Can you tell me about USA / UK / Europe / Australia / New Zealand / Japan DISTRIBUTORS in 2016?

Howdy! We've got a newish label - details forthcoming - which will operate in the same vein as the mighty Acute Records, with a slightly accelerated release schedule and some 'big names' in the post-punk vein, as well as a few new artists and an esoteric release or two. But distributors? Who's good these days in the territories above? It's been a while since I had any knowledge of this, and things change. Do any of them pay shipping? (Some used to.) Who are the good payers? The bad ones? What's the median acceptable price (for distributors) for a CD / 2xCD / LP / 10" EP / 7"? I'm surprised there's never been a thread on this before. Any major help will be rewarded, hint hint.

good luck!

Thanks, Scott!

Can't help with that, but I will be happy to give you money as long as you please, please, please don't do vinyl and cassette releases but exclude CDs and lossless files :)

Haha! I'm with you entirely, Fastnbulbous . . . all vinyl will come with a download code which includes the ability to do lossless files. But in most cases, there will be a CD version too, unless licensing restrictions prevent it or if it's a 7" or 10" and it doesn't make sense to do a CD (in all those cases though, you'll still get a download code.) After a brief period for selling, most everything will be available as a pure download too, including lossless. It drives me crazy when labels don't do this.

We realise that 70% or whatever it is, of sales now happen online, but we'd still like to get in better shops, so we would like to access the common wisdom surrounding distributors. If you're the sort of person who likes Fast Product or Postcard or Rough Trade, you'll recognise many of the names on the label.