Physical Music Is BACK! Here's How to Start Selling This Week

About one third of people ages 16 to 27 bought a CD last Say what?

A CD, Ben. What? Can you believe it? Can't. Can't. Here's the kicker you're really not gonna believe. About About half of them don't own a CD player. Oh Oh my God, make it make sense, Henry. Why Why would someone buy a CD that they can't play? The The math is absolutely not mathing here. The The answer to that question you guys are gonna absolutely love, and we're gonna get into it. So

So the biggest reframe for you guys to immediately understand is that people aren't necessarily buying the music just to play the music. It's It's crazy, right? You're You're not just selling the music.

What are you talking about, Henry? When

When you sell a vinyl, you sell a CD, you sell a cassette, you're not just selling the music. They have the music.

Bro, it's on YouTube for free. It's on Spotify for free. It's in their pocket. It's literally on their phone in their pocket.

A click away. You're You're selling an object with your name on it, right? You're selling a piece of your world. You're selling them belonging, right? It's It's a way for a fan to belong to what's going on. The

The whole like build a community thing. Like Like this is that. This is a big part of that. There's other things. Go peep the other episodes about community building, but this this is one that like kind of goes like overlooked, to be honest.

It definitely does. You're letting people support you, you know, in a way outside of them listening to you. You're letting them hold something, something physical in a world that is so digital these days. Right?

Absolutely. I feel feel like we're all like going back to analog these There's a little resurgence. We want want to hold something, man. I like

like things.

I borderline. Don't even think my favorite artists exist sometimes because all I do is see them on a screen. Right? I I don't ever get to hold something that again, makes me feel part of the whole experience of being a fan, man. People People used to write letters to fan clubs and get letters back from their favorite artists. And And like, I remember I did that s*** s*** and like getting a letter from my favorite artists back in the day. Special. Special. Yeah. And don't make me say who the artist was.

Backstreet Boys?

NSYNC. I I was close. Let's Let's go. I F*** all y'all in the comments. I already know. So So going back to - Keep going. The I already know. So going back to - Keep going. The opening claim. So

So specifically, Luminate did a survey of 8,400 US music fans, age 16 to 27. 34% of them bought a CD in the past year.

Yeah.

Up from 22% in 2023. So So this is growing. This is real. And And 61% of those people said they did it because they wanted to own something tangible from an artist they love.

Absolutely. I mean, this goes back to the whole, you know, thing that we talk about, about like people want to support. And

And most artists aren't giving fans a way to do that. No.

No. And we know there's all these like psychological issues with selling, right? Like Like it is tough. is a little bit uncomfortable. You're You're not salespeople by default. But I I just heard, I literally, before we came out of this episode, having even talked to Henry about this, I saw a clip from Doja Cat's manager. He He basically posted something about like artists have to sell. Like that's what you're doing. doing. It's kind of your job. You are are in the job. So So like, I'm glad that we're talking about selling physical music right now because I think in the, in the age of free, everything like free music, free information, free, this, free, that. Selling, selling feels weird.

Yeah. But it is the job.

You got to do it. a professional artist. Exactly. It

It separates the hobbyists from the career artists.

Correct. And

And that's what we're here for. We're here for the career artists. You guys want to do this for real. So So yeah, we got to start selling. It reminded me of an episode we did with Curtiss King. We've done two with him. first one we did, he quoted, if your whole audience has never bought a vinyl in their life, you're not going to convince them to buy a record player. Right. So So he surveyed his email list and he had kind of asked people like, you know, do you guys actually have CD players? Do Do you guys have vinyl? And And he actually ended up selling them anyway. anyway. And the crazy part is a lot of them didn't, but they bought the shit anyway. So crazy part is a lot of them didn't, but they bought the shit anyway. So just further proof directly from our show.

And I mean, again, this is something that only us humans can do.

Yes.

Right. Like Like this is part of combating the whole AI music, AI artists, AI everything debacle, right. That we find ourselves in right now. It's very confusing. I I think again, physical music and like tangible goods being sold to your, you know, fan base is a way to differentiate yourself.

know that AI generated music is being uploaded at scale. There's There's not a lot of AI, you know, signed vinyl copy 30 out of a hundred, you know, with a nice

note. Don't give them any ideas, bro. They're reading our transcripts. Might come later. God God damn it.

