Are Christian Metal Cassettes’s CD’s and Vinyl getting too expensive?

not to mention the oft forgotten tax (theft) that doesn't
show up until just before you hit the Pay button...

I've noticed that bands are choosing to go all digital and not have CD's printed.
They say it costs a lot to print them because they would only print a small amount (say 500 - 2,000 copies) and there's no guarantee they will all sell.  

Plus if the band is overseas, postage and shipping logistics are another hurdle.  
I encountered these issues when I spoke with the management people from some bands.   
TOB would probably know a lot about this as well.

These and other reasons are likely why the price of the physical product has gone up recently when by all past predictions the prices should have been on a downward trend.

I have nothing Good to say about the inflated cost's that certain people have been putting on Cd's and Vinyl.. esp when the band can sell them cheaper with way cheaper postage.
but then there's the quality of the Postal service, they have gotten careless with packages, so your stuck paying for the high postage or extra Insurances, just so you get your Vinyl in the new condition your paying for. IDK about you guys?, but Im starting to feel like its all a scam, motivated by greed. I suppose they figure if we want our physical copies, we'll just buy some Vasoline and spend the money.

I doubt many Christian metal bands are selling 2K CDs unless they are Stryper or Demon Hunter.  I wonder if even Theocracy sell that many.

When I first started selling CDs of my band the European market was very lucrative but now with shipping prices it's very hard to get distros to carry you overseas.

Having said that, I think people expecting to pay between $1 and $10 for a brand new CD are really kidding themselves.  Even if you do almost everything at home and choose cheap artwork and the cheapest pressing that doesn't give the band much room to make anything to invest in more and better recordings.

Everything is getting more expensive these days.

Everything has gotten more expensive, for sure. And I can be a little bit curmudgeon (is it oxymoronic if I say I love that word?) and for sure can be cheap, and very rarely buy music at all anymore. But I'll say this:

When I first started buying cd's, around probably 1990, I seem to remember the basic going rate was $15. That basically remained stagnant for some time, until maybe right around when the digital boom started to take over and it seems like in direct defiance of general inflation (not 2022 inflation, but still!) cd prices came down dramatically, and pretty much anything could be ordered online for somewhere between $5-$12. Maybe some of the big label stuff was still $15, but it kind of felt like a lot, and for sure if a band was touring you could count on their cd being $10-$12 at the merch table. Many of us accumulated previously unthinkable collections! At $15/cd, I have somewhere close to $10000 "worth" of cd's, and I know many on here have many, many more -- and of course I paid plenty but nowhere near $10,000 for my collection. So now, when music is going up like everything has gone up, it feels terrible because for basically 3 decades it's beaten inflation and it still seems like $15 is the most a cd should cost, just like 1990. I don't know if it helps, or maybe I'm the only one who thinks this way, but really what's happened is that music's been CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP for a very long time.

I was thrilled to get the new Saint for $16 from the band.

I try to keep my costs down for customers. Currently I charge $10 for a CD, and my shipping is always free so there's no hit at the end. That being said, I am thinking about raising the costs, and if I come out with my third one, it will probably be the last physical offering that I will do.

I rarely see a new release or a popular album from a Christian band selling for a low price. It’s almost always $15 before tax and shipping.

TZ75 wrote:I rarely see a new release or a popular album from a Christian band selling for a low price. It’s almost always $15 before tax and shipping.

Yep.  Even in the used market.

deathisgain wrote:...and if I come out with my third one, it will probably be the last physical offering that I will do.

Unacceptable!

(And yes, it was I who "disliked" this post!  )

ditto 

Constantine wrote:

TZ75 wrote:I rarely see a new release or a popular album from a Christian band selling for a low price. It’s almost always $15 before tax and shipping.

Yep.  Even in the used market.

Would you say it’s “price gouging”? 

I’m all for a Christian band or business owner making a living… but not to the point of taking advantage of others.  

