It's never been easier for musicians to record, package, and sell their music than it is today. The Internet has opened up avenues for self promotion that were not available to musicians in the past. Packaging a product to sell is an important part of this process. An attractive, creative package can help attract attention and boost the sales of your music. Learn how you can make your own CD packaging to give your music the extra push it needs to make it in today's music market.
Instructions
1. Design your packaging. Decide what type of artwork you will include. If you can't draw the artwork yourself and don't have a talented friend who might be willing to help out, you'll have to commission someone to do the artwork for you. You can take your pick of artists who do CD covers. Advertise on Craigs List or in your local paper. You can consult a freelance artist directory and get bids on your job as well (see resources). If you know of an artist whose work you enjoy, e-mail them and ask for a quote. You can either give the artist a rough idea about what you're looking for or allow them the freedom to design a CD cover concept for you.
2. Determine what you want to include inside the CD packaging. You'll most likely want to include a history of your band and maybe even a short bio of the band members. Decide if you're going to include photos of the band as well, and whether or not you want to include lyrics to the songs.
3. Use CD packaging software to put the package together (see resources). CD packaging software makes it easy to create front and back covers as well as insert material for your CDs. The software comes with templates that let you simply type the text or add graphics where you want. You can produce your CD packaging entirely by using CD layout and packaging software.
4. Print your CD covers and inserts directly from the packaging software. Most of the software comes with several sheets of CD cover and label paper. You run the labels right through your printer, peel them, and stick them onto your CDs. Run a test before you do a full print job to ensure the alignment on your printer is correct. If not, adjust the alignment through the print properties in your control panel.