It's true. But yeah, think about like tour posters you might've bought and never hung up or hoodies you bought at a show because you just were, you loved the moment, right. Of Of that, that experience was special and and you might not even have hung the poster up or you might not even wear the hoodie, but you did it to be a part of the world. So that that is the magic of the physical music format that we're talking about right now. Now

Now let's talk about like, again, we kind of said the statistics about, you know, um, vinyl, I guess earlier. Right. Let's Let's talk about just overall, give give me some of the breakdown of the numbers. Like Like just to make sure everyone fucking understands this shit is real. Like this is happening. People are buying this shit at scale right now. We're We're not just hype, like hypothetically talking about something that might not. Yeah. Like I wrote some numbers down. Give Give us the receipts, bro. Yeah.

Yeah. So physical music overall, 38.2 million albums in the first six months of this year. That's up. That's up about 8% from last year.

Wow.

And it's growing every year. Vinyl Vinyl has been up for about 19 years straight.

Really?

19 years straight.

Oh man. 2.4% this That's surprising, honestly. Yeah. straight. Oh man. 2.4% this year. That's surprising, honestly. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Well, most people know that like vinyl has been coming back for a 19 years straight.

19 years straight.

was kind of like a newer, you know, resurgence.

Overall, it's still the biggest of the three. I think there was a billion dollars spent on vinyl records last year.

That's a lot of doll hairs.

But CDs is the new player in town. It's

It's the fastest growing. Is that why you put a few CDs here on the set? I I thought it was a nice. That's cute. Touch. Yeah. Thanks for that.

Anyway, I just found a few. See,

See, Henry really fucks with y'all. He goes above and beyond. Do y'all give a fuck that there's CDs on the table? They probably don't. It's

It's fine. Like, comment, and subscribe. That's the best I got for

this. Like, comment, and subscribe. Nice

shirt for this episode. Appreciate it. I just zone out your shirts because they all basically basically look the same. Great.

Great. It's It's good to hear. It's good feedback. No, No, no. I like the uniform aspect.

CDs are up 16% in one year. 16%. They're They're the fastest growing. Most they've been selling in a decade. And the curve is still going up, y'all. Next Next year is on track to be even bigger. And cassettes, 25 year high. The The smallest out of the three, but still very real.

The cassette. Remember

Remember those?

Dude. Again, like, I'm shocked. Like, when you wanted to do this episode, I was shocked at the numbers. Yeah. But then I was like, when I saw the numbers, I was like, fuck. Kind of undeniable. got to talk to these guys about this. Especially

Especially in this digital world, man. Totally. Totally. Yeah. All three of them are up. It's not about one format beating the other. It's It's really more about deciding what it is that you want your fans to hold. It's It's funny. It's like, it's not really a technical question of do they own a CD player? Do they own a record player? It's It's getting creative and deciding what makes sense for my world. What do I want my fans to have? You You know?

Absolutely. And And again, I mean, I'm always a fan of just like trying shit out. Like, try vinyls with one release. Try cassettes with one. Try CDs. I don't know. And

And it's easier than ever to get started. So So let's get into the money behind this. CDs. I don't know. And it's easier than ever to get started. So let's get into the money behind this. Absolutely.

Because again, I'm hearing this being like, I don't know, man. I got to order. Sounds expensive. Yeah. Don't vinyls take like 18 months to arrive and you got to spend a fortune on it? Yeah. I

I don't know, man. It's very doable these days. Especially if you start with the CDs, which is what we'll get into all that. But But going back to that same Curtiss King episode, he brought up a company we hadn't heard of at the time called Kunaki. Yeah.

Yeah. We'll

We'll probably put that on the screen because it's probably hard to spell.

I'm looking at it and I don't know how to spell it. Yes. Yes. So

So they have a great setup. You guys can go on there right now. There's There's no minimum order. There's no setup fee, no mastering fee. Made Made in 24 hours and they ship the next day. We're We're talking about $2 for a CD in a jewel case, $1.50 in a jacket and 75 cents for the disc alone. I I just looked these numbers up today and and you get free shipping if you spend $400 and up, which is 200 CDs in jewel cases. And And if I think if you order a hundred discs, you're looking at about 250 bucks for a hundred CDs shipped out the next day.

And again, this is not a sponsored episode by Kunaki. They They should fucking pay for what you just sold me. I'm using Kunaki right now.

actually reached out to them.

Yeah. And they didn't, they said they don't work with, I don't think they work with anyone. I know. Which is kind of wild,

but we're going to talk about them anyway, because our goal here is to bring you guys the best value.

Exactly. But I I was like, damn, you just, that was such a good plug for them. Not ad read. Just wrote them an ad for free for sure.

