing albums, and I agree with some of his points. Another possibility is if we were to try 2 songs as a dance remixes or something absurd, we could just list those two songs seperately, without having to register a complete new album on CDBaby. Just an idea!
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CDs on Demand is what the old indie version of MP3.com used to do before it was bought out... I never had to send a CD, it was printed and produced there... I really enjoyed it - saved me on shipping and stuff.
De Colores!
Phloide
http://cdbaby.com/group/phloidesroom
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Yes CD on demand would be great! It is hard enough writing arranging and recording the first CD. I know my cd art program for my first cd is no longer sold and it is going to have to be redone for me to make copies id I loose it or the new computers wont run it. Also it seems that the home burners are not all that good and a lot of times I am afraid my cd is not listenable by the customers player, that can't be good. What a great idea here here!
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more INTERNATIONAL partner companies for digital distribution - here in the UK (where we are based) it would be nice to be on HMV, TESCO. Woolworth's and similar. I know iTunes is king but these smaller ones all contribute to the chart and some people do use them!
ALSO
I talked to Derek a couple of times (at least) about two years ago about having a UK operation. I used to work for CBS (Sony) Distribution as well as now having my own label and outlined a plan to him about how it could work.
I'm still here and think it is an essential move given the number of UK releases on CDBaby
Thanks
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I love the pledge, Tony! I hope it's appropriate to say so here, but since DiscMakers and CD Baby are by default forming something of an alliance, there's just one policy at DiscMakers that I find incompatible with the CD Baby vibe of treating everyone equally: When I re-ordered my CD at DiscMakers this year, I learned that my master had been discarded because I didn't re-order within a year (it took me 2 years to need another thousand CDs). I was a bit offended and felt like I was being tossed aside because my sales weren't as high as other artists, and I was somewhat insulted that my master had been thrown away instead of mailed to me. It's the master recording of my music, after all, a highly mojo-infused mother of my first 1000 CDs, and something to be treated with respect, not thrown out. It didn't seem like such a big deal to make room for a glass master or mail it back rather than toss it in the trash. That's it--otherwise, I'm feeling really good about new ownership.
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i would LOVE to be able to have artist photos and biog/album notes on iTunes - i wouldn't mind paying extra for the added work needed... the more professional looking everything is the better :-) (if you want an example search ATB on the UK iTunes)
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what day do you payout weekly now?
its been two weeks and i've got a balance.
thanks
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We pay out every Monday. So if you don't see a payment for this
week, there are couple things to consider. If you get direct
deposit, be sure to double check your bank account, as sometimes
it can take them a couple days to add the funds to your account.
The other thing to check is the pay point which you set in your
account. If your total amount due does not reach that pay point,
we won't pay you, but you can login to your CD Baby member
account and lower that pay point at any time. If you still have
questions, please feel free to e-mail us at cdbaby@cdbaby.com.
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I would love to see our tunes able to be purchased through sprint music, so sprint phone users can get em. If it is possible already I am unaware, if so please let us know how to go about helping fans get them.
it's also great to have such a good company as Disk Makers behind CD Baby now! Welcome Tony glad to have you on board.
Thanks,
Dangerous Doug Harper
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hey, i like those new buttons for CD sales!
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i would like to see cd baby partner with pandora radio it is a online free radio station that can get our music heard it would be great if the whole cd baby artist can get there music played on there it would be huge and it would be more promotion for cd baby/artist can some body please look into this
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Anyone can get their music on Pandora by going directly to their
website. Just check out their page for the steps to do so.
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Good to hear that people are concerned and active.
Keep up the good innovations and improbements
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Hi Tony,
I've sent 2 emails in the last 4 days or so and have received no reply- If you all are in transition and/or working on answering my email, that's fine- but a reply to that effect would be great.
I love CDBABY and am always recommending you guys to everyone, but what gives?
