The question may seem boring, but it’s foremost in my mind at the moment – and I’d welcome the AW Massive’s thoughts. Let me explain…
Having researched and compiled, on paper, a fabulous 7CD+DVD Dick Gaughan box set spanning 1969-84, I couldn’t get any of the labels I periodically work with over the line with it. In short, they didn’t quite believe in it, while I believe in it completely – as both an artistic and commercial proposition. (Gaughan had to retire after a stroke in 2016 but I’m thrilled to say he’s completely supportive of the project.)
My plan is to create and release it via Kickstarter, hopefully launching in March. I’m firmly set on that path, so no need to suggest ‘Have you tried label X or Y’ – it will generate far more in the way of revenue for the artist, so it’s quite liberating!
Having gathered almost all of the costings at this point, I’m ruminating on the nature of the packaging – and the extent to which that affects (a) costs/retail price and (b) the attractiveness to possible buyers, the ‘perception of value’.
My costings so far have been based around a ‘clamshell’ box (compact flip-top outer box, discs in wallets and booklet(s) inside – very cost-effective for the label (me, in this case)), which enables a lower price for purchasers, but there is the danger that the compact size in some way diminishes the sense of ‘cultural heft’ and basic value for the audio and visual contents within.
This set will contain 10 hours of music from multiple sources with high-quality sound and mastering and around 75 minutes of film from multiple broadcasters, spanning the first 15 years of a career in which Gaughan rose from Edinburgh club singer to international star in the folk firmament (the set will include his very first American concert, in 1981, almost in full).
My question is twofold:
1. Do you instinctively feel that a project like this has more heft / value if presented in a ‘book set’ format (like the ongoing series of Jethro Tull expanded albums)?
2. Would you pay, say, an extra fiver for this kind of packaging compared to a clamshell box presentation (of the kind used on many Cherry Red sets)?
I may not be the best person to answer this, as I’m one of those folks that rips any box set to digital files and plays via that – the packaging then either stored away or thrown away.
I do like a boxset, but it’s only for the music – my decisions are purely based on what is included musically and I never really consider the packaging it comes in. The only reason I would think of the packaging is whether it costs more to post it to me – i.e. those big boxes always cost a fortune to ship (this may be more applicable to me as an overseas buyer).
The best ‘boxsets’ in my mind are the XTC ones that are the ‘boxset in a BluRay disc’ – but I have the means to play and rip these so it may not be applicable to all.
Bottom line, I probably would not notice any ‘extra cost’ of packaging if the contents were good. The main exception to this is if the boxset includes vinyl and CD which is a complete no no for me (having no means to play or desire for vinyl). Keep vinyl separate !!
Conversely, I know people who almost religiously put the packaging/booklet/boxset away and hardly ever play the actual material!
I would have thought that anyone remotely interested in Dick G, a mighty artist and one of my faves, would not be tempted to part with hard cash by overblown packaging alone.
Tell them the boxset contains the legendary “Lost in Lerwick Sessions ” and that’s a different story
Best of luck!
The ‘Lost in Lerwick Sessions’? It’s as if you’ve seen the tracklist… 🙂
If it is just CDs & DVDs, a pile of discs in a clamshell or pizza box is fine. I’d much rather that than the discs spread around a 12″ box. LP-sized boxes containing CDs (a) take up valuable shelf space in the Kallax, which would otherwise be for records and (b) the bloody discs invariably fall out inside the box.
The only advantage a 12″ book(let) has over a 5.25″ one is that I don’t need to find my specs to read it, but I could buy a spare pair of glasses for the price of a couple of 12″ box sets.
I should have made clear that when I said ‘BOOK SET’ I’m talking about a type of packaging that is in between standard paperback and hardback book size. It’s lean and easily storable on a small shelf – but that bit more classy than a clamshell.
I’m afraid I can’t post pictures but if you Google ‘Jethro Tull box sets’ you’ll see many examples of their 70s albums each bolstered to multi-disc sets within that ‘book’ style of packaging.
The LP-sized hardback sets (actually, slightly smaller than LP-sized) you’re referring to are called ‘earbooks’ – but no one outside of the business would know that term.
I know what you mean, my Lloyd Cole sets – amongst many others – are that format.
Those ‘earbook’ (you learn something every day) things are a pet peeve. The CDs are either in pockets that rip and/or scratch the disc, or mounted on plastic nipples which break and/or fall off. But the near-LP size allows for easy reading.
I really like the book style and have all the Tull ones, and they are priced about right too (40-50 quidish). Accepting they6 you have to like the band it’s price more than value for me. If the Tull books were £80 I wouldn’t buy them.
I prefer the book style to a box with CDs in it, though I have the first 5 Fleetwood Mac albums in a box in little repro sleeves which are lovely.