No, they're great. Fuckers. And they'll drop ship directly to your customer. That's

That's the thing, man. Pretty

Pretty cool. You You don't have to hold any inventory. You don't have to route anything to customers. Customers, you put them up for sale. They buy them. them. They, Kunaki makes them and ships them out.

Totally. So, so let's start doing some of the math here, right? right? So So like, you know, you said 200 CDs for the $400 total. I I can sell a CD. What do you think? 200 CDs for the $400 total. I can sell a CD. What do you think? I mean, first of all, you should do pay what you want. Probably.

what you want is always great.

Let's use round numbers. Let's use like $10.

10 bucks. Right. And that's a bargain. Yeah.

Yeah. So if I get rid of 200 CDs at 10 bucks, even I'm making 2000 bucks in revenue, right? How

many streams on Spotify do you need to make that equivalent?

At least half a million, right? I

I think so. Yeah. It's

It's insane.

Yep.

So like the math, you know, we talked about, we joked earlier about the math, not mathing with people buying them and not having players. But in this sense, the math is. The math, math. Looking pretty mathy right now, be honest. Yeah.

Mathy. Yeah.

Yeah. I I don't know.

And shout out to Cam the Artisan, by the way, going going all the way back to one more time, podcast episode 86. Back Back when we were on the pool table, really just thugging it out, man.

I don't miss those days at all,

We've leveled up a bit. I

love my little comfy city here now. I like looking back at it though. It's nice. Oh, Oh, it's cringe. But like, that's how y'all feel about like your first song and first piece of content too. So whatever, it's fine.

Cam was way ahead of the curve. Cam did a hundred CD run. This This was three or four years ago. We had him on. He talked about doing a hundred CDs before this current like resurgence in the last year or two and sold all of them out.

Yeah. How

How awesome is that? Totally.

Totally. And I, I honestly didn't think that was a big part of that episode, but like, I'm so glad that you called it back out again. again. We're at episode what? 200 fucking 80, 80 something. something. Who knows? And so to call back something, you know, like over a hundred episodes ago, it's crazy that it's actually now something we're recommending everyone at least think about, man. Full Full circle. Yeah. I literally like laughed at that. I think in the episode probably. Right. Where Where it's like, okay, cool.

Yeah.

That's some like CDs out your trunk. Sure. Like, Like, I don't

We got to apologize.

I don't know if that's scalable Cam.

That's enough Cam after this episode. Yeah,

Yeah, for sure.

And then Curtiss in that same episode I referenced earlier

talked about Curtiss.

I know he comes back in lots of episodes.

good, man. He

He did $7,000 in direct to consumer physicals off of one project. I I think he did it off in Bandcamp. That's

That's beautiful.

Which is another great option. If you guys want to be more in the mix of, you know, actually doing the selling.

For sure.

You can set up a Bandcamp. You can set up a Bandzoogle, right? Is another good one. And then when you start doing more volume, we can talk about Shopify stores. Fourthwall is another one. They're They're great. But, you know, shit. Dropshipping just through Kunaki just to get started. And literally tonight you could do it.

Yeah. For me, man, it's like, look, $7,000 isn't going to like have you retire. It's It's not changing your life. But But again, we're trying to like get every revenue stream, every revenue stream that we can, man. Especially Especially again, like we talked about it. People People want to support their favorite artists. They They really do. And And so, yeah, I mean, we'll take seven bands every shit once a month just on physical. The The best. Let's fucking go. The

The best independents have multiple streams. This is a very real one. And I love it so much because not only can it make you money, but it can deepen your relationship with their fans. They have something in their house that they can look at and touch and hold. You know what I mean? That's That's pretty special.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, So, you know, you already talked about a few different places to be able to sell these physical, you know, this physical format. You You talked about Bandcamp. You talked about Bandzoogle. You talked about Shopify or Fourthwall. I I think there's one other option, The one that we did? The one that you did for us where I was like, no fucking way did he do this. This

This is OD. I I don't want to spend too much time on it, but this is when I was just getting hooked on building shit with AI. And in one day, I stood us up a shop that we haven't even talked about.

about. The

The onemoretime.fm slash shop, though, if if you want to go check it out. And in one day, I stood us up a shop that we haven't even talked about. The onemoretime.fm slash shop, though, if you want to go check it out. All in one day, like you guys can vibe code with AI.

