From johnb Sent Wed, Dec 2nd 1998, 21:51
> It's a good idea in theory, but in practice I have my doubts... > Planet E tried this a few years ago, but gave up because it > was so much of a pain in the butt. Independent record labels > have release schedules that are nowhere near as orderly > as, say, a magazine, and the simple overhead of managing > a subsciption service was way more complicated than they > originally envisioned. > > Magazines and mail-order music vendors already have infrastructures > set up for shipping, mailing list management, navigating the > minefield of local/international tax and shipping regs, etc. > Taking on these additional burdens is usually not worth the > bother for an indie label. As far as I know, it works pretty well for Staalplaat and the maze of Muslimgauze releases... A friend of mine swears by it. .John.