So, regular readers will know all about Sellaband, the concept is simple. You have your unsigned bands who are desperate to get record deals or just get CDs out into the hands of the public because they are all convinced that their sound is the next big thing, if only they had the money to get an album out. On the other side you have music fans who when they like a band can become scarily obsessive – think Mel from Flight of the Conchords!
Bring the two together and you have what they call a win-win scenario, everyone’s happy. Your believers put in a small amount, $10, to buy a part in the bands album, each album is made up of 5,000 parts/$50,000. Your $10 entitles you to
- 1/5000 of the profits from the sale of CDs and downloads and;
- 1 Limited Edition CD (5,000 produced) which you can keep or put up for sale. The Limited Edition CDs sell for $15 and of which you get $11 if it is one of your CDs.
$10 is small enough for every fan to afford even one part and you are guaranteed a limited edition CD at the end of it. For those with deeper pockets they can make a profit by buying multiple parts in an act. For example to invest in 100 parts = $1,000 = 100 CDs = $1,100 if sold + 1/50 profits.
I could have saved myself a lot of typing and just put a link to the Sellaband site but where would the fun be in that? I bought a few parts in some acts that I liked and then a lot of parts in an act I really liked but I’ve more or less decided I’m not going to make my fortune as a record producer, not least because the London based band I had originally invested in suddenly became a New York based band after the lead singer was deported after being caught working without a visa! Drumming up sales at gigs was my main idea for trying to generate interest and sales but it doesn’t appear to be feasible right now.
The dilemma I’m faced with now is the fact that I have a box of 50 CDs to shift after I fell out with Sellaband. They upgraded their website only to find it didn’t work and they were unable to revert to a backup. This left their on-line store closed since around mid-June I think so I emailed them and asked them to send me my unsold CDs as I’d be quicker selling them myself. The CDs duly arrived today.
SO…I’ll be adding a Record Shack to the site over the next week or two where you can buy the Limited Edition CDs for Lunic featuring Kaitee Page, Julia Marcell and t-ka all for only £10 each, which will include UK postage. As the end of the year is approaching I may consider running a small competition to win some CDs – stay tuned!
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