This guy loves a good vibe code. Plugged

Plugged in a little Shopify headless store to our site. So it doesn't even look like Shopify is really there. mean, I think it's either Link or Stripe is plugged in. Created the shirts. Doesn't

Doesn't even know. Created the sticker packs. No, No, I design, you know, all the stuff myself for sure.

sure. But like start standing up the store. And this way, you know, you're in control of all your data. You know who's clicking what. It's definitely the more legit way to do it, but it's way more hands on. And And we'd prefer you guys pick whichever site, you know, it gets you started the fastest. I I think Kunaki drop ship is like literally you can be ready and selling something today. Yeah, Yeah, but like let's talk about the inventory thing. Right. Right. I think it's important to note, right? The

The drop shipping part of this. Convenient. It's It's super convenient. Right off the rip, knee jerk reaction makes the most sense in my head. head. But there's reasons. Why would I not do do that? I don't want to hold inventory. Why would I have something delivered to my house? I I got to fucking store it somewhere. But But like talk about. There's a very real reason. Like when should people consider it?

First of all, if you just don't really care that much and you want to start something, that's when you drop ship.

Do the drop shipping. If

you're not doing anything and you don't care about anything we're talking about right now, just do the drop shipping at least. Yeah. For the love of God. God. Absolutely. Put a link in your bio. Jesus.

Jesus. Anything. Jesus.

But real is the special way to do this for real. If you guys actually care is to hold some inventory. And the reason is you can customize it more. Okay.

Yeah. Doing

Doing things like signing the CDs and signing the vinyls, putting a little note on there.

Cute little note. All

All you need is a Sharpie, right? Numbering them. So doing numbered runs, right? One through 50, one through a hundred, right? right? This is almost turning these into collectibles, right? Shit. I got number 69 out of a hundred. You know, that's, that's something cool that a fan can say. Mine came with a special note. You know what I mean?

Absolutely.

That's what Curtiss does. Curtiss would order like 10 vinyls at a time and write, you know, special notes to people and hand sign them. And And people really appreciate that. that. And it takes 30 minutes of your time.

For sure. But I mean, the one caveat again, other than just the notion of like holding inventory, right? Mailing them. Is Is yeah. You got to mail them, right? So, So, or I'll get into another option there. But But if you are mailing them, like shipping costs are legit. Like, like they're real. They're real. And And you need to make sure. Until Amazon has the drone system worked out. Exactly. They'll go down. You You need to make sure you're factoring into your price that you're selling them for, how how much it is going to cost you to ship them.

You either need to charge, you know, around five more dollars per CD, which is around what it costs to ship a CD or charge shipping. Yes. Straight up. Correct.

Correct. So So I just want to like call that out, but but my favorite bonus tip for real. Okay.

Okay.

And something that I think, you know, Cam did a lot of when he sold those hundred, you know, CDs that you were referencing, um, um, hand deliver these motherfuckers, bro. If If you have fans in your city, some of y'all don't, that's totally fine. We're We're not of the mindset that you need to be blowing up locally in, in, in your local market, but shit, it helps from like an IRL perspective and like building a community, you know, in person. Right. And And getting able to like meet with them and link up with them and do different things in, in person is like way bigger than I think anything digital these days. Um, Um, hand deliver these motherfuckers, man. Drive Drive them to your favorite fans. fans. Man,

I ain't doing all that, bro. Why

Why not? I ain't doing all that.

Why, why? I gotta, I gotta spend gas money in my time to go. No, you're right. No, you're

you're absolutely right, bro. For For sure. was like, please. Most of y'all. No, no. That's an amazing bonus tip for sure. I love

love the bonus tips that we've been, this has become a thing is the bonus tip. Yeah.

Yeah. Most

Most of you guys, almost none of you guys listening are big enough where you're too good to hand deliver something to a fan. And like, just imagine if your favorite artists did that for you when they were coming up, like you're, you're going to be biggest fan for life. They're going to tell all their friends about it. Their friends are going to look into it. Totally. Cost a little bit of your time. Sure. But man, just yeah. Deliver it. Talk to him for 10, 15 minutes, film it and turn it into content. Hello. Hello. So

So many benefits delivered

delivered my biggest fan, the vinyl of my latest album. So

So many benefits. It's amazing. So So if you were to start with one physical format, yeah. Like what would be your, your recommendation?

Every artist wants to go straight to vinyl.