How much does it cost to make CDs (including the lyrics booklet)? I’m guessing a few bucks tops.

Kerrick wrote:

deathisgain wrote:...and if I come out with my third one, it will probably be the last physical offering that I will do.

Unacceptable!

(And yes, it was I who "disliked" this post!  )

I "disliked" it too. 
Completely unacceptable!!!!!  I'm willing to pay more to get a cd ($10 is too little IMHO).

I don't have a problem spending $15 for a brand new cd (seems like they have been around $15 since like the 90's).

What stinks is paying the special low introductory price of $13.99 for a cd and then getting charged $8-$10 for shipping.  I'd much rather pay $15 for the cd and $5 for shipping and not feel like I'm getting ripped off on inflated shipping fees.

Staybrite wrote:

Kerrick wrote:

deathisgain wrote:...and if I come out with my third one, it will probably be the last physical offering that I will do.

Unacceptable!

(And yes, it was I who "disliked" this post!  )

I "disliked" it too. 
Completely unacceptable!!!!!  I'm willing to pay more to get a cd ($10 is too little IMHO).

and a silver CD no less...   

TZ75 wrote:How much does it cost to make CDs (including the lyrics booklet)? I’m guessing a few bucks tops.

Prices per CD vary by how much you order. The smallest run you could probably do is 50@$3.81 (190.50) or 300@$2.49 ($747). If you went with a run of 50 you are roughly looking at a cost of $9-$10, with shipping, etc. That doesn't leave a lot of room. So let's say you sell 20 of those @ $15+$5 shipping. You broke even. And if you talk to musicians behind the scenes, they are not selling that much. I think a lot of people find this hard to believe, but it's true. And these costs aren't including all the work you have to do behind the scene to get people to even listen to your music. So alot of these guys get a hundred CDs ran, never recoup their money, and have boxes sitting in their garage and fans asking them when the next one is coming out.

deathisgain wrote:

TZ75 wrote:How much does it cost to make CDs (including the lyrics booklet)? I’m guessing a few bucks tops.

Prices per CD vary by how much you order. The smallest run you could probably do is 50@$3.81 (190.50) or 300@$2.49 ($747). If you went with a run of 50 you are roughly looking at a cost of $9-$10, with shipping, etc. That doesn't leave a lot of room. So let's say you sell 20 of those @ $15+$5 shipping. You broke even. And if you talk to musicians behind the scenes, they are not selling that much. I think a lot of people find this hard to believe, but it's true. And these costs aren't including all the work you have to do behind the scene to get people to even listen to your music. So alot of these guys get a hundred CDs ran, never recoup their money, and have boxes sitting in their garage and fans asking them when the next one is coming out.

It’s unfortunate. 

But I believe a quality product will sell if people hear it. The problem is the marketing.

deathisgain wrote:

TZ75 wrote:How much does it cost to make CDs (including the lyrics booklet)? I’m guessing a few bucks tops.

Prices per CD vary by how much you order. The smallest run you could probably do is 50@$3.81 (190.50) or 300@$2.49 ($747). If you went with a run of 50 you are roughly looking at a cost of $9-$10, with shipping, etc. That doesn't leave a lot of room. So let's say you sell 20 of those @ $15+$5 shipping. You broke even. And if you talk to musicians behind the scenes, they are not selling that much. I think a lot of people find this hard to believe, but it's true. And these costs aren't including all the work you have to do behind the scene to get people to even listen to your music. So alot of these guys get a hundred CDs ran, never recoup their money, and have boxes sitting in their garage and fans asking them when the next one is coming out.

That doesn't include costs for actually making the music!  You only included pressing CDs themselves.  Without the quality music, it's not worth pressing onto CD in the first place.

I think at a minimum you will most likely need to pay for pro artwork, mixing, and mastering.  And for most there are more costs than that.

The more you do yourself, the cheaper it is to create.  Sometimes that leads to lower quality though.

