Looking for Price Quotes on Marketing CD

[badducky]

Howdy all!

"Cd" is too small to use to search the forum.

I'm interested in getting a bunch of marketing CDs printed up, but I do not know the costs, nor where such a thing would be done.

Obviously, I could burn a bunch of shit myself, and exert time and energy that I don't have making something look good. Or, I could hop on-line somewhere, hand them some cover copy, and a PDF and get some CDs made.

Ideally, I'd pop some art on the actual CD face, itself, as well - or at least, some text. That way people know what the heck their looking at when they are staring at their coaster.

Anyone know of a place?

[nitaworm]

I contacted a place that does this for about $1.50 per cd. They put a nice executable on the dist with your book information on it. However, the kicker is you had to purchase a minimum of 1000 cds

I found these companies on www.bing.com (http://www.bing.com) search.

These are one of the companies I called.
http://www.customdiscs.com/

[benbradley]

Use either of these terms, they'll get you plenty of companies that do what you want:
CD duplication
CD replication

The terminology appears to be that duplication means they burn CD-R's just like in your computer drive (but they have units that burn dozens at a time), done for quantity up to about 100 or 200. CD-R's are more fragile and more likely to go bad in sunlight and high humidity, resulting in more people saying "This POS doesn't work!"

Replication is "real" CD making, where they're pressed in higher quantity something like an LP record or making photographic prints from negatives. These are "permanent" and more durable than CD-R's. The quantity and price where this becomes the better choice appears to be around 100 to 200 discs. If you're going to spent $200 or more, I'd strongly suggest getting "replication" of real CD's rather than duplication of CD-R's.

Here's one site that spells out the difference:
http://www.snjcd.com/cd-duplication.html
http://www.snjcd.com/cd-replication.html

It appears some sites use the words duplication and replication interchangeably, so be aware of that.

Most of the sites are aimed at making audio CD's but as data CD's are essentially the same thing, they should be able to do those as well. You can always ask in an email.

Can you do your own nice-looking artwork or have someone do it? These sites appear to want artwork ready to print on the CD's, else they might charge you an arm and a leg for something you might not like.

The only outfit I've actually dealt with is Tape Warehouse (http://tapewarehouse.com). It's a big recording-studio supply house that's been in business in Atlanta for well over 20 years that I know of. I've bought reel tape, cassettes and blank CD-R's from them, but never had any duolication done. Here's their duplication page:
http://tapewarehouse.com/home/duplication%20info%201-17-08.pdf
This appears to be CD-R only, though you might want to try them for low quantity (10 or 50) to see what they're like. I'd really go with someone who does the "real CD's" for higher quantities.

Prices can vary from 50 cents to a couple dollars each depending on quantity and what all you have done. The premium service would be packaged in a shrink-wrapped jewel case, but that's overkill for a marketing CD, I'm sure you'd want these in a paper envelope with the clear plastic window, or maybe done with bulk packaging, and you can do your own paper or cardboard sleeves.