I just want to explain my approach to the pricing of my new album ‘Parenthesis, I’ out on May 10th, pre-orderable now.
My album is available in the standard 3 formats, 12″ Cream Colour Vinyl with printed inner (£30), CD with printed inner sleeve (£15) and Digital (£15) so slightly on the higher side of normal prices.
My Reasons
It costs me more than 30K to record, mix/master, manufacture and publicise a record. This is not even a particularly extravagantly recorded album, this is with a keen eye on budget. If I sell every copy I’ve made immediately I’d just about break even. But each time I have to have a large chunk of capital to outlay because everyone gets paid before I do. Let me clarify, everyone else gets paid, I often don’t. I spend hours writing these songs, then 6/7+ looong days in the studio recording them, all that is without a day rate. You see, records in this bit of the industry are like audio business cards now, it’s tough to make much of a profit on them.
That’s all accepted and known by me but it might go some way to explaining why I’ve begun pricing them a little higher. I have to, to survive, I need to make more of that money back to spend on my next record or there will never be one.
The thing I have realised is that, in the part of the industry I inhabit, making my records cheap doesn’t sell more of them. No one grabs a copy of it while they’re at the till on a whim because it’s half price. Rather, my audience preorder them months in advance or queue up on release day or at the merch stand, they wait in solemn reverential silence while the record spins, as the needle glides closer to the first note. They dim the lights and listen in devotion to the tiny details of each word sung. They notice when I decide to deviate from grammatical perfection, they know when I choose to soften my sharp English T’s to make the word sit softer on a melody. The price is not the important part, they save up for these precious discs and I LOVE them for that. The industry machine treats artist’s output like it’s valueless, disposable & infinitely replaceable but my audience don’t. They are almost more serious about it than me! and that is VERY serious!!
So I have decided to price my albums like the rare and precious gems they are. If it’s not worth the extra money to you don’t buy it. There aren’t enough copies of it to go round, I could only afford to manufacture half the amount I normally sell! These are super heavy-weight, reassuringly expensive, collectors limited edition. If quantity is what you’re about then enjoy your ‘2 for 1 on thumping repetitive choruses elsewhere. It’s not what I’m for, I’m here to hold your hand on the long dark nights of the soul. I know what it feels like to be a flawed and fearful human being, how hard mortality is and I will make sad magic so vivd you can almost touch it.
Not bad for £30!
Jx
Josienne Clarke 