One of the writers’ groups I subscribe to got a solicitation recently from someone looking for investors for his album. Difficult to tell whether it was spam or not—the fellow has yet to respond to any messages, and he did get a lot of caustic comments about “selling sand to the Sahara” (since a lot of those writers are working on albums of their own). Still, it’s an idea worth exploring—not for his album, of course, but for mine.

Investing per se, where people contribute money toward the project in exchange for a return on their investment later, is definitely doable; in fact, the returns on a project like mine are pretty good, because I am pretty ruthless about keeping costs low. Recording, mixing and mastering the “Santa’s Fallen” CD were under $500, and the CDs themselves—in “short runs,” always—come to $2 each, with labels and cases (if I ordered 1,000, I could get them for $1 each). The CDs sell for $10 apiece—and y’know, that’s not a bad investment. Of course, we wouldn’t be talking a big return, because it wouldn’t be a big investment to begin with—but the percentages are good. Potentially.

The paperwork would be a little complicated, but nothing a computer couldn’t handle. I would rope the band in, too, and count them as equal-share investors, contributing their time rather than money. It’d be necessary to carefully spec out costs (including an allowance for marketing), and tell the investors all costs would be paid first, and then at a specific point, we would begin parceling out the profits. Organizationally, it’d be a little corporation (with the additional costs involved in setting up a corporation).

Another way to go—and I see some bigger bands doing this already—is to pre-sell the album. One can either pre-sell it at a discount, or toss in free merchandise (posters, T-shirts, &c.) to those who pre-buy. The pre-buyers also get the album before it hits the stores (which would matter not at all in my case). This is also doable. Let’s say that costs to produce 1,000 copies of the album were $2,000 (I bet I could do it for well under $2,000). If 200 people fronted $10 apiece, in expectation of getting an album delivered as soon as it came out, that’d cover production costs—and I’d still have 800 more CDs that could be sold at mostly pure profit.

In both cases, I find myself saying, “Yes, but I don’t want to do this just yet.” Why not? I think it’s because of a lack of confidence in myself. I am not sure I could pull it off. The same thing that makes me question why anyone would want to buy an album of mine (and I certainly don’t have a great track record at that) makes me question why anyone in their right mind would want to invest in one. Those strains of thinking need to be summarily dismissed. If I didn’t have confidence in what I do, I’d never be standing on stage doing it.

Yes, the way it used to work, a record company would do this stuff; they’d arrange for the recording, do the production and marketing, even book the promotional tours—and, be it noted, would reap rather large profits even with their grossly inflated expenses. The landscape (as I keep pointing out) has changed. The writer must do all these things himself. It’s still a very good deal for the investor—better, in fact, than the Big Boys can offer, because the little guy knows how to save money and the Big Boys never had to learn.

As Shakespeare would say, “I’ll think on’t”—and see if I can convince myself it’s a good idea.

Good crowd—both audience and musicians—at the Garibaldi Pub’s Wednesday afternoon acoustic jam. And I did get to talk to Roland, and he is interested in performing as a duo. Music Friday and Saturday this week, too.

Joe