Twang and i seem to have the same preferences regarding these sets – like him I’ve got a pile of the Tull ones, and that size seems to me like a good compromise between the clam-shell ones – I’ve bought those from loads of artists – and the vast thumpers, of which I have rather few in comparison.
DG is one of my favourite folk artists from vinyl collecting days, yet I only have a handful of the early albums from his 20 or so releases so I’d happily stump up £50 or a little more for a good track selection – rarities! live sets! – with some good written and pictorial material in accompaniment.
As it’s you putting this together, @Colin, I know the music will be a rewarding choice, and my money is as good as yours if it comes through.
Why, thank you Vulpmeister! The money will be Dick’s though, not mine. An additional costing came to light yesterday plus I took advice from a couple of industry people re the pricing. It’s fluid just now but especially in light of the unexpected costing I think the set will need to be £60 – £65 to the buyer. Even if £65, that’s still only £8.10 per disc – and each disc is a double album in ‘old money’ (75+ minutes) – plus c. 20,000 words of text and photos. There are so many costs in a project like this that the punter on the street probably isn’t aware of – but one has one shot at creating and presenting a set like this so I’m resisting temptations to say ‘Those two tracks cost X to license – let’s drop them’… while being prudent in not licensing in TV material that is simply too expensive.
No worries – £65 for a feast from an artist of the quality of DG seems very fair to me. There’s that ‘little more’ I mentioned. Any idea when this will (hopefully) come to fruition? I might start dropping birthday hints if it’s later in the year, to avoid denting my own funds!
Well, I’m trying to converge several diaries around a day for filming in Edinburgh for a crowdfunder promo video at present. This is proving a little painful, but I’m hopeful that it can happen in late February. I would imagine mid-March will see the crowdfunder launched. I’m waiting to hear back from a crowdfunder guru/adviser I was strongly recommended by someone I take seriously, but it’s been a few days. That and the challenges in sorting out the promo filming (flights are involved as well as availabilities) are the first real bumps in the road – even the dismissals by labels was barely a blow.
I really like the book type packaging and think it is worth the extra fiver – providing that the book contains something worthwhile reading and decent photographs or scans of contemporaneous material – posters/adverts/newspaper articles.
Maybe you could replicate the JT Stand Up book and have a stand up Dick Gaughan pop up when you open the front cover 😉
Very good! 🙂
Cherry Red’s persistence with emptying my wallet has made me an advocate of the clamshell box. Sits nicely in the flow of the shelves.
The book type certainly has a place, but not for “Deluxe Editions” of common release which can sometimes lead to purchasing the standard release to appease my OCD and prevent a gap.
Clamshell is my preference now
(although a landmark release in a big box with assorted “stuff” is always a welcome addition)
My REM sets don’t seem to have any packaging-planning. Excuse if I get the terminology wrong…
First 2 are deluxe digipaks for 2 discs
Fables, pageant, document, green are all clamshells (I think)
Out of time is a tall book
automatic is LP sized
Monster and New Adventures are both small book type things
(This is all from memory btw as I’m not at home)
This would have some of the more OCD afterworders having fits
As someone amassing a collection of clamshells, via reviews of Cherry Red material, I find them entirely satisfactory, with the added advantage of sitting neatly on a shelf, and not needing to be deposited elsewhere. Fancy/poncey packaging adds nothing and often detracts. it is the music and the “essay” that count.
Viva le clam!
I’m happy with the clamshell as long as the print is big enough for me to read the essay!!
This sounds like a fantastic project. Colin, please let us know when Kickstarter is up and running. Thanks
The essay, as some have mentioned, is also a valid factor in considering the ‘book’ (i.e. small hardback book sized, not LP sized) version. Undoubtedly, the text will be more easily readable in a book size package than in a standard CD-sized booklet within a clamshell.
I’m commissioning the splendid Graeme Thomson to write a 10,000 word essay based on new interviews, plus I’ll be using with permission the texts of three or four vintage magazine features. And yes, there will be vintage photos and period gig adverts etc.
So with as much care being taken on the book content, I want that to have the platform it deserves.
That amount of material suggests a book format, rather than the clamshell, IMO.
Set seems to be aimed at hardcore fans rather than newbies so I would imagine they would know about DG’s circumstances and be happy to fork out an extra five or ten quid to help him out
Got several 2-CD career overview collections from personal favorites such as Warren
Zevon and John Prine.
The two CDs contain enough music to provide an excellent intro for newbies. They’re also a
pretty handy for long-term fans who like to listen while they drive.
While the booklets on such sets can be a bit hit and miss, doubt too many purchasers are that
bothered
Inevitably, yes, existing fans will be the majority purchasers – but I’m very conscious that a not-exorbitant ‘landmark’ set can pique the interest of the curious to take a punt. And I really hope that publicity around the set will tempt some to do so.
