The story of the record the shops didn’t want.

Laura Kidd
3 min readFeb 11, 2023

The story of the record the shops didn’t want.

On Wednesday I received the news from my distributor that they only need 150 copies of my new album “One In A Thousand” on vinyl and 200 copies on CD to go into record shops.

Because as a super indie label (releasing just my music projects) we’ve chosen (couldn’t afford) not to pay (waste?!) upwards of £10,000 on PR and radio plugging to try and get glowing reviews and quotes (that don’t sell records), most shops are unwilling to take the risk — even on sale or return.

They don’t have the space, they don’t know (or care) who we are, and it doesn’t matter how good (we think) our album is. (It’s excellent, by the way…)

I get it. It’s tough times for everyone — and I’m thankful for the shops who have decided to take a chance on us.

Unfortunately, I was asked to print 500 copies on an exclusive colour just for record shops… so I had a decision to make:

- cross fingers they might change their mind and want to stock more copies (um)

OR

- add the snow white vinyl to my own shop and make it available directly to you.

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Laura Kidd

Mindful productivity, digital minimalism, creativity and music. Solo artist Penfriend, “Attention Engineer” podcast host. She/her.