A different way to sell your songs

2008-03-31 08:29:00

I have been fooling with distributing the band's music on USB flash drives. The problem has been the cost. I bought 30 assorted flash drives from a site called SurplusComputers.com. I've had great luck with this. The 256 meg flash drives cost $29.99 for a ten pack with free shipping. This is $3 each. I've been bringing 9 or 10 to each gig and selling out. I think I could charge $10 each. I can crowd 8 songs onto each drive, but I am experimenting with using a higher compression rate for the files to fit 12 songs. It's either that or have shorter solos in each song.

The fans love it. They just plug them into their computer, and either import them into iTunes or just play them off the flash drive. They can copy the files off and use the drive for other things.

This is the wave of the future people! It is a little more expensive than burning CDs, but takes less time. There is no cover art to fool with and they sell to a different group of people than the CD crowd. Techy fans who would not consider the CD are drawn to the flash drive, seeing that it has value over and above the songs on it.