means:
a) radio friendly, ready for release, your best version
b) a mastered track by a mastering engineer is compulsory.

What we do in our mastering process: Taking the best version of the song and slotting it in with 10-20 other songs and making them sound like an album - adjusting EQs, balancing, cropping starts and finishes, and then of course assembling it for the glass master to manufacture. We need mastered tracks from the artists, so that our job is easier and you get a better version on the record.

If your song is chosen all artists are contributing a small production fee of $400 which will be pooled to pay for the CD Mastering, art designing, manufacture and printing costs, shipping and postage, marketing, promoting, & advertising the CD, as well as administration costs of putting this all together.

That’s right, we can’t do this alone. We are uniting to make this happen!  This is substantially cheaper than recording, designing, manufacturing, promoting and marketing a whole CD yourself.

The production component of $400 from you shows us that you are actively investing in YOURSELF and YOUR career, and a sign of commitment to our project (if it were free, you may not try as hard to be active in our project.) Your financial investment proves you are committed AND that you will work hard to have your investment provide you a return. We don't want artists who don't understand the enormous undertaking putting together a marketed, promoted, distributed compilation takes. We are in this together.

The total amount is $420 - The extra $20 pays for our shipping of the 20 Cds to you, no matter where you are in the world. It covers our time, packaging and postage. The Total payment is $420 U.S (If you apply through Sonicbids, your first submission fee of $20 is refunded, by way of waiving the shipping fee for those artists)

What does the production fee of $400 cover? Well, not much in the grand scheme of things. Consider that most albums released by a record label need a minimum of $20,000 to manufacture, promote and market, just for the first month. Major Label albums go into the $millions. We see your production fee contribution as an assistance to helping us collate the songs for the CDs (selecting songs, receiving applications and contracts, plus general administration - yes we need an assistant!, filing, databasing, website creation, handling mail,). We also MASTER the CD (there are two of them as we make it a double compilation), design the CD artwork, the one sheet and postcards artwork, print them (minimum 2500 postcards go out) and of course, we manufacture the CDs: 3000 of them at first. You can imagine that your money doesn't cover our costs, but it does help in the beginning. Warrior Girl Music is really offsetting about 80% of the costs. These expenses that the production fee doesn't even come close to covering, includes labor, full manufacturing, marketing (big bucks$), distribution & shipping, and promotion (big bucks$), plus Females On Fire Touring and ongoing concert series and marketing of all of that.

If you were to do this yourself, here are some of the costs you would have to consider:

Admin - approx 10 hours a week receiving submissions, collating files, databases, handling of music, applications and correspondence $$150wk x 20 weeks = $3,000

Office supplies, burning CDs, mail packaging, paper, printer ink, etc approx $ 400

Mastering full disk (we do 2 discs per compilation) $2,000 (Mastering one song alone can cost up to $400, so consider this opportunity a free, cheap, mastering job plus an amazing exposure for your music!)

Manufacturing in Digipaks (cool cardboard sleeves instead of the old jewel case style CD presentation) approx $3500

Website design for the artists profiles and the CD - $1,000

Marketing and promotion - one sheets, retail advertising, online advertising, pitching, postcards (2500) and general - hmm, well let's say, $15,000 at bare minimum

Gosh where do we finish? This is not even including distribution costs, touring promotional costs, energy, entrepreneurial talents, contacts and industry pull. $indefinable. SO, YOUR FEE HELPS! Big time. Besides, you can easily write it off as "advertising". Have you seen how much those Ads cost in newspapers and magazines lately? And you only get a week of promotion! We give you years! Consider this a really cheap way to advertise you and your BEST song.

Q&A

I recently got an email from a prospective artist about why she had to pay $400, and I took the time to respond. Here is what I said:

$400 is a chunk of money, yep. You'd pay that amount for one Ad in a newspaper or magazine, and then you're money is.. gone, with probably little return except that you can say "hey, I'm in a magazine!" you'd pay that and more to master a song with a mastering studio. you'd pay that amount and 10 times more if you were putting out your own indie record.

$400 investment shows me you a committed to this project and that you, as an artist are willing to invest in yourself and a coop project that requires Your muscle, passion and promotional pull. If you put money in, then I know you will have a "vested interest" in the future of this project. If i didn't charge a production fee, then artists invariably say "thanks for the freebie" and don't do ANYTHING to help the project.

Opportunities in life are not free. You have to work HARD for them and sometimes you have to pay. I'm paying. I'm paying thousands of dollars, let alone investing an enormous amount of my time and energy in making this project come to life, as a music cd, as a coop of female artists working together to gain exposure, as a tour. Your small investment helps me kick start it. I then take over with the big punch.

If you've ever signed a record deal, you'll understand that there are expenses incurred to produce, market, promote and distribute a record. And the figures ain't pretty. Millions of dollars go into the first week's release of a major artist's record. Millions. In the first week.

Warrior Girl Music is a boutique label. It's just me... Gilli Moon, a creative, out of the box artist, producer and entrepreneur who sees the future of music as being artist driven, artist empowered, and based on mutual collaboration, helping each other to develop careers.

Your $400 can easily be justified with simply getting the exposure on the CD even as a promotional item. There are hundreds of Cd compilations that are created each year that are promoted at music conferences, trade shows, festivals, the media and industry. They cost around $400 on average and you get NOTHING back except to say "hey, I'm on a promo compilation that's getting heard." Females On Fire offers this,... AND MORE. You should read the distirbution page because it details where we have been distributing the first CD already, and who's playing the album (that we know of).

I'm doing much, much more. I'm releasing this CD officially through Warrior Girl Music with national distribution, advertising, media promotion and PR, and hopefully a tour. It all costs $$ and i'm putting that in. I personally can't share a budget of any kind (I'm not sure if Sony would do the same either), but I am being very candid with the chosen artists from day 1 as to everything i'm doing. I keep them informed on a weekly basis. The artists also have the opportunity to become "mini distributors" so to speak. They can sell the Cds at 100% of the profit to them (unheard of in the major record company industry) and can buy more CDs from me at cost/wholesale price, thereby getting revenue from record 1 (also unheard of).

It's also non-exclusive. You can still release your music as you want. But if you don't, for a small cost, plus alot of muscle behind you, you have released a song, had it mastered, promoted, and distributed. I think it's pretty awesome, if i do say so myself ;)

You become a mini distributor making money from Record One. We first give artists 20 CDs each to sell at any price and for 100% of their own profit. You can also order more at cost price ($4) to continue selling the cd. In that way, everyone becomes a mini distributor, which is quite revolutionary in this new music business marketplace. With the demise of retail stores, and the merging of giant distributors, the best way to get money from your music is when it is artist driven. 

You can attract third party opportunities directly to you and Warrior Girl Music will assist in helping that process without any fees or royalties unless you decide you want us to represent you.

You get a mastered song. Mastering one song alone can cost up to $1,000, so consider this opportunity a free, cheap, mastering job plus an amazing exposure for your music!)

You get to save thousands of dollars (see above) trying to produce and market your own CD when you can join forces with a group of same-minded women under an umbrella organization that has respect and power in the business. Strength in numbers.

You get to be part of an international compilation, tours and overall project that is already receiving a tremendous amount of buzz, and an organization that is working in your interests and already established with a great story and reputation.