Proper Accounting

Day Forty One.

Paperwork. Hmm. It's a lot weightier than it should be, isn't it?
Today's hoped-for achievement was concerned with sorting out Ember's account with our CD distributor: Proper Music Distribution. It's been bugging me for a few months now, and keeps appearing on 'to do' lists, but so far has avoided closer inspection.

First I got all of the unfiled sales sheets together from the four cluttered corners of my office (which really should be a sitting room - bah), then got the 'Proper' file out and did some sums. We have not received any payments from Proper, as when we released the CD with them, they offered various publicity packages - basically we could buy advertising space and CD reviews in a variety of different folky magazines - and our CD sales would cover these costs over the following months.

I wanted to see whether we'd crossed over from owing into being owed yet, but after some basic maths I discovered that we actually still owe them. The reason for this might be something to do with the fact that our CDs are being sold at dealer prices (sometimes as low as £5) to companies such as HMV, Amazon and a handful of independent record shops. Then there are further discounts to take off.

Still, despite being sightly disappointed with the outcome of my investigation, I am proud to be working with Proper - the biggest independent distribution service in the UK - and teaming up with them has raised our profile as well as made our fourth CD available in places where it otherwise wouldn't be, so that can't be bad!

:)

Here's our CD on Amazon - though it's cheaper from our own website!