Thanks for the advice, everyone. Here's what my search has uncovered:
1. My Canon Pixma MP530 printer can already print to CD, once I buy the $25 CD tray.
2. Buying CDs and packaging online (Oasis, CDBaby, cdrom2go), a limited run of about 300 discs with packaging would cost from $1.60 per disc (slim jewel case w/ 2-panel insert) to $3.00 per disc (DigiPak).
3. At Oasis, for 300 units, audio CDs are the same price as CD-Rs
4. CDBaby takes $4 per CD that you sell, which doesn't include production/packaging
5. Amazon CD-R on Demand through Tunecore takes roughly $5 per CD sold, for which they provide duplication and packaging. But I have seen numerous postings about poor quality of both the packaging and the CD. To be fair, I think the posters were complaining about the poor quality of the packaging, and assuming poor quality of the disc because it is CD-R.
It can be tricky to figure out what you get for how much money at these sites, so anyone feel free to correct me if my info is wrong.
My music is solo piano ala George Winston, Liz Story, and there are only 8 songs on the disc, so my financial goal here is to break even! Funny though - Createspace's example of how much royalty the artist gets assumes a retail price of $25. I could probably get that for my CDs if each one came with a free gold nugget!
Gregory
On Oct 9, 2011, at 3:53 PM, Irfon-Kim Ahmad wrote:
> Note that you can get inkjet printable CDRs for the same price as shiny-surfaced ones, and an inkjet printer that can handle them is about a hundred bucks. The ink does add up and the process is time consuming, but the results look surprisingly great, so if you're going to burn in very low volume, I would recommend this over stick-on labels both for the reasons outlined below and because it looks a whole lot better.
>
> --
> Irfon-Kim Ahmad
> http://www.ramp-music.net
>
> On 2011-10-09, at 1:23 PM, Shawn Thorpe <shawnogordo@...> wrote:
>
>> Something I'd recommend to anyone burning their own discs - avoid affixing
>> your own labels to the CD's. I did this back in 2005 with my old band, and
>> none of those discs are playable now. I've heard that the adhesive backing
>> from the labels eventually eats through the finish of the CD's and destroys
>> them. I'm pretty sure that Discmakers actually offers pre-printed CD-R's,
>> which would cut down on the cost of production but still leave you with a
>> good-looking (and playing) product.
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 10:03 AM, Brian <brianmc7@...> wrote:
>>
>>> **
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> You might be making the mistake of thinking too big at this point. From a
>>> business perspective, if you can only see yourself selling less than a
>>> thousand CDs in the beginning, you're main focus at this point should be on
>>> promoting your music and determining how many units you can sell. Keep in
>>> mind that since most people these days aren't going to buy a CD off the
>>> internet from an unknown act, most or all of your CD sales will come by
>>> selling the CD yourself at gigs. If your music isn't published and licensed,
>>> that is a big concern, which will need to be addressed, because what you're
>>> really doing is setting up your own record company.
>>>
>>> It's cheaper to burn bulk CDRs yourself as needed, and have somebody else
>>> handle the printing. I wouldn't worry about a CDR not playing in some
>>> players. Although I've heard about this problem, I've never encountered it,
>>> which might be because I burn things in WAV. Of course, the end product
>>> won't be wrapped in cellophane, but I wouldn't worry about that either for
>>> the time being, because the higher profit margin burning it yourself could
>>> be used as a means to send the product out to a duplication facility if or
>>> when that need arises.
>>>
>>> --- In Logic_Cafe@yahoogroups.com, Gregory <glists@...> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> A bit OT here, but I figure someone on this list has released a CD or
>>> two, as I'm ready to do so with my music (written and recorded in Logic, so
>>> a smidge on-topic).
>>>>
>>>> First question - I know the differences between duplication and
>>> replication of CDs, but I am wondering what people's experience with
>>> duplicated CD's is like. I probably need only a short run, so replicated
>>> would be more expensive, but I certainly don't want to sell any
>>> unprofessional CDs that don't work in some players and the like. So is the
>>> quality of replicated CD's worth the higher cost I would be paying (probably
>>> double)?
>>>>
>>>> Also, I'm looking for distribution recommendations - specifically for
>>> actual CDs, rather than digital distribution. I will be doing digital as
>>> well, but do need at least one option for people to buy physical CDs. CD
>>> Baby appears to be the goto distributor, and I'm wondering if that is what
>>> people on this list would recommend.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Gregory
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -Shawn Thorpe
>> http://shawn.mx/
>> http://geminidragon.tv/
>>
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>>
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