They will. It's sexy, bro. It's hot. Oh, Oh, that crackle. You can make the case. That crackle. Oh, Oh, it just, it feels artsy. It feels premium. Like, Ooh, I want that vinyl baby. Everyone

Everyone from an independent artist to a major label artist is busting down their publishing percentage points. Okay. Independent artists, they need to split the master points as well. Okay. Okay. My My master. Yes. Your precious masters. We stress on this podcast, collaborate, get creative with your business. It It gets a little confusing though, bro. Like Like when you're trying to manage, like who gets what? Oh, you got a group chat with a feature and a producer and a videographer all asking where their money are. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. You know, you got to bust out the iPhone calculator, but but our friends at DistroKid who are the sponsor of today's video, I've made it very easy with a split system that we have personally used, right? So So simple. Yeah. It's great. Set the splits one time when you upload the song and they pay everyone directly. No No confusion, no awkwardness, which is important because this is how like some of y'all's collaborators might not work with you again. If they are having to chase you down for money, the only requirement is a DistroKid account, which if you're not distributing through DistroKid, I hope that you have some incredible other distribution set up going because we're talking about 25 bucks a year for unlimited songs. That's That's 25 bucks a year. And

And if you want an even further discount from that, we can get you 30% off of your first year by going to one more time. Dot FM slash DistroKid. Plus your support in the podcast would mean a lot to us.

Again, again, one more time. Dot FM slash DistroKid, 30% off.

Let's get back into the episode. Realistically, if we're being honest, you guys should probably graduate. To vinyl. CDs are just, there's so many reasons to start with CDs. A is the price. It's not even close there. there. Like we said, $2 to get it in a case delivered out the door. I'm on a budget, bro. At At scale. Like you can get a ton of CDs tomorrow, like shipped to you tomorrow. The The vinyl, there's a little bit more messiness. It It is nice to get there, but you typically want to prove out that there's some demand a little bit, you know, and one way you can do that, by the way. Yeah. Call back to the KELS episode.

Okay. Yeah. KELS is a genius. What did she do? What did she do? You'll

You'll remember that she had a very smart strategy built out that she would pre-sell tickets to shows before she even booked the venue, right? So there's no risk of booking a venue and then having to cancel or, you know, potentially have a room with five people in it. You You can do the same thing with this stuff. You You pre-sell CD runs, vinyl runs and see what happens. There's no risk. You don't get enough. Oops. Sorry. Sorry. I'm not doing it. You know, maybe you even have a goal attached to it. Hey, I'm not going to press this album to vinyl, or I'm not going to make the CDs. If I don't hit X amount, you you might get people ordering multiple just because they want to get one. Right.

Totally. Make

Make it a thing. Make it like a movement. Have to talk about it on social media. Totally. Make it a thing. Make it like a movement. Have to talk about it on social media. So yeah. Pre-sell, there's zero risk, zero money down. All you're doing is making some content.

For sure. And, And, and I mean, you know, the CDs are quickest to make, I think. Right. Right. Yeah. Oh, they're just like, that's a great point. They're They're the fastest. So there's, so vinyl, there's a couple of different options I know that exists with vinyl. I've personally heard some horror stories with, you know, a couple of artists friends. They They made these like ridiculously dope vinyls. The, the, the, the case was so premium. Like the artwork is incredible. It It was bundled. All the things we're talking about. Right. Yes. Yes. Um, Um, but the shit got delayed. Yes.

Yes.

The like manufacturing line. It just like was backlogged. So on, you know, issue here, issue there, whatever the fucking excuses are that pop up from these, you know, companies that are, that are pressing these things. Um, screws up your whole rollout. Screwed up the whole rollout. They weren't ready in time. Um, Um, and it just, again, you know, people, some people are like more flexible and lenient and going to give you some grace. Right. Others aren't that nice. Might be pissed. And And I mean, you know, again, like, yeah, especially because like, I mean, they're spending their, their money. So we definitely don't want to have a poor, uh, poor customer experience. We We want to make sure that we are delivering on what we're selling. So even if we are going the pre-order route, we want to factor in like, and be very transparent on estimated lead times to get them their order. Because Because again, the last thing you want is people bitching and moaning that they didn't get their shit. I mean, I've just, again, physical music aside, like merch shipping. I've I've just heard, I see so many fans of artists complaining about not getting their order in time. And that, that just creates a bad taste in their mouth. And they have so many other options. They're going to be, they're not that like they're fickle, man. Like

Like they're really like, you know, flimsy when it comes to fans these days. flimsy when it comes to fans these days. They almost certainly did.

You mentioned the two types. flimsy when it comes to fans these days. They almost certainly did. You mentioned the two types. So there's pressed vinyl and there's lathe cut vinyl. And they almost certainly went with the pressed, which is the traditional version.

