Selling CDs Onstage Gets Easier in a Recession

If you are a musician you know that selling CDs at your gigs is a major source of income. I've read many tips on how best to do this. Ideally, you have someone manning a merchandise table with all your wares on display, and this person is honest, helpful and great at closing the deal. Even better, you have several people who are circulating in the crowd with mailing list sign-ups and baskets of CDs for sale.

OK. So you don't have any of that, or even more for sale than a CD or two.

Then you and I are on the same page. On many gigs it's up to me to sell my CDs. I can tell you from experience: As much as we might wish they did, CDs will not sell themselves. You must tell the audience in witty or blunt terms that these are available for purchase. Now, I am not fond of doing this. And I have a few flaws in my approach. For instance, depending on how full my tank of self-esteem is, I may feel I have to justify a sale to a potential customer. Sometimes, I worry they won't like my CDs, and I try to ask them up front what types of music they prefer. These are concerns a car salesman does not share when he's trying to get you to buy a Hummer (not that my CDs are the musical equivalent of a Hummer).

Well, this weekend changed all that.

I had a gig with the funk band I perform with out of San Jose. Now, the music I sing with them is completely different from the latin jazz, Brazilian and originals on my two CDs. But for the first time, prompted by the desire to make a bit more money on the gig, I brought my CD display cases and asked the band leader if he minded my selling them. "You do what you gotta do," he said -- his standard response. However, as is often the case, during the first set I forgot to say anything, and then when I remembered, it didn't seem like the right time to say anything.

At the first break, he said, "Hey, you haven't mentioned your CDs being for sale." I shook my head: "I know, it's hard for me sometimes. But I know they won't sell themselves." On the second set, the sweetheart bandleader made an announcement about my CDs.* That's all it took. At the next break and after the show, I sold enough to make a good night's work great. And as the various audience members were buying, I buried that concern bubbling up inside: "What if they don't like it? It's not funk or latin pop." Another, louder internal voice was arguing back: "Maybe their minds will be opened to new sounds. How many pop albums have people bought that they didn't like? You need the money."

This recession is causing profound changes everywhere. But they're not all bad. When selling your art becomes a need rather than a want, you lose the self-consciousness and the worries about judgment. I admit that the title of this post is a bit misleading. I mean it gets easier to do the selling -- but there's no guarantee these days that the audience will do the buying. However, you know your chances of them taking a piece of you home with them is that much greater than if you hadn't said anything because you felt too awkward about it.

*That's another tip: Ideally, someone other than the artist announces the CD sales from the stage or over the PA.