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A few friends of mine are starting to produce some really good stuff, and I'm eager to release it on vinyl. I'm thinking a press of maybe 50-100 copies to check out whether or not we are able to sell it. Question is though, are there any places that will press vinyl for you if you want to buy just 100 copies? The minimum I've seen around for 12" is 500, and that's a bit too expensive for us at the moment.

I want to design the cover myself, but it would be cool if the press/print shop could print it for us. Any ideas on places that does this for a reasonable price in Europe?

I wanted to do this and found out you'd have to charge about £7-9 a unit to make a profit.. Thats why they do runs of 500 because its to expensive otherwise! You could just do a handful of TP's contact some pressing plants and ask if they'll do you a deal for 50 vinyl.

Not too many places will do small runs like that WITH artwork. There are places that will do small white label runs though. The cost of doing a small run isn't really worth it though. You end up paying like $6-8 a plate, so there is virtually no profit in it. A run of 500, you'd be paying $2-3 a plate.

I know The Carvery (http://www.carverycuts.com) does small 100 runs.

Other places I've heard good things from:
http://www.mobineko.com (they do small runs)
http://www.randmuzik.de

No point doing a run that small. The vast majority of the cost comes from the setup -- mastering, cutting the master lacquer, manufacturing the master plate itself, etc –– so you could end up paying something like £400 for 200 white labels, £500 for 300, or £550 for 500 (at a rough guess). Artwork, coloured vinyl, etc, all cost considerably more. And unless you fancy distributing it yourself -- meaning you'd have to convince individual shops to sell it and also take care of posting them their stock or driving there yourself -- you'll also lose money to the distributor, assuming you find one who's willing to take on your label. You need to factor this in when you consider whether or not you'll make your money back.

it's unlikely you'll gain a profit on your first release

mashmash wrote:you wont gain a profit on your first release

fixed

Thanks for all the info, guys, much appreciated! I know it's a bit of a losing game, really, and it's not really to make money that we want to do this first release, but we've been granted a sum from the government to help us in our "creative endeavour", and I thought trying to release a record would be a good way to spend the money. Anyways, it's still a bit of a pipe dream, but thanks again for all the info!