It's

It's the real factory process. So So they're cutting you like a stamper that they reuse over and over. Even Even setting that up is a cost. And it, and they're only going to take like very large minimum orders. And And it used to be like 18 months to get, to even get any made. Yeah. Yeah. That's down to like six to nine months, but still that's a long time. Right. And And we're talking about, you know, maybe a hundred vinyl minimums, 300 to 500 to get your cost down. And we're talking about very expensive. So like thousands of dollars for 300 records all in. So then you got to charge a lot more and it's tough. Lathe cut is a very nice way to get started with the vinyl world. It's It's completely different. There's There's the, each record is basically like cut individually. They They don't have a stamper. There's no setup cost. And And with this, you can order as few as one. And I'm, I'm sure this is what Curtiss did as well, because he talked about ordering like 10 at a time, you know, he ran out and he had to re-up 10 so he could sign them, get back into it. Uh, one to two week deliveries we're talking about there and lower costs.

We're talking about like maybe around 20 bucks would be your cost per unit. So, So, you know, if you just want to order 10 to 20 to take to your merch table at a show lathe cut for sure. Like Like most of you guys are not at pressed vinyl level yet. It's It's something to aspire to. I think it's very noble, but yeah, it can screw up a rollout and you got to do that very smartly. So So look into the difference between the two, probably start with lathe cut, but before you even talk about vinyl, seriously, look into the CDs. Like Like that is really the way. And And then the cassettes are very interesting, honestly, as well, but probably not for most of y'all. It's like a certain, it just needs to make sense with your world. Like I said, the, the actual format that you choose isn't as important of a decision as it is a create, it's a creative decision, not a technical decision.

decision. It's like, what makes sense? No one has the players anyways.

It doesn't matter.

They don't have the vinyl or the cassette or the CD player. What

would your average fan like to like, what do you think they would want to hold? What makes sense with you and your brand in your world? You know what I mean? Is Is it a CD? Is it a vinyl? Whatever. And And pick that one, you know, at the end of the day, but cause they're all the formats are up. They're all working. You know what I mean? So,

So, I mean, a lot of people are probably like, when should I do this? Right. I'm I'm brand new. I don't have many monthly listeners, so on and so forth. Like, Like, should I go down this road? And in my mind, look, there's differing opinions on this. There's There's a lot of people that say, start immediately. Doesn't matter how many people you have engaged, just do it. Even Even if you sell one, it's a win.

win. Yeah. I mean, especially with Kunaki drop ship, there's there's no upfront cost or lathe cut vinyls. You could order five. For

For sure. For sure. But But I'm kind of more of the mindset of maybe build a little bit more of a demand. Right. So So maybe like, you know, a thousand ish, super engaged people, or maybe like 500 super engaged people. Just Just like actively, consistently. Yeah. Like actively commenting, right. And you're, and you know, on the content, like actively listening. Replying to emails. Cause you guys have email lists, right? Exactly.

Exactly. You guys have been here on us about every episode.

You better have a fucking email list after all this.

goddamn list.

Yeah. And

And if you don't, go to onemoretime.fm slash tracker. We built you one to get started with some very smart formulas built into it.

Nice.

We got your back. It's It's absolutely free. Onemoretime.fm slash tracker. Perfect.

Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, for me, you know, I just think like there's so many other places to spend your time when you're like super early on.

Yeah.

That I just, again, when you're like super early on. Yeah. That I just, again, it's like a, you know, cost benefit analysis. I mean, I just, we talked about that in the Tim Weber episode, you know, cause Curtiss's team like start. Yeah.

Yeah. Tim was like, maybe build a little demand.

And I'm a little like, Tim kind of, Tim kind of cooked cooked with it in my mind, bro. I I was like, yeah, there's just a lot of things to be doing to build the demand.

But yeah, what if you ordered five and it cost you next to five vinyls. It didn't cost you that much. And you sold all five immediately. You'd probably want, maybe they'd be like, maybe I'll get 10 more. See what happens.

Yeah. Yeah. Again, you know, I mean, there's arguments for both, but I just wanted to kind of throw that out there. Cause I know a lot of y'all are probably thinking like, like, I don't know when I should start. Should I start now? Should I have already started? Whatever. Whatever. If

If you're not making any money, try everything.