I honestly believe that Dick’s music from his prime can move into ‘the Bert Jansch space’ – where an artist unapologetically from within the British folk world develops an appeal beyond that, whether based on mystique or something singular in their musicianship of writing that sparks an interest from doyens of musicianship etc. from outside of the pure folk area.
Dick dealt very largely in traditional material – songs and instrumental pieces – in the 70s (only later, in the mid-80s really moving concertedly into singing contemporary songs and writing his own), and his musicianship is both singular and virtuosic. His voice is similarly singular and to my ears, it doesn’t matter that the language of many of those songs is Lowland Scots, it has such quality and resonance it’s like an instrument.
I confess I’d never heard his name before, but (unusually for me) I sat through the whole video to not miss a second of that gorgeous voice! Loved it.
Probably not enough to buy a box set however…but I certainly wish you (and him) luck with this project!
I’m a relative latecomer to DG. Try his penultimate Outlaws & Dreamers album from 2001, which I first heard on the Andy Kershaw podcast (or somewhere similar).
In an adjunct to the Greatest Hits thread, @locust , you could do a lot worse than his compilation, Prentice Piece, tho’ An Introduction To probably pips it, for his earlier trad years.
But his Willie is certainly the definitive one for me.
I agree – Prentice Piece is fantastic: the best of what is available to license in from his ‘trad years’ (see below) plus the best of his 90s work on Greentrax up to that point (2002).
The caveat about ‘available to license’ is that three of Dick’s albums from the 70s (on Trailer and Rubber Records) plus his album with Boys of the Lough (trailer) have never been properly reissued on CD (bar a brief CDr reissue of one) and aren’t on digital platforms – they are effectively out of reach for anthologists/licensors. I don’t want to get into the ‘why’ of that. Similarly, two of his 80s albums (on Celtic Music) are out of reach to licensors. A further two 80s albums (on Folk Freak/Wundertute in Germany) have not been remastered in decades. There are a nearly a dozen ‘stray’ tracks on V/A releases from the 70s too.
The box set I’m aiming for will address / work around these issues, including many of those ‘strays’, the key material from the Wundertute/Folk Freak albums (gloriously remastered) and a great deal of the repertoire from those ‘lost’ 70s albums – in BBC session or live form, often better that the LP verrsions.
Dammit, I’d love to hear that first Boys Of The Lough album! Only available on vinyl and hard to find in good order within these shores. Keep digging Col!
Are you including anything from the innovative if ultimately unsatisfactory Clan Alba, or is that part the “CM of Harrogate” hole?
No, 1969-84 is the set’s parameters.
Have you considered tempting newbies by doing a single disc cut down of the larger box
Well, after a fashion – there will be a Kickstarter single disc drawn from three vintage concerts, with none of the material therein being on the box set, that will be a Kickstarter ‘extra’ reward, 100 copies signed digipak. It’s being mastered as we speak. That will be its only physical release, but my instinct – because it’s all fabulous – is to make it available at some point between Kickstarter (March) and box set release (January) as a digital album via Bandcamp. The only reason that material isn’t on the parent set is because I’ve tried to achieve maximum variety on the set – the most amount of distinct repertoire possible – which means multiple versions of any one song or tune are kept to a minimum.
Not sure if you’ve done a Kickstarter before, but please make sure you know what you are getting into. I’m an avid boardgamer and Kickstarter has transformed the industry over the past decade, not always for the best. There are many, many tales of well-meaning developers who get in over their heads and end up in all sorts of financial trouble, with unexpected shipping/customs costs being a big culprit. There are distinct economic advantages with the Kickstarter model but bypassing the distributers etc also means that you take on all the risk.
I know you are a seasoned compiler of these sets, so please ignore if this is all known to you.
No, the caution is welcome, Pod. I’ll be accessing experienced KS users’ wisdom. (I’ve run three other crowdfunders before, but not on KS and not at such scale.)
It may be worth pairing with a fulfilment centre for shipping.
I’m pairing with a record distribution/wholesaling company in Scotland, for KS fulfilment and sales post KS.
Rhymes with Burn ‘Em? Seem pretty much the to go to for under the radar Scottish artists.
No.
Surely in these days of streaming the answer is yes
I’m only an occasional box set buyer but when I do the quality of packaging is often a factor. I like the book sized sets – they feel a bit more special than a standard CD sized box. Of course the music has to be something I don’t have and am interested in, but if the packaging is done well I would pay a little more for it – certainly the fiver you suggest.
Good luck with it Colin.
