D.I.Y.

Nick Mango On The Fine Art of Indie Vinyl Releases

image from www.google.com Vinyl enthusiast Nick Mango recently shared some insights on releasing albums on vinyl including issues with preorders, the relationship between vinyl and digital releases and increasing the collectability of test presses. Given the fact that vinyl has returned as a specialty item, it's definitely worth considering putting out such a release if you've built a strong enough following that both fans and collectors would be interested.

Nick Mango is a vinyl collector and entrepreneur as well as the cofounder of "online store platform" Limited Pressing. He shared his thoughts about vinyl releases on his personal blog in a three part series.

Part 1 focuses on Presales with Mango digging into the reasons he feels small labels seek preorders of vinyl releases, primarily to ensure sales and/or to get money upfront to fund the releases. But he also points out that multiple problems may arise forcing a small label to push back the release date from preorders moving slowly to problems with the manufacturer. And, as more small labels without seed money or sufficient volume to impress manufacturers put out releases and encounter problems, this can sabotage collectors' willingness to preorder.

Mango also considers The Digital Release in Part 2 noting that collectors may not really want to play the album on vinyl but advocating against bundling the two together. Instead he advocates using the digital release to market the vinyl release and offers a couple of ways to approach that process.

In Part 3, Mango addresses the issue of Test Presses with pointers on increasing their collectability, from strictly limiting the amount to stamping and numbering them, and advocates for selling those as well.

Mango claims he's going to eventually discuss Kickstarter but, instead of waiting, I'll plan on using his thoughts as part of a post I'm planning on marketing with Kickstarter.

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. He is currently relaunching Flux Research to pursue his long-standing obsession with web business models. To suggest music services and related topics for review at Hypebot, please contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

Guest Post on 08/26/2011 in D.I.Y. | Permalink | Comments (8)
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8 Comments

  1. It’s possibly that I’m just completely behind the curve or thick as bricks, but I reaaly don’t get Mango’s website/business. I saw a lot of info about digital and barely any about vinyl. Does he press vinyl or only sell vinyl? Does his website get a lot of traffic for some reason because I have never heard of it and it looked rather boring and tame if you ask me. I’m a bit perplexed by this whole thing. Besides, if a band or artist is interested in pressing vinyl, wouldn’t their label just back them up with advice and/or revenue? Having a large or string fan base seems to be something most DIY/indie musicians don’t have and therefore wouldn’t be worth them investing in vinyl.
    Honestly, if this website is going to dole out advice to it’s readers it should be catering to DIY musicians who are not on a label because that’s primarilly what their readers are made up of. Giving info that only musicians who already have labels is a waste of time because those musicians already have a support system in place to help nurture their work and careers.
    Free album download at http://www.facebook.com/chancius

  3. The Word From the Street!
    That’s actually damn good from a mobile device.
    I have to be honest with you, I’ve found it’s better to learn as much as you can about whatever you’re doing so you know what’s up when the opportunity comes along.
    And topics like the marketing power of Rolling Stone’s cover, which is unlikely to be actually relevant to any of our readership based on your analysis, got all sorts of discussion.
    So I think our readership is both broader and more willing to learn new things than do you.
    Besides, if you just depend on your label to do the right thing without understanding what they’re doing and why, then you stand a good chance of ending up wondering why you got f*cked.

  5. Chancius, it is rather confusing cause I do a lot of things and Clyde has linked to a lot of them. The blog posts that he’s linked to are from my personal blog. I’m a collector of vinyl, and have been involved in vinyl for more than 15 years. I’m not sure exactly what site you’re saying is boring and lame, but I assume it’s the blog. Yes it is boring hahah, but it’s just a blog for me to vent my ideas and thoughts. The question is what do I really do, and that’s linked in other places in this post. I own an online store platform (http://LimitedPressing.com) that’s popular with small independent labels involved in punk, hardcore, indie and metal. But in general, people who sell unique products like Vinyl, Toys, Art, etc, use it. Hence the name Limited Pressing. I also own a vinyl packaging company called Solid MFG (http://getsolidmfg.com) and a vinyl trading platform called The Old LP (http://theoldlp.com) which currently has over 190,000 items in collections. I don’t think you’re behind the curve at all, I just think we’re a niche industry and this is why you haven’t heard of any of my companies.
    And on a side note, the labels I’m giving advice to are extremely small one person, in the red or break even, hobby operations.
    Hope that explains it. Thanks!
    Nick

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