Yeah. There's no right answer to all this shit. But But like my, I think having like a little small engaged fan base, right. Is Is at least kind of the prerequisite in my mind. But again, do whatever the fuck you want. What do we know? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No, we'll leave that up to y'all. So, So, um, next I want to get into like a couple of ways that you can make the thing kind of be worth more than the music, which, you know, it already is just by default because they're supporting you and that's great. But But there's some more practical tips as well.

Okay.

Some of these are stolen from K-pop. Cause I'm not going to lie. K-pop is driving a lot of these numbers that we talked about and everything being up,

up, but it's up everywhere. Exactly. The research show, cause I was concerned about that too. too. I was like, God damn, these, these K-pop fans are buying up all the goddamn physical format.

Same thing in the U S same thing global. They're They're just like, they're killing it. it. Yeah. They're winning.

crush and they

they crush K K-pop crushes. So

So

So they're kind of like where we want to be looking. So, So, um, bundles are excellent. So So bundling a CD with something else, um, like something exclusive, it gets you on average like four times more pre-orders and and again, pre-orders, like you don't even have to make this shit or commit to anything. For more pre-orders and again, pre-orders, like you don't even have to make this shit or commit to anything. For sure.

So like, so what are some ideas, right? Like Like what? Like Like signed lyric sheet, like a photo, a poster. Yeah. Sticker packs. Um, regular, regular kind of merch too.

I mean, maybe there's a t-shirt in there.

Clothes. Yeah, exactly.

other versions of the song, right? Like Like instrumentals, demos, stems of the song.

Unreleased shit.

Unreleased is great for sure. Put a little Polaroid in there. Special little something. You know what I mean? Maybe

Maybe some cameo type shit, like a voice, like a video message. Personalized, early access to events, listening party invites, like any kind of thing.

And then the K-pop people have also done the golden ticket, Willy Wonka fucking approach. What?

What?

And then you can, you advertise like, Hey, one out of this limited, 50, a hundred limited run has a golden ticket that has something crazy, right? Like Like I'll FaceTime you or I'll give you, you know, a backstage pass to my next show or something

turn in a little bit of a sweepstakes kind of deal. Right.

Lots of fun stuff.

K-pop is cooking. Oh,

Oh, they're doing great. And And a lot of this stuff is like, still comes back to scarcity, you know, which is a very common, like it's a business tactic that really works. Making Making something that feel like, you know, shit, like this is like part of this moment

and should act now. Yeah. Yeah. Like just the whole limited quantity, right? I mean, first of all, that controls the risk on your front, right? Especially Especially if you're actually buying them and having them shipped to you for then you to ship out to your customer. Um, Um, it lowers the risk. And And again, I mean, psychologically the shit works. I I mean, there's a reason why people do this, this, right? right? Like brands do this. Like it's not just artists, like streetwear brands, uh, fucking electronics brands. I I mean, all sorts of different companies in different industries use these types of scarcity tactics to push product. So y'all need to be thinking like fucking businesses. The phrase,

phrase, and it's seriously, it's winning now more than it's always done. Great. But like now more than ever is drop it. Don't stock it huge. huge.

So you could put one trademarked. I

I don't know.

One more time. Trademark. Let's

Let's find out.

Let's find out before this episode drops. We We should drop

drop it. Don't stock it, which is, which means you're doing a drop. You're doing a limited run. You You could do a 24 hour drop, you know, or maybe three 72 hour, maybe a week, but tie it to a moment, you know, a release or a show or something else. And then it's gone seriously. seriously. And then you could do multiple of them. The The sales on these is exponentially beating stocking a website with something permanently. Like Like sure. You can have a couple of staples maybe that are up forever, but these drops men are what's absolutely crushing it. Drop it. Don't stock it.

So absolutely. A few other things. I was going to say like outside of the bundling idea, even just like doing, you know, different versions of the one, you know, physical, right. Different colors.

about like a holographic version of a Pokemon card, you know,

exactly. Just Just like slightly different versions or whatever. I mean, this is just, again, maximizing like the chances that you have to push the product. Right. And And just kind of making it a cool little game.

Some of y'all might know about like splatter vinyl where they did like remixed covers of vinyls that are like tie dye adjacent. You You could do like a splatter special, like, or like a golden version or maybe literally do holographic. I don't know. Maybe I, maybe I just cooked with that. I mean,

mean, kind of shiny

shiny version. But

honestly, you know, one thing that I think you should absolutely be doing again, if you, you know, if you can support it early on, which I know you can, is if you are getting physical product that you're going to then ship out to your customer. I do think that like signing every single one at bare minimum.

