After being busy until mid-May, "The Key of Solomon" was finally recorded, and the later period was over. At most, the final mastering can be completed in two or three days.

The progress of "Amara" is a little slower, but there is only a little finishing work left, which can definitely be done within two weeks.

The promotional preheat for the two albums has begun since the end of the Grammy, but the large-scale promotion has not yet begun.

After several meetings and discussions, Mad Records adjusted the time for the two albums to be released according to the production progress.

"The Key of Solomon" was released on the first weekend of June, while "Amara" was delayed for nearly a month, and was placed on July 4th, which happened to be the Independence Day holiday and the first weekend of July.

Records are not movies, Independence Day, Memorial Day and so on, so-called "golden periods", unless they are certain types of records that adopt special strategies in publicity.

Choosing this time is just the right weekend, that's all.

According to the current work progress of Diego's team, the mastering can be completed around the beginning of June.

The record recording factory in South America has also agreed that millions of CD records can be processed within two weeks and shipped to the dock in San Francisco.

Since the band will embark on a tour journey in August, the release of "Amara" is naturally the sooner the better. It is absolutely impossible to delay it until after August, otherwise the band will not be able to help much in publicity.

Considering possible unexpected situations, it is more than enough to reserve half a month of buffering time.

"This time we still adopt a conservative publicity strategy, mainly targeting young people aged 15 to 25, especially male fans."

The deputy director of the publicity department of mad record emphasized the strategy of distribution and publicity.

Overall, the focus of the publicity is still on the group of teenage males who have the highest acceptance of rock music, followed by girls of similar age.

For groups outside the age of 15 to 25, the publicity efforts must be reduced a lot.

As we all know, teenagers of this age have a much higher acceptance of rock music than those over 40 years old, and the same is true for consumption.

Most students may not have much money in their pockets, but when they decide to buy an album, they don’t think too much about whether it’s worth it, and they just say “I like it very much, I want to buy it back.”

A rock music fan in his thirties and forties may have the urge to buy an album he likes, but he will think about it more.

Exceptions are always present, but in general, this is true.

Therefore, whether it is music or movies, or any product related to the entertainment industry, the focus of publicity targets is among young people under the age of 25, or at least under the age of 30.

After emphasizing, the deputy director continued: "This time, we reached an agreement with ffr Records. [Flash] The band's new album "Jesus Fan ()" will reach a promotional cooperation with "The Key of Solomon" and "Amara", but it will still focus on their own publicity and will only mention the other party's works in the part involving religious content."

ffr Records is the signing party of the band [Flash], a small record company that is not even a second-tier company. It is probably similar to the Mad Records when they were just acquired by three bands, or it is slightly better than that, but it is limited in strength.

“The key to promoting Solomon’s Key, the Rock Bible series is our most important plan for the next few years.”

Roger thought for a while and continued: "In terms of resources, try to tilt towards "The Key of Solomon", especially in terms of distribution volume. I hope that every small town in North America with record stores can buy this album."

Unlike the other side of the Pacific, although North America also divides regions by states and cities, people actually use towns as units in their lives.

To a certain extent, towns in North America are the "administrative districts" of the smallest unit and can be regarded as a community.

The difference is that in people's lives, the dividing line between towns is still very obvious.

People always say "our town xx" and not "our New York".

For example, in Manhattan, New York, the Upper East Side is a separate town, the Upper West Side is also the same. The same is true for the Midtown and Lower Towns.

For example, Los Angeles is divided into hundreds of small towns, such as Malibu where Roger lives, which is both a wealthy area in Los Angeles and an independent town.

Of course, this "small" town has a slightly larger area and population, but it is essentially a small town.

"We have reached a floating agreement with 131 dealers, and the first batch of CDs will be sold at least 16,000 offline retail stores."

The deputy director of the Propaganda Department paused, lowered his head and flipped through the documents in his hand, and continued: "Based on the sales results of the first weekend, this number can be increased to up to 19,000 stores. But if the sales volume does not meet expectations, it may also be reduced."

There are 16,000 stores, and this number is already quite amazing.

There are about 20,000 towns in North America (the exact number is 19,355). If you remove super-small towns with a population of less than 1,000, it is almost equivalent to an average of at least one store in each town for sale "The Key of Solomon".

Of course, this does not mean that this album can be bought in every town. For example, in those towns with a large population, the number of record stores and distribution density will be higher.

For example, in Malibu, there are eleven audio and video stores, all of which are sold in "The Key of Solomon".

Many towns with a small population do not even have a record store, especially in the central region where populations tend to be aging.

