I often spend many a restless night lying in bed thinking about how best to market the album. I find it is the best time to do some thinking, probably mainly because it's the only time of the day I am not working, watching the TV, or posting on Choke/Facebook/Twitter (yes, I really am that sad). We've spoken to some independent record labels but, as sterling a job as these labels do, they want young 20 somethings prepared to jump in a van and promote the record for months on end on the toilet circuit. Given our love for nice hotels and plasma TVs and our advancing years (except for Adam who is still a youngster) this isn't really practical for us. What we want is something that generates some promotion and also gives a little back to the people that have supported us for the last five years (who are invariably the first people to buy any CDs we produce).
A few years ago I stumbled across a band (who I've completely forgotten the name of, but that's not really relevant) who were setting up a record label. To finance the record label they offered an opportunity to buy a share in the business. I liked the idea because it eliminate the middle men, who take around 98% of the revenue from most album sales and also gives fans some feelings of ownership of the fortunes of the band they're supporting. The shortfall of the idea was that it required significant investment, 100s if not 1,000s of pounds, which doesn't open the idea to the every day CD buyer. So I've borrowed (stolen) the best bits of their idea but amended it a bit for our purposes. We will, therefore, be selling shares in our forthcoming album!! You can literally own a part of FIRSTOFTHEGIANTS.
How it works?
There will be 100 shares available to purchase, each share will initially be on sale for £5. Each share must be purchased with an advance copy of the album at a preferential price of £5 (so £10 in total). We will own 100 shares each per band member so there will be 500 shares in existence. One person can purchase a maximum of 5 shares for £30 (this will only include one copy of the album though).
There will be 500 CDs manufactured initially (more if demand requires it) and the remaining 400 albums will be sold at £10, online and at future shows and for 79p a track on iTunes. Each share can be redeemed at any point (following the actual physical release of the album) either by selling it back to us or by trading it with other people. The share price will be affected by the number of sales following the initial 100 made to shareholders. So if we sell 200 albums in total (100 on top of the initial share and album sale), we will make 100 x £10 = £1,000. This revenue will increase the share price by £1,000 / 500 = £2 per share, so each share will be worth £7. The following spreadsheet illustrates how the share price will be affected by future sales:
Shareholder_example.xls
So if we sell 350 CDs in total, the share price will be £10 and all shareholders will make £5 on the initial share price, covering the cost of the CD! If we sell 1,000 copies of the album, the share price will be £23, giving a profit of £18 per share. If the album sells as many as Michael Jackson's Thriller (109 million copies) each share will be worth £2.18m. I'd go as far as saying that the album is better than Thriller, so who knows?
What does the shareholder get out of it?
Well the obvious answer is that each shareholder gets a preferential album price of £5 and will, hopefully, make that back also (so a free album!). However, in addition to this benefit, shareholders will be entitled to a number of other 'perks'
- Shareholder certificate
- 3 high quality MP3 of the currently recorded songs and limited edition artwork
- Their name on the finalised album artwork
- Free entry to the album launch show
- Regular sales updates via email (and text message if desired)
- First call on future share offers
- Overwhelming glow of helping out an independent record label and band
What do we get out of it?
Well, for a start, the revenue generated from pre-sale of 100 copies of the album and the shares will provide the funding we need to finish the recording and production of the album. We then hope that owning a share in the album will encourage people to recommend it to their friends (this obviously isn't a requirement of purchasing a share, you can just sit back and do nothing if that is your want). Hopefully, the process in itself will generate a bit of publicity too. If the exercise is successful we will follow the same process for the Christmas single and future releases. As already mentioned, the shareholders for the album will be the first to be offered the opportunity to purchase future shares.
So there you go. FIRSTOFTHEGIANTS are officially for sale!
Shares will be released for purchase on 1 June 2009 via Paypal. You can follow the progress of the album from recording to manufacturing (and general musings on the failings of Arsenal Football Club) on our twitter feed at:
If you would like further information and to register your interest or if you have any ideas or suggestions then please email us at:
itoldthemabouttheshares@firstofthegiants.co.uk
Thanks for listening.
Steve and the rest of FIRSTOFTHEGIANTS