Obvious point but for the book style, quality of binding is critical. I got my Pentangle book out the other day and the pages but just fell out – turns out they were folded then stapled then the spine held in with a bead of glue which had presumably dried out. Very annoying.
I have that set – and the same issue with the booklet.
I took my set to a bookbinder, and for a tenner he fixed it. Lovely set.
Ooh good call. Not just me then.
I’ve been known to buy some of those tall, cumbersome, book sized boxsets, put the CDs in plastic wallets and chuck the box and its accompanying frippery in the bin. It’s the music I want and if the box it comes in isn’t CD sized then out it goes.
I’ll get me coat.
Good gracious!
I’m thinking, @colin-h , but have you involved @jorrox in your Gaugfest? He seems to know him well.
I’ve been following this on Facebook and I’m in.
I don’t have much involvement with DG really. I interviewed him for radio when his Live In Harvard CD came out in 2019.
Thank you, Jorrox. With a fair wind, there may be the possibility of Dick doing one or two media interviews around the set – but that hasn’t been discussed yet, and it’s not an automatic expectation on my part.
Thanks man – I no longer do radio but I know that the folks at Celtic Music Radio will be all over this one. I can make contacts if needed.
There will be a significant public event tied in with the box set launch, which I’ll not go into now – so one way or another, here’s hoping for (to quote a fictional folk troupe) a mighty wind in the sails / sales!
Thanks everyone for the views on the packaging question so far – very helpful. 🙏
As we’ve had a few diversions into talking about Dick’s music, here’s a lost gem from his 70s era – ‘Farewell to Whisky’ from the first Boys of the Lough’ album (on Bill Leader’s Trailer imprint) in 1973, the year after his first solo album. The song was a staple in his solo live set until around 1981 and there will be a couple of stunning BBC studio session versions in the box set. He never recorded the song commercially other than on the Boys of the Lough LP.
That’s glorious; I had never heard that version, only familiar with the Alistair Russell sung version by Battlefield Band, who, given the chumship between Gaughan and BB’s Brian McNeill, probably explains how BB came to do it.
I’m – of course – for the full book treatment.
Maybe you get rid of the plastic trays; they’re taking a lot of space. There was a Hank Williams book some time ago that had the CDs in slots at the front and the back of the book: https://www.thehankwilliamsmuseum.net/store/Music-CD-Box-Set-Hank-Williams-Pictures-From-Lifes-Other-Side-p277819894
Bob Dylan used similar packaging for some of the Bootleg Series sets. The »slots« are die-cut/fold-back cardboard units that are glued into the book. Most of the manufacturing plants in the EU and eastern Europe have templates ready (for 2 or 3 discs per page)
They’re cheaper than the plastic trays, and the set is reduced in size and weight.
That’s interesting, Fatima – I may ask the CD broker I use to source a quote for an enhance version of that option (8 discs). Not using plastic appeal to me. But then to get back to the matter of ‘heft’ and perceived value, those Jethro Tull-type sets do communicate a certain gravitas. Things to ponder.
Frankly, for me it’s the pricing that is the most important factor. So many box sets have got very pricey in recent times and any set, say, north of £50 ish I think very carefully about.
I hear you. In this instance, I hope long-term fans of DG’s will understand that the nature of the set – being created outside of the record business, with multiple licensors and in a run of only 1,000 (so limits on economy of scale aspects in both manufacturing and licensing) – means that it might need to be slightly more expensive than what they might *think* are directly comparable sets elsewhere.
If it’s a tenner or whatever more than an 8-disc single-artist set on Cherry Red (where all the material will have come from one or two licensor labels, like the recent £50 Davy Graham 8CD set) or a single-artist set from a major label wherein that label owns everything on it already, then that tenner isn’t there for the sake of it!
I’m sure I’ll explain these matters (in brief) within the Kickstarter blurb in due course (March).
Economy of scale in the usual sense only applies if you can sell every copy at the asking price. And, I suppose, sell them within a reasonable time scale.
A different type of economy of scale applies when demand is limited.
It might be cheaper-per-unit to manufacture 5,000 boxes but your initial outlay will be greater. If you end up with 3,000 unsold then you’ve lost all the cost benefit from your extra outlay.
It will be 1,000 only.
This box is not for me, but for what’s going to be in it £65 seems good value and about right for those who would like to buy it.
If it was a similar project for the work of an artist I wanted to spend my money on, the book option would be worth a little extra to me.
An interesting update, friends – having just received costings for a book-style set (cardboard-based, akin to the example shared in the link from Fatima above), it’s just over £5,000 more (based on a 1,000 run) – which equates to 77 more sales at £65 – than the clamshell option.
Does it bring enough pluses to justify that extra outlay? Annoyingly, I’m not sure that it does.
Stick to the clamshell, Cherry Red always do, their whole model based on budgets and hope.