Wondering if any folks have any experience with any of the vinyl crowdfund platforms: Qrates, Deepgrooves etc?
I did my album with Qrates and it was generally a good experience; I had to put a little cash in to get it over the line but I made that back selling direct to shops, with even a small profit
Problem is all these platforms seem to offer minimum 250 press which is hard to reach, at least that’s what I found.
It’s a shame there aren’t more plants offering 100/150 pressing deals, though I guess the numbers just dont stack up for them
I did the last release on my label through Q Rates, the guy i dealt with Takashi was really good always kept in touch and always available if i needed to check anything.
Looking at those figures you can press (and i have done it on 10/11 releases) cheaper than what those figures show the Q Rates one was a decent shout at the time as you got a 100 orders they give you 100 extra copies which then you can sell to places (i did Juno/HHV) which if they went through their central ordering systems wouldn’t be viable.
With Q rates if you make the 100 pre sale you can then choose to push it on further and then potentially repress at a cheaper rate but i suppose its supply and demand i was happy to shift the 200.
Yeah I saw the Bandcamp figures early on before they launched the service and they weren’t favourable. Lotta love for BC though. Doing my digital through them is a pleasure.
The sell to retailers option in Qrates is very good but, you cant set up enough units to make it worthwhile. Plus a lot of stores dont seem to use them