|
contents | jazz | |||||||||||||
| New Website Helps Independent Jazz Artists Sell Into Japan CDJam is a new online CD shop based in Fukuoka, Japan catering to independent music makers eager to tap into the world’s second largest market for prerecorded music sales. Beginning this week independent recording artists will have the opportunity to sell their music in Japan, in Japanese, direct to Japanese music consumers. CDJam makes this possible by translating all marketing copy to Japanese, creating and maintaining pages within its website for each and every CD, by offering a range of payment options familiar to Japanese customers (including credit card processing and bank and postal transfers), by packaging and shipping all orders from within Japan, and by responding to customer service requests in Japanese. For any artist who ever wanted to break into the Japanese market, this is an easily affordable opportunity. Translation fees alone of a 1-page document from Japanese to English typically run US$40.00 to $50.00. For the same amount, CDJam creates for each CD a page complete with product and bio data in Japanese, high quality MP3 sample clips, a crisp scan of the CD cover art, a section for customers to post reviews, and a link directly to the artist’s website. Small labels, artists’ cooperatives and independent artists interested in joining CDJam have only to complete an online registration form, pay the minimal set-up fee, and ship their CDs to Japan. CDJam takes care of everything else, from ripping samples, to scanning cover art, to setting up web pages – we even provide summary translations of customer feedback. In return, CDJam takes JPY500 from the sale of each CD. The remainder goes direct to the musician. For artists who want a crack at the world’s second largest music market, this is an unrivaled opportunity. The alternative is hiring a local agent to do the marketing and accounting work, an agent whose fees will run into thousands of dollars – assuming one can be found who is interested in the particular project on offer. But with CDJam, artists can be selling music to Japanese consumers within two weeks of registration for as little as US100 dollars. write your comments about the article :: © 2005 Jazz News :: home page |