HOW TO… BECOME A PART OF DBH DISTRIBUTION?
Send an email to alex (at) dbh-music (dot) com in order to receive a standard distribution agreement to look through and let us knowing your questions in detail. Once everything is checked and you have provided the required data, you will receive a copy to sign and after returning of the signed agreement your internal account will be created. Now we are ready to schedule and sell your vinyls and digital releases.
HOW TO… ORGANIZE VINYL PRESSING?
The standard case is the delivery of your vinyl release on your behalf to our adress. We need vinyl to be on stock at our warehouse one week before the release-week. Normally we release DBH-exclusives on wednesdays, this means:
Example: Release-date is wednesday, jan. 15th means vinyls have to be on stock on wednesday 8th
As this is the latest date when your salescopies have to be on stock we recommend to have them available even a bit earlier as sometimes export customers receive shippings one week in advance to have the record available in stores for the official release-date.
HOW TO… HAVE VINYLPRESSING HANDLED BY DBH?
In case your are looking for a manufacturing-service you can consult wjh (at) dbh-music (dot) com to receive an offer for vinyl-pressing, however please note that we do not offer traditional so called p&d deals! We can provide a manufacturing service starting even with mastering and cutting of the record, however this will lead to normal invoicing from DBH to you / your company and a payment-in-advance term, means records will only be manufactured after the payment for the complete catalogue number is done. This is related to experiences in the past, so please don´t get it wrong.
HOW TO… DOES THE VINYL SALES-PROCESS LOOK LIKE?
The sales-process of your vinyl can be separated into the following steps:
1. Arranging a release-date
Releasedates have to be fixed with Robert via robert (at) dbh-music (dot) com or by phone. As the sales-manager Robert can give you a little insight what he considers to be the best date for releasing your vinyl.
2. Providing release-details
In order to do a proper presale the first thing to do is to get your release listed on our database so that customers can check it out, listen to it and place orders. For this purpose we will need the following
information exactly the way as described:
- Full artist-, release- and remixer-name(s)
- Cover or centerlabelartwork in exactly 1600 x 1600 pixels as jpg in RGB-colormode
- MP3-snippets of around 1,5 min length on low quality (128 kbit is enough – no full length wavs etc.!!!)
- Available presstexts and / or dj-feedbacks.
These information need to be available on our database min. 4 weeks before your desired release-date agreed. Please send a zipped file as download-link including all mentioned components and named with the cataloguenumber and agreed release-date to info (at) dbh-music (dot) com
Example: 2014-01-15-xyz039.zip
3. Presale-period
Once the release is listed the presale-period of around 3-4 weeks can start and we will collect orders for your release. In case you have some whitelabels available for being sent out to important customers, please send around 15-25 copies and we will get them spread which will help the presale-process without any doubt.
4. Finished copy order
As you may have realized already we recommend that you have already started your manufacturing process which normally includes a minimum order required by the pressing plant. Please check back with us around two weeks before the planned release-date about the status of the presale and what estimation we can give you in terms of quantity. Please only deliver the quantity of vinyls to our warehouse as agreed in order to avoid overstocks and expensive returns to your adress in case the stock is not sold completely. Please also check with your pressing plant that vinyl will be on stock at our warehouse on time as mentioned above (one week before the desired and agreed releasedate).
5. Release
Finally release-date has come and we are good to go.
HOW TO… DOES THE DIGITAL SALES-PROCESS LOOK LIKE?
Digital releases are an integral part of your commercial success, even if you consider yourself as a vinyl-focussed label. Therefore we offer a full digital service to our labels, starting from bringing your music to all the important downloadstores as well as tracking streaming and monetizing. We also offer a free dj-pool for promoting your releases with 100+ important DJ`s and activists.
Considering that the main work of running and distributing a label is the real, physical work with your vinyl-reocrds, we aim at having digital on board as well. Not only because your standing as a label benefits most from being released on vinyl, but also because of the fact, that digital distribution actually only means providing a platform to deliver your digital content to the stores we all know. We`d like to speak open to you: we can`t see any reason, why another distributor, mainly providing a techical platform only, should benefit from all the work we do with pushing your label reputation to the next level by bringing your records to stores around the world.
HOW TO… HANDLE DIGITAL RELEASES?
Just as all the common digital distributors we also provide a 24/7 database on which you can upload, manage and track your vinyl releases. Though we are happy to assist in case it`s wanted or needed, you can handle everything on your own from setting a releasedate, uploading your artwork and wav-files to sending out digital promos and finally analyze sales with our modular and exportable sales reporting.
In case you need assistance on generating ISRC or EAN codes, we can help out as well, but only in case your releases are distributed digitally by DBH.
HOW TO… SEE WHAT HAS BEEN SOLD?
Vinyl sales stateemnts are issued around the 10th of each month for the past month and are available online via your personal account on our website. Digital sales statements might take longer, sometimes up to 6-8 weeks, as we have to wait for full reporting from all digital stores.
These statement are not a creditnote, it`s just an overview on what has been sold during the previous month, separated by catalogue-number and stating quantity, single price and total turnover. Invoicing these statements is the next step.
HOW TO… GET MONEY FOR THE SALES?
You need to send an invoice on the amount mentioned on the sales-statement, mentioning the period of invoicing as well as (of course) the legal requirements for invoices like your full adress as issuing party of the invoice, our full adress as receipient of the invoice, your tax-number, the invoice-date, the exact amount as listed on the statement, your bank- or paypal-details and your signature. Please note that you are not allowed to invoice VAT on this case! Please send the invoice to alex (at) dbh-music (dot) com or our postal adress. It will be checked and forwarded for being accounted.
HOW TO… SEE HOW MUCH STOCK IS LEFT?
As you should receive a delivery note of your pressing plant or / and invoices on what has been pressed you know exactly what has been delivered to our warehouse. This stock minus the accumulated monthly sales is the available stock of your release. Of course, all vinyls on stock are your own property and you can ask for a return of this stock at any time.
As the stock is your property, we sometimes might decide to return stocks to you in case it`s unlikely to sell all the remaining stock of a certain catalogue number. It makes more sense to have the records with you so that you can maybe sell or give them away on events or via your website / social media outlets instead of having them stored in our warehouse.
HOW TO… HANDLE WORLDWIDE EXCLUSIVITY IN TIMES OF DIRECT FANBASE-SALES?
Worldwide exlusivity is crucial for being able to work successfully on spreading your vinyls to stores around the world. Getting offers for one release from different distributors is confusing for stores and leads to a lack of confidence, trust and marging, both for us as a distributor and you as a label. It also confuses stores to receive offers for different catalogue numbers from one label by different distributors.
The only way to avoid this is a worldwide exclusive distrbution deal to make sure the whole catalogue of a label runs through the same distribution chain.
All this is related to the so called B2B sales. B2C sales, meaning sales from you as the label / artist to your fans and consumers directly, is a different story. Of course we are fine with having you selling records via your own website or social media or Bandcamp storefront as long as we`re talking about sales to consumers and not retailers.