Most fans expect some degree of advertisement these days, usually lyric videos.

I will say that I have recouped my money on our first 2 CDs and have sold out of both runs of each, and will probably press more at some point in the future.  When we release this new one, we'll see how much the music landscape has changed and will adjust accordingly.

The problem is the marketing.

Nah.

The biggest probably is that 95% of metal music is available for FREE, so asking someone to pay anything for new metal music is an uphill battle.  Strip mining always sounds like a good idea in the short term, it's just when you have to deal with the consequences in the long term that people start to lament the situation.

This is one where I operate under the "it is what it is" mindset. The market dictates, and I will proceed accordingly. 

I've always had a $10/ plus shipping mindset, but as someone mentioned earlier; music may have been underpriced for years.

TZ75 wrote:

deathisgain wrote:

TZ75 wrote:How much does it cost to make CDs (including the lyrics booklet)? I’m guessing a few bucks tops.

Prices per CD vary by how much you order. The smallest run you could probably do is 50@$3.81 (190.50) or 300@$2.49 ($747). If you went with a run of 50 you are roughly looking at a cost of $9-$10, with shipping, etc. That doesn't leave a lot of room. So let's say you sell 20 of those @ $15+$5 shipping. You broke even. And if you talk to musicians behind the scenes, they are not selling that much. I think a lot of people find this hard to believe, but it's true. And these costs aren't including all the work you have to do behind the scene to get people to even listen to your music. So alot of these guys get a hundred CDs ran, never recoup their money, and have boxes sitting in their garage and fans asking them when the next one is coming out.

It’s unfortunate. 

But I believe a quality product will sell if people hear it. The problem is the marketing.

There is some truth to this. But then it becomes an issue of who does this. Having a label (should) help some, as they should do some marketing. Sadly not all labels do. If you don't have a label, then you have to do it yourself. This can be quite a chore. Having to post on a bunch of platforms, in a creative manor, that is not spammy, and may cost you extra money as well. Add to that mix, the almighty algorithm. From what I hear, there are lots of artist doing this, and it is like swimming against the current. Platforms give the better real estate to those paying. Cute videos of cats or hot chicks get more hits. After a while you get burnt out with trying. For a year or two I tried my darndest to get my music out there. Funny videos, lots of posts and I kept it interesting. I barely get any views. A girl wearing a low cut tank top playing Judas Priest's "Painkiller" for the umpteenth time gets over 1,000's of views. I get the most action on Instagram but no sales from there.

deathisgain wrote:

Cute videos of cats or hot chicks get more hits. 

I prefer cute videos of dogs, lol.

You're right about the competition for attention though.
Even in a group like the CMR, it can be hard to get people to pay attention to a band that is not well known. 
I like to promote the lesser-known but worthy bands, and while a few people will pay attention, the threads with the most activity by far will still always be about Stryper or Tourniquet.

Constantine wrote:

deathisgain wrote:

Cute videos of cats or hot chicks get more hits. 

I prefer cute videos of dogs, lol.

You're right about the competition for attention though.
Even in a group like the CMR, it can be hard to get people to pay attention to a band that is not well known. 
I like to promote the lesser-known but worthy bands, and while a few people will pay attention, the threads with the most activity by far will still always end up being Stryper or Tourniquet.

Agreed. Dogs>Cats

You and ToB have introduced me to a good number of cool bands thanks to the CMR.

Constantine wrote:

deathisgain wrote:

Cute videos of cats or hot chicks get more hits. 

I prefer cute videos of dogs, lol.

You're right about the competition for attention though.
Even in a group like the CMR, it can be hard to get people to pay attention to a band that is not well known. 
I like to promote the lesser-known but worthy bands, and while a few people will pay attention, the threads with the most activity by far will still always be about Stryper or Tourniquet.

And on the Facebook Christian Metal group it is all Demon Hunter, Theocracy, and Stryper.