So easy. It's

think that like signing every single one at bare minimum. So easy. It's the, it literally costs you a Sharpie and like 30 seconds extra. And it makes it so much. Five seconds extra.

much more special.

Yes.

Think about anything that you got signed from anyone that you love. Dude,

Dude, I got a signed Andruw Jones baseball. I'll I'll never forget it. He He was in a fucking like, I don't even know if it was an AT&T wireless store, just like an AT&T store back when you had to like go buy your house phone. I I don't even know. Cause it was back in the nineties. Yeah.

Yeah.

And literally I like ran into him in the store. I I had a baseball somehow. I don't know why. I literally stopped playing baseball like age nine. I I don't know why I had baseballs in the, in the truck, but but I literally went and got a baseball out of my dad's car, brought it inside. He He signed the thing and like easily one of my like core memories is like having that, you know, whole experience. And if it wasn't signed. Yeah. And again, like imagine how how much I would love that from my favorite artist. Yes.

Yes.

Like Andruw Jones again. Like, yeah, I mean, I'm in Atlanta. Talk about return on investment. How

How much does a Sharpie and 30 seconds of your time cost?

Not much. Unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah.

Last thing, uh, really want to get into some of the weirder, weirder niche novelty versions

versions of like physical outside of yeah. Vinyl CD and cassettes. Yep.

You guys are probably seeing some of these like NFC cards, right? Which are basically little, how do you describe an NFC card? They're They're like your phone taps it and then it pulls, it sends you to a place.

Yeah. It's just like a tiny little object. I I don't even know. know. It's got a little sensor

It's got a little sensor in it. And And I've seen some artists get really creative with what these look like. There's There's like these little miniature CD versions that you could put on, you put on, you hang on like a key chain, right? And And then anyone, anytime the person, you know, taps their phone up to it, it could take them to your music on Spotify, your music on Bandcamp SoundCloud, take them directly to a landing page anywhere you want. want. But it's got a little, it's kind of, it's almost like a QR code without the QR code. Right. it's got a little, it's kind of, it's almost like a QR code without the QR code. Right. Is that a way of describing it?

Honestly. Yeah. And And I, and these can be shaped like anything, like you said, you you know, just to bring up our guy, a Lil Breadstick. breadstick. I don't know if you guys watched that episode. If If you didn't, this makes no sense to you. You have a breadstick shaped NFC. a breadstick shaped NFC.

Throw those, throw one in a bundle and then people might want to put it on a key chain because they love Lil Breadstick.

not? And

And it doubles with, they can tap their phone to it and take them to maybe a secret website where they unlock some other special kind of access. Like, I just hope y'all's gears are turning as far as how creative you can get with this shit.

Yeah. Y'all are more creative than us. Than us. First of all. So like, come on, figure out a physical way to sell your music in like non-traditional ways. Cause Cause I think again, like the vinyl, you know, CD and cassette options are great. They're They're proven, but like, if you want to take it, if you want to, if you want to extra credit, you know, if you want to be an overachiever, go fucking think of some other cool way to do this. Make

Make something physical that your fans can hold. Like there's no reason you shouldn't have some, a physical offering in the next two weeks after listening to this episode. So some other stuff like printed USB cards, they're like credit card shapes. You You can keep it in your wallet has like your cover art on the front. Um, Um, throw a few of these on your merch table at a show. Really cool. Really unique. People People are like, what is this? And then you tell them, oh, that's very cool. I'll I'll buy that. Once Once you accept that, you know, the object is the product choosing the format stops being technical and it becomes a creative decision. That's That's like a through line, man. Yeah. Fuck the actual format. Physical is up. Physical is here. Figure Figure out your version of it and offer it.

Absolutely. I I mean, how fun is a Spotify link? I mean, mean, not fun at all. It's so like hit the snooze fest. Come on. Just give me something, me one. Just Just tell them how depressing that is.

Let us know in the comments what you want to offer to your fans. fans. Hopefully, hopefully like you've already come up with some ideas listening to this. And And yeah, I guess that's all I got for now. now. Ben, you got anything you want to add?

Somebody out there wants to buy your album.

Yeah. Like

Like they want to support you and and there's probably nothing to buy at the moment. So So hopefully this episode has you running to think about doing some sort of physical release for your next job.

And go to one more time to FM slash shop to get some of our physical stuff, even though because we haven't pushed any of it or tried at all. all. I just vibe-coded the site because it was fun.

And on that note, we'll see you guys next time.

Peace.