interview
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artist:
by:
Pär Winberg
date:
2004-01-08
The best place on the entire internet to buy independent music is without a doubt CD BABY. There are tons and more tons of great music to be discovered on this userfriendly musicpage. And its fast, funny and last but not least friendly to deal with the guys and girls working there.... So we thought it was about time to check out the "Messiah Of Independent Music" - the founder of CD BABY, Derek Sivers and ask him a few questions about his brilliant service. And NO - we dont get paid to tell you all this....
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Hi there - first of all - thanks for an
excellent service of music. How long have CD BABY existed?
Derek Sivers: I started it in March 1998. Just me, in my bedroom.
How many people work at CD BABY?
Derek Sivers: Were 25 people working and you can read about us at http://cdbaby.com/people
How many bands/artists sell their CDs through your site?
Derek Sivers: We have 53,226 artists selling their CDs at CD Baby. And we sold 736,200 CDs online to customers. And we paid $5,933,811.21 to artists.
Which artist have the record for most sold album through your site?
Derek Sivers: TOP TEN LOOK LIKE THIS
O.A.R.: risen
DAN ZANES AND FRIENDS: night time!
GRANT-LEE PHILLIPS: mobilize
MELISSA FERRICK: valentine heartache
JACK JOHNSON: brushfire fairytales
ALEXI MURDOCH: four songs
GARY JULES: trading snakeoil for wolftickets
PANCHOS LAMENT: panchos lament
RONDELLUS: sabbatum
STAN RIDGWAY: holiday in dirt
PROZAK FOR LOVERS: prozak for lovers
What category are most popular?
Derek Sivers: A lot of singer songwriters. Gary Jules is of course very popular these days due to his success in the UK
Are there any artists/band that signed major
deals after theyve sold their CDs at your place?
Derek Sivers: Yes, Gary Jules, Jack Johnson, Charlotte Martin, O.A.R and Fisher among a few others. These are some of the biggest ones.
I think most artists are happier to be independent and in control of
their
own career, instead of signing away their rights to some big company.
Please explain how it works for an artist/band if they wanna sell their CD at your place. They have to print their own cds right?
Derek Sivers: What you do is to fill out our submission form so we know who you are, and how you want your CD described.
Mail us just 5 CDs to start.
(Dont worry - well send you a check, and ask for more as soon as they sell!)
What we do is that we make a web page dedicated to showcasing your CD on cdbaby.com, with the sole purpose of SELLING YOUR CD. It includes sound clips, links back to your own website, reviews, and all of the text and descriptions you want.
We give this page an easy web address where you can tell people to buy your CD (www.cdbaby.com/yourname).
We put it in the galleries and search engines at cdbaby.com - which gets over 150,000 hits a day from people who are looking for new independent CDs to buy!
We take all credit card orders for your CD, online or through our toll-free phone number, and ship it to them within hours.
We Email you every time your CD is sold to tell you who bought it.
You set your selling price at whatever you want.
We keep $4 per CD sold.
There is a one-time-ever $35 charge to set up a new CD in our store, with everything we described above. (It takes us about 30 minutes of work to put a new album into our system and website, thats why.)
That $35 lasts forever (or until you dont want to sell that CD anymore.) So we will never tell you that it isnt selling enough, or youre not important. Even if you only sell 1 CD every 20 years, well be glad to warehouse it and take orders for it here.
Do you have any promotional office for the band/artists?
Derek Sivers: I do whatever I can to teach the artists how to promote themselves.
In order to be the best store we can be, we treat everyone equally.
For
us to promote certain artists would go against that philosophy.
Are there any future plans/ideas/features that you have for the site that you can mention?
Derek Sivers: Honestly, Im more excited about just being even better at what were
already doing. So many businesses lose their focus as they get bored
and
try to pursue other things. I really believe in sticking with one
thing
forever, so that you just keep getting better and better every year.
How many people visit CD BABY each day and are you satisfied with the amount?
Derek Sivers: I think its about 10,000 people a day visiting the site, buying about
1500
CDs a day. And yes Im thrilled! This site was only meant to be my
small
hobby run by myself in my spare time. Anything over that has been a
nice
surprise.
What are your opinion of the "REAL" musicbusiness with majorlabels?
Derek Sivers: I worked at Warner Brothers for 3 years - enough to know that I didnt
like
that side of the business. Deals were done more for politics than for
music. Amazing albums were ignored because they were released the same
week as Janet Jackson or something, and since the company was ignoring
them, they didnt sell that week. And since they didnt sell that week,
the
company decided they were a failure and forgot about them, although not
releasing them from their contract. Just terrible things, and old
terrible
habits in the traditional industry.
Yes I find it much more inspiring to ignore the industry and do things
the
way I feel they should be done - even if only on a small scale.
Can you mention 10 own favorites from the site?
Derek Sivers: There are to many to mention here but if you check out http://cdbaby.com/flavor
and http://cdbaby.com/picks - Those are my favorites. Hand-picked. :-)
Anything else you wanna tell the readers of MELODIC.NET about the best, in our opinion, independent CD shop in cyberspace?
Derek Sivers: Awwww.... thank you!
Were smaller than you think. Most of the 30 people work in the
warehouse,
so if you have any questions or just want to talk about music, call or
email! Ask our opinion. Tell us your favorites. Give us suggestions.
We
love it. |
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Did you know that?
OneRepublic broke records with their mega-hit "Apologize" when it was released, which became the most legally downloaded song in US digital history.
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