No matter what, 16,000 offline stores are enough to make people feel satisfied.

Although online shopping is now very convenient, people are still accustomed to selecting goods in physical stores.

Just like digital records replacing physical records, online shopping replaces physical shopping, the road required to take longer, and at least there will be no obvious changes within ten years.

How many offline stores sell an album, the impact on album sales is very obvious.

No matter how good an album is, if there is no store to sell it, how can the sales be higher?

Even if the promotion is spent heavily and fans know that this album is not available in the store near their homes. There is a high probability that they will not go to another town to buy it for one album, unless they are a loyal fan of a band.

If this happens, it naturally means that the potential sales are reduced, which is not a pleasant thing for record companies, singers and bands.

As channel dealers who have mastered offline stores, when they decide on the purchase volume and distribution rate of an album, the factors they consider are often simpler, depending on whether they are optimistic about the album.

This is a very subjective judgment, but data can be used as support.

For example, a band's albums have been selling well in the past, and the style of the new album has not changed too suddenly. Most channel dealers will continue to be optimistic about the album's sales and will choose more purchases and distribution rates.

If the data in the past is not good, or newcomers who do not have data as a basis for judgment, channel dealers often adopt conservative strategies.

There is no need to worry about "Amara". With the fame of Roger and the historical achievements of each album, the channel dealers are not idiots, and they will not make money without making money.

"The Key of Solomon" contains the names of ten bands that are completely unfamiliar in this world, but they have the name of "Rock Bible". Although they are a little worse than the treatment received by "Amara", the gap is not obvious.

The two previous series of Rock Bibles have achieved remarkable results.

For the brand "Rock Bible", it has already established a certain appeal.

In addition, mad record endorsed the Rock Bible series with considerable discounts. Channel dealers are not stupid, so of course they have to make money.

The conditions for channel dealers to offer are very simple. Get the goods first, sell them before paying. If they cannot sell them, they can refund them all, and the channel dealers only need to bear the freight themselves.

Compared with the 30% advance payment of the "Amara" album and the contract that does not accept returns, the conditions for "The Key of Solomon" are obviously much looser.

There are 16,000 offline stores and the first batch of 2 million CDs. This number is very telling.

"At present, the main promotional content is advertising through major channels. In addition, the company plans to release a song on the Rock Bible website for free online listening."

The deputy director of the publicity department continued to explain the company's publicity plan and said: "In terms of free trial songs, we think "God Never Be With You" or "Dream()" would be a good choice."

These two songs, from the perspective of song quality and from the perspective of popularity, are both singles in the second-tier of the album "The Key of Solomon", second only to several core singles.

Generally speaking, if there are enough high-quality songs in an album, then the best will not be brought out during the free publicity stage so that more fans can spend dollars on several core singles with better quality when the album is released.

On the contrary, if there are only one or two good songs in an album and the rest are b-side singles that make up the numbers, then in the free stage, the best ones will be directly given to the fans the impression that "the album is of good quality."

Of course, the so-called good songs and bad songs here are distinguished from popular perspectives.

After all, the market only cares whether it meets the public taste, and does not care about how high-end notes your song uses in the arrangement and how awesome the playing skills are.

Judging from the quality of the album "The Key of Solomon", from which perspective, ten songs are good songs of high quality, and it is obviously more suitable to adopt the first model.

""You've never been with you"?"

Roger frowned and objected: "I don't think this song is suitable."

The expression of the deputy director of the publicity department did not change at all, and he didn't even ask for reasons. He directly asked Roger about his thoughts: "So which song do you think is more suitable?"

"Hell Speed()."

Roger spoke without hesitation.

In terms of popularity and popularity alone, this song is undoubtedly the most valuable single in "The Key of Solomon".

At least in North America, neither the Key to Solomon or the Amara, there is no more popular album than it.

In Roger's previous life, in the entire Western world, there was almost no one who could not sing "Hell Speed". Whether it was a rock music fan or not, an old man and a lady in his seventies or eighties, or a child in his fifteens and sixteens would hum a few words "i'm.on.the.!"

The popularity of this song is, at least in English, several times more exaggerated than "we."

After "Iron Man 2" used this song as the soundtrack, on the Internet of Undescribable Kingdoms, Robert Downey Jr. made the song "Hell Speed" popular, which is simply funny.

“Hell Speed?”

The deputy director of the Propaganda Department frowned and questioned: "Will this song be a loss if it's free?"

This kind of doubt is purely a matter of fact and does not involve any personal feelings.

The entire album has been recorded. Although the later episodes of "