A while ago I thought about a 'reverse' boutique label deal that I described as follows: artist pays for design and manufacturing, label purchases copies from artist to subsidize those costs, artist holds the rest of the run (probably limited-edition.) My justification was that as the label, "you'd just have to lean on one skill: the ability to sell those units effectively. I wonder if you don't see the reverse deal because that skill is indeed the bottleneck in the cottage industry of tiny labels."
Of course, what I reversed was this procedure: label pays for mfg/design, artist buys copies from label to subsidize, label holds the rest. (One factor I didn't give its due is that the label usually knows better what to do with those extra copies, like feeding distributor relationships.)
How about this, though?
- Label facilitates mfg/design, but artist pays for it, and it must be at cost (in my personal opinion, and not necessarily my clients' opinions, markup here facilitates troublesome incentives)
- Artist gets x copies immediately at no additional cost
- Label holds the rest; label shares 50% of these sales with artist
I dunno.