Thinking about setting up a distro, help/advice wanted

[AbstractVenom]

Hope this is the right part of the forum to post this. Basically I am a Power Electronics and Noise enthusiast living in the UK and I really want to set up my own distro site. If there anyone can please advise me on the dos and don'ts I would really appreciate it. I'm aware that this could involve a lot of work and I'm happy to put the time in, I just need somebody to point me in the right direction before I get started. Thanks guys.

[Goat93]

Calculate a Lot of Money and Frustration to the Work and think about it :)

[Vega360]

Calculate a Lot of Money and Frustration to the Work and think about it :)

This

I'd also add that you should prepare for your taste in the music to decrease greatly, of course that I think is true for any genre of music.

[Vega360]

I'd also add that you should prepare for your taste in the music to decrease greatly, of course that I think is true for any genre of music.

Do you mean through over exposure?

Well that can be a part of it, but mostly all the drama and bullshit will wear on you after a while. You'll meet bands or something they won't live up to your expectations or something. If for example you go meet your favorite artist and they rip you off I doubt your going to want to listen to their albums as much after that.

[Strömkarlen]

Set up a label at the same time and most preferably become a cult band at the same time. People just seem to prefer to shop directly from bands/persons with a following (you know "hey I got this from Mikko, RRRon...") but most importantly trading records is the only way to build a stock (and hopefully not a dead one) with out spending just to much money.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

People just seem to prefer to shop directly from bands/persons with a following (you know "hey I got this from Mikko, RRRon...")

I think this is purely based on labels or people who are known to ship fast and treat customers ok. Reply quick, charge reasonable prices , etc. And have fairly large selection.
For small distributors, my suggestions are only:
-Niche selection of stuff YOU know and like.
-Reply when asked.
-Send stuff instantly when paid.
That's about all. Even in these days of fast & easy distribution of information, it may require looong time to really get trusted reputation and enough customers who buy more than once. Even if RRR and Freak Animal (amongst others) may appear to have "following", it didn't happen over night. Lets say these days it might not require 10-15 years of banging head against the wall, but it still requires something.

Potential mistakes:
-Selling stuff you don't know or care, ultimately making one work without true passion which often leads to:
-Not replying people in decent amount of time.
-Delaying sending orders.
-Doing poor packaging resulting items arriving heavily damaged.

For guys who think starting label on side is great, as you can trade stuff for mailorder, I strongly recommend not having this kind of utilitarian motivation as driving force of label. Label should put out absolute best of the best. In some genres (not necessarily noise) those who seem like putting stuff out just to have commodity called "trade item", often appear to be production line what never really reach listeners. Just items that travel from desperate distrolist to another. Item everybody sells, but nobody sold. I think distro should be started by person who ACTUALLY buys stuff. Still now. If you don't buy stuff, I think perspective of running distro might be lost. When you know that this is what you'd pay for, and that is what you could merely take for free or cheap trade, then you know what to sell.

I personally think despite selfish needs and semi-commercial elements, distributors with some sort of vague goal of contributing to culture is only way to go. What this contribution is, is something one would have to figure out.

[AbstractVenom]

Firstly thank you to everyone who replied to my question, I was worried it would be overlooked so I'm very happy to get so much input and your different opinions are warmly received.

As Mikko says, I feel my personal interest has got to be the main priority. My interest is in accessing and sharing the good stuff only. For example some of my favourite labels are Filth & Violence, Worthless Recordings:

1) In the case of Worthless Recordings the guy who runs it has since last year been lumbered with the US postal service's insane hike in shipping costs. It's not his fault, I get that. Maybe by running a distro I can help UK fans including myself get slightly cheaper access to this great material?

2) Similar with F&V; the pricks who run PayPal (and now Discogs of all fucking people!) seem to have a vendetta against this label for some stupid reason - backward christian morality maybe? - meaning if you want to get hold of their music you've got to take a risk in sending cheques or cash by post. Again I'm not blaming the label in any way, the situation is just as unfair on them as it is on the fans.

