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Thanks Al! These days I think companies like Bandcamp and Distrokid - https://www.distrokid.com/ https://www.distrokid.com/ - are doing it better than CD Baby.

by sivers 10y ago

Thanks Al! These days I think companies like Bandcamp and Distrokid - https://www.distrokid.com/ https://www.distrokid.com/ - are doing it better than CD Baby. This article made me beam with pride. I love that companies like Bandcamp are still thriving.

mratzloff 10y ago
I bought so many $5 CDs of unknown bands from CD Baby back in my college days when I had the time to just page through and sample hundreds of artists in whatever genre I was in the mood for at the time. (I was one of the weird college kids who paid for music in the era of Napster and Kazaa, even if it was only five bucks a pop.) I discovered a lot of bands that way. Thanks for helping to make that possible. (And yes, Bandcamp is great!)
- sivers 10y ago
  Thanks! God, that $5 sale was one of my best ideas. I should write about it some time. The $5 price didn't kick in until you had at least 3 CDs in your cart that were in that $5 sale. So it was a way of encouraging people, who came to just get one album, to browse around and get a few more. Albums were still priced at $15 or whatever, until you had at least 3 of this sale items, so it could take a $15 order for one CD and turn it into a $15 sale for 3 CDs. The customers were thrilled. The musicians who got discovered because of it were thrilled, because they opted-in to the sale. (They'd usually do it for their older albums that weren't selling anymore.) It was a huge win, almost doubled sales, and was one of those things I thought of on a Tuesday, programmed on Thursday, and launched on Friday. I miss those things. :-)
  - jedc 10y ago
    I'd LOVE to read a post about that!
teach 10y ago
It's funny you should post this. I literally bought an album from CD Baby yesterday: my first one since you'd moved on. It was a quite a different experience than I had remembered. On the other hand I have bought quite a few albums from Bandcamp and am I big fan. I do still have a wistful fondness for CD Baby. And they've kept their word; my little brother sent in a half dozen copies of his CD back in 2003 and it's still available for purchase!
- shoover 10y ago
  Same here. Bought one last week and downloaded one that I bought years ago and apparently never downloaded for some reason.

by sivers 10y ago

mratzloff 10y ago

I bought so many $5 CDs of unknown bands from CD Baby back in my college days when I had the time to just page through and sample hundreds of artists in whatever genre I was in the mood for at the time. (I was one of the weird college kids who paid for music in the era of Napster and Kazaa, even if it was only five bucks a pop.) I discovered a lot of bands that way. Thanks for helping to make that possible. (And yes, Bandcamp is great!)

sivers 10y ago
Thanks! God, that $5 sale was one of my best ideas. I should write about it some time. The $5 price didn't kick in until you had at least 3 CDs in your cart that were in that $5 sale. So it was a way of encouraging people, who came to just get one album, to browse around and get a few more. Albums were still priced at $15 or whatever, until you had at least 3 of this sale items, so it could take a $15 order for one CD and turn it into a $15 sale for 3 CDs. The customers were thrilled. The musicians who got discovered because of it were thrilled, because they opted-in to the sale. (They'd usually do it for their older albums that weren't selling anymore.) It was a huge win, almost doubled sales, and was one of those things I thought of on a Tuesday, programmed on Thursday, and launched on Friday. I miss those things. :-)
- jedc 10y ago
  I'd LOVE to read a post about that!

teach 10y ago

It's funny you should post this. I literally bought an album from CD Baby yesterday: my first one since you'd moved on. It was a quite a different experience than I had remembered. On the other hand I have bought quite a few albums from Bandcamp and am I big fan. I do still have a wistful fondness for CD Baby. And they've kept their word; my little brother sent in a half dozen copies of his CD back in 2003 and it's still available for purchase!

shoover 10y ago
Same here. Bought one last week and downloaded one that I bought years ago and apparently never downloaded for some reason.