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Hi there,
Just wanted to say hi and thank you for committing to run CD Baby right. I see a lot of great ideas here, looking forward to seeing what gets implemented.
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I think it would be great if you could have Artist pages that include all their albums on one page. As not only being a musician, but also a web designer, I often get complaints that we can't link to a CDbaby.com page that displays all of their albums. Instead we have to link to a separate page for each individual album. I believe that customers who buy one album will also buy other albums from the same artist. This would help promote this particular idea.
Doing a search for a particular artist will not only bring up albums from that artist if they have a name in common. One of my clients has a name in common with another artist on CDbaby, so again I can not create a link to display all and only their albums on CDbaby.
Thanks for listening!
Ryan Chilcote
Forever Mourning
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For artists that have video, like one of my single cd that has 3 tracks also includes a copy of the video. Can CD baby assist in getting these sold on ITUNES like the other video they are selling on there now and on yahoo and those video sites. Just an idea, I have posted my video numerous and have have people request to download the video
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Ryan:
You can already have one page for all your releases (and have been able to do that for a long time). Just log into your account on cdbaby.net and look under the "Member Tools" tab. It's called "Make a Group/Gallery". Works great! Go to http://www.cdbaby.com/all/rvs0002 to see an example.
Peace,
Johnny
www.johnnylokke.com
"Metal from the Heartland"
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Tony, welcome! And thanks for the communications.
What I'd most want, in addition to more market-forward support
for our records, is a major improvement in HostBaby --
especially the Website templates. I find them to be pretty
horrible -- too cookie-cutter, and WAY too inflexible. I'm
considering leaving HB for another service (perhaps using the
iWeb that came with my Mac). Surely there must be a better way
to balance ease of use and originality/customizability.
The other thing I'd love to see is HTML mail capability in
ListBaby. I have to pay an additional $20/month to Constant
Contact just to get that kind of power. I thought for sure that'd
be done by now.
So I adore CD baby and everyone who works there. I just wish
the HostBaby function were more creative, more flexible, and
gave us MUCH more value for our 20 bucks monthly.
Look forward to hearing what you can do in that dept. Thanks
again!
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We're currently testing new back end code that was written to allow some of the changes you ask for. We'll be starting to do wider testing soon. If all goes well we'll start building out the functionality of HostBaby. It's high on our list of priorities.
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Welcome Tony,
When I heard the news of the merger, my thoughts went immediately toward the possibility (probability?) that CDs could be burned on-demand. The "never out of stock" idea is sooooo enticing and the respectable stature of DiscMakers would only add to overall buyer confidence.
I've seen several posts with inconsequential suggestions that received responses either from you or from CD Baby staff but you've been strangely silent on this, probably the most obvious of requests anyone might cook up. So what's the deal?
Certainly this would be a paradigm shift not only in the way you do business but also for the industry. Quite frankly, I dare say this would toss the entire CD manufacturing world on its ear. Not something to take lightly or to just jump headlong into.
But really... What better company to do that than one affiliated with CD Baby?
As a very, very wise man once told me... if it excites you... do it.
We're all very excited to meet you Tony... are you?
Luc
http://www.lucnormand.com/
http://cdbaby.com/cd/lucnormand
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Burn on demand is something we intend to do. And, to address one of your comments, I did indeed mention this somewhere else as a response to a suggestion post.
Will it throw the CD manufacturing business on its ear? I don't know. I doubt it, because on-demand duplication already exists. Plus, it's still going to be cheaper (per unit) to buy replicated discs. However, for CD Baby artists it certainly would be a significant opportunity.
We're targeting a beta test in Q1 of next year. Stay tuned.
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Thanks for your response.
You obviously know your side of the business better than someone like me. Good that you're giving it a go even though it may not be as novel an idea as I first thought it was.
All the best,
Luc
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| NOTE: If you need a reply you should email CD Baby directly instead of posting here. We don't often read old message board postings, and have no way of replying to them!
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