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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: How much it costs to get a CD pressed
Message-ID: <erkyrathDvLME3.IxJ@netcom.com>
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Date: Sun, 4 Aug 1996 05:39:39 GMT
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Nulldogma (nulldogma@aol.com) wrote:
> > So if one orders 250 CDs, that's $1000. Selling them for $15, one needs 
> > to sell 66 to break even. Well, say 75 once shipping costs are figured 
> > in. Counting a small ad in Games magazine, and other costs I'm ignoring,

> > 100. The other 150 disks are profit. If they sell.
> >
> > This is not, on the whole, implausible. 

> The main hurdle, it seems, is capital -- someone, or some combination of
> people, has to come up with $1000, without any certainty that they're
> going to get it all back. Hardly insurmountable, but something we need to
> think about.
>
> Also, who would handle the actual distribution? (I'm assuming Andrew's not
> volunteering... :) )

Ya wanna bet? This is really a different thing than selling So Far 
floppies. For one thing, there is profit involved. (Please don't ask why 
I'm willing to take a share of a for-profit CD of freeware, but not sell 
a freeware game for profit. I do not at this time have a complete theory 
of ethics. :-)

And I do have a few thousand dollars floating around that I could stand 
to invest. Seriously. 

Whizzard's comments are *real* relevant. I have no experience with doing 
things carefully. I handle shareware uncarefully. Every year, I write on 
a piece of paper: "I also made $N in private software sales." I put this 
paper in with my regular tax forms, add $N to my salary on the line where 
you write your salary, and pretend it was all out-of-state sales. (Which 
isn't too bad, because $N/50 is a pretty small number.) As yet, I'm not 
in jail, but this isn't an approach I recommend to anyone else.

--Z

-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