I've had some shit experiences with labels - won't name them here, you've probably had the same experience with them so you know who they are as well as I do. I've also had some really great experiences, to the point where as well as buying quality music from them I've also enjoyed the opportunity of contributing ideas, feedback, and reviews which have done at least some small part in helping the artist or label and thereby helping me the enthusiast. Far more rewarding than my day job. Fuck it, maybe I need to stop typing about it and start doing it...

[Cementimental]

seem to have a vendetta against this label for some stupid reason - backward christian morality maybe?

The reasons were explored in this thread about that and were not especially 'stupid' from those companies point of view at all. Plus last I heard it's been somewhat resolved IE not all F&V releases are banned any more? http://www.special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=3783.0

If you want honest advice about setting up a distro mine is this: if you are gonna release stuff which is 'shocking' by 'normal' standards or which contains artwork/content/symbols against the terms of service of the major websites and multinational companies whose services you are using for free or against the law of countries you will be selling to/from, then simply avoid relying on those companies too much and please act like an adult if you do get in very predictable trouble over it.

[Ashmonger]

Even in these days of fast & easy distribution of information, it may require looong time to really get trusted reputation and enough customers who buy more than once. Even if RRR and Freak Animal (amongst others) may appear to have "following", it didn't happen over night. Lets say these days it might not require 10-15 years of banging head against the wall, but it still requires something.

Indeed I'm doing my distro for about half a year now and I haven't had people complain, but since I don't have many own releases I only did a couple of trades (and yes, they're kind of cheaper even than wholesale orders). But I'm spreading flyers and have some friends who have bought from my, but even here in Belgium the distro isn't too well known yet (maybe that has something to do with me being not social enough also). Also, I haven't gotten any complaints yet, but have only had three returning costumers, two of whom are people over here I know well and one guy who is interested from an American label Gracelessness Recordings of which I'm getting all of their recent releases.

So, as you say:

In the case of Worthless Recordings the guy who runs it has since last year been lumbered with the US postal service's insane hike in shipping costs. It's not his fault, I get that. Maybe by running a distro I can help UK fans including myself get slightly cheaper access to this great material?

This definitely helps, their stuff moves quite good for me (except for that Sewer Goddess tape, only sold 1 copy up to now, which I think is weird), I for example got 5 copies of the Chthe'ilist demo (a Death Metal demo they released in September, I believe) and I wish I had asked for more copies, they all sold in about 2 weeks.

Which brings me to another point: starting a small distro, I think it's important to get an interesting list. I mean, you can stock 5 copies of each of 10 different releases  or 10 copies of each of 5 different releases, what are you gonna do? And what will be the interest in a certain release? Sometimes it's very clear, sometimes not, so it's not always easy to estimate how many copies you're best taking in (at least not yet for me). And sometimes all your copies of a certain release sell really fast and other times they don't move. And sometimes they start moving after a couple months of being released. To conclude: it's sometimes a bit of a guess, but you've got to trust that if you really like a certain release, you're probably not the only one and if it takes some months or longer before other people notice the release then so be it.

[AbstractVenom]

seem to have a vendetta against this label for some stupid reason - backward christian morality maybe?

The reasons were explored in this thread about that and were not especially 'stupid' from those companies point of view at all. Plus last I heard it's been somewhat resolved IE not all F&V releases are banned any more? http://www.special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=3783.0

If you want honest advice about setting up a distro mine is this: if you are gonna release stuff which is 'shocking' by 'normal' standards or which contains artwork/content/symbols against the terms of service of the major websites and multinational companies whose services you are using for free or against the law of countries you will be selling to/from, then simply avoid relying on those companies too much and please act like an adult if you do get in very predictable trouble over it.

Fair point, I know their sole reason for existence is to make money so naturally anything they think might get in the way of that is bound to make them uncomfortable. I used the word 'stupid' because I am very much against censorship of art, particularly when the censorship is targeted at an artist or group that isn't actually doing anyone any harm. They would never consider the millions of impressionable minors out there who've never heard of Whitehouse or Bizarre Uproar, yet can't turn on the TV without Miley Cyrus waving her skinny rump in their faces, or even the news brainwashing them into thinking that War = Peace, Freedom = Slavery etc. But that's just my opinion.