off you go kids

Been mailing out a stack of CDs like this every afternoon since Monday ... what is it with Australians?! The guy at the Post Office just rips off a page of HK$60 dollar air mail stamps when I walk thru the door ... "Yeah, 18 more going down under. And one for Germany today! Why not..."

Looking at the piles, I need more promo in the 'states! Tried to arrange publicity with what seemed like a pretty clued-up and tech savvy firm based in L.A. but they are totally unable to deal with the concept of a mail order only / digital release. FedEx 500 promo copies? Insane figure considering my potential end sales but hell, why not ... That'll only cost me like US$400 in shipping. Have you heard of a promo FTP by the way? FT...? Never mind. And you want me to drop US$250 on a biography?! To be written by someone who knows absolutely nothing about me? Are you on crack. And, er no, like I said earlier this will not be in the shops anytime soon ... it's mail ord... oh you know what, screw this. You're setting me up to spend a small fortune and we've not even discussed your fees yet.

No wonder the music industry is in a mess. I'll sell 10 times less copies doing this on my own (estimating here), but I'll be in direct contact with everyone who bought a copy and be able recoup manufacturing costs much more reliably (no waiting around for that magical if-when day to get paid by distributors ... my old distribution company would take about 6 months to send out wrongly calculated cheques).

The more I get into this, the more I'm happy letting the album run it's course on it's own: To quote a friend in a recent IM conversation "This is a weird little cottage industry we've gotten ourselves into."

Yu Lien, yours went out before this shot was taken btw – & request granted!