Bandcamp: Gimme All Your Lovin’

I take a look at Bandcamp’s new crowd-sourced record pressing operation, and the implications of it and their business model on independent music.

In a 12 months behest with relentless negativity, one of the few  shining stars to emerge from the malaise that is Covid-19 is Bandcamp. Prior to 2020 the platform had already become the go-to for artists and labels looking to distribute their music directly to fans. But with the main revenue for many artists disappearing in 2020 – performing in front of people – it also became a financial life-line, spurred on by what became known as “Bandcamp Friday”, where the platform waves its hosting fee or in other words, its distribution cut. 

For digital delivery especially, Bandcamp is the industry leader in getting your music to your fans with the middle man nearly cut out. It can be a little bit trickier for selling records though. Postage rates continue to go up and up (and up) across the world and though many labels and artists do sell a certain amount via the platform, selling directly for many can’t compete with the economy of scale afforded to retail shops such as Juno. I know myself that, for example, when faced with shipping costs that are more than that of the actual record, I will go looking at shops to see if it can be purchased there instead. Yes, some labels do huge business on records via Bandcamp, but many of these are already at the top of the Hype Parade, or have a very dedicated fan-base looking to get those exclusive Bandcamp ltd editions and so on and so forth.

Bandcamp are more than aware of this, and they are also aware of the trials & tribulations that go into getting a record pressed and released. Recently – after beta testing – they announced their Bandcamp Vinyl project.
It is a crowdfunded / pre-order based project where they will look after the production of the record for you once you reach your financial goal.
It is done via pre-orders of the record and other modes of funding such as bundles and special offers.
One example offered by them was a signed test pressing of the record signed by the artist that you can sell for $100.

Cost breakdown
For the most basic package of a four track 12″ with a black disco sleeve and B&W label art, your target is that of 250 pre-orders (250 is the minimum amount you can get pressed up) at a final cost of just over €2500. This is the breakdown of those costs:

Pressing of Records: €1935 (12″ w/ x amount of tracks, b&w label art, black disco sleeve)

Bandcamp costs: €483 (19% – this includes shipping to fulfillment centres, the rest of this charge is the standard bandcamp cut)

Additional costs: €125 (this refers to mastering and design costs that you pay for separately, and you take care of yourself before starting the funding process –  so this will go up and down depending on how many tracks you are getting cut, how much a designer costs etc)

Total cost: €2568

Currently, using a reputable European pressing plant such as RAND Musik, the cost for producing a similar run of 250 records shipped to your door – and to that of your distributor – is roughly €1500. If you have a big following on Bandcamp and can sell 250 copies direct already, and you can afford to front the cost of a record, there is a lot more money to be made without using their service.

Doing the basic maths on the Bandcamp process, you can charge €11 per-record  (they suggest your minimum be €16, more appropriate for an LP rather than a four track EP), which will get the record direct, with no fuss involving you, to the “fulfillment centre” –  which are not in every country. This is where it becomes a little unstuck. I emailed Bandcamp to see if there were additional shipping costs for the customer, as it’s not entirely clear on their website. Turns out there are. The customer pays for the shipping from the fulfillment centre. This means we are looking again at shipping costs as they were before, and thus the process may or may not be cheaper than previous shipping costs:

Cheaper: if you are in Europe and the record would have had to be sent from America if pressed using traditional modes.

Expensive: If you know you have to pay international shipping from the fulfillment centre when traditionally you were buying it from your own country.

Your campaign
Bandcamp gives you one month to reach your goal. There are only a relatively small number of labels or artists who would be able to achieve the pre-order goals in the one month that is offered by the platform. A small dance music label is lucky to sell 250 copies of a release utilising all avenues available to them, and over the course of many months both before and after the record is released. Yes, there are labels and artists who have huge followings on Bandcamp, but a lot of smaller time folk will find that difficult.  So, if you want to fully avail of this, you’ve to really push all your fans towards Bandcamp…

As I mentioned before you don’t have to simply try and get 250 pre-orders. You can offer bundles, special offers etc (if any of these bundles include physical merch there is another shipping cost as you’ll have to send it separately from the record, which Bandcamp sends out).

If you cannot reach the funding goal you are then, in the final of the 4 weeks, offered  the chance to cover the rest of the cost of pressing out of your pocket. This is another area where the process becomes a bit unstuck. You aren’t just paying for the records but this charge will include Bandcamp’s cut, even though you may not actually sell these copies through Bandcamp (and if you do, after the campaign, they’ll incur the Bandcamp distro cut again. Hmm).  You can of course go back to your other standard avenues, selling directly to shops or selling through a distro. They have to take their cut as well, don’t forget, so it may be difficult to recoup that money that you paid Bandcamp to get your campaign over the top.

You may not be able to function as a regular label with a release schedule either – It may work once, but what if it bombs the second time? Is that release suddenly struck off your release schedule?

Who is the target market?
So why has Bandcamp set up this deal? As I noted, there are some artists & labels  who have huge followings, and will be able to rally their fans around it. If they are able to reach the goal successfully, it offers their fans a new product that they – the label – may have balked at self-financing, which is entirely understandable in this day and age. Or they may have simply never thought of it as part of their release plan (a record version of the release was never an intrinsic part of the process).  Especially artists who haven’t already crossed over into the bigger commercial world of selling physical media through the traditional channels. You can see it more as add on, a bonus product for a release you were already planning.

Another example: it could be a hugely sought after old record that you are doing a crowd funding for a high demand repress.   This is a model that will work for some people, but if you end up with left over stock, you may still find yourself out of pocket. I set my financial sights on offering a product at very good value in a time when records are increasingly expensive to buy. Some will be able to charge more of course (and may need to due to other production costs). But lets also look at the bigger Bandcamp picture here…

Is it from the good of their hearts that they want to help you, the little guy, get your music on record? It comes down to one word: Monopoly. And this is the kicker. Bandcamp, at the end of the day, is another modern tech company and they want your business, they want all your business, and they don’t want you going anywhere else to buy independent music. They want to be the sole distributor of both digital and now physical music media. Labels can also fall by the wayside as far as they are concerned. Just let every artist release themselves and if they want a physical record release, we’ll sort it for you. So cool. Monopolies of any sort are not remotely cool, even if it’s your friendly do-gooder chum, Bandcamp. What happens when your whole business of selling your music is through one platform? What if another tech giant decides they are going to eat them up? What if the whole business crashes (modern tech companies are not known for being particularly financially sound in real world economics). What are we left with if we’ve allowed Bandcamp to eradicate other modes of sales and distribution? The result is an unhealthy ecosystem built around one business that everyone has to rely on, and then the independence that is touted by Bandcamp as being the cornerstone of their business becomes a lot more conflicted.

Bandcamp is a brilliant platform that nearly every single one of us has benefited from and will continue to and should continue to. Just don’t let them fool you into thinking you shouldn’t want anyone else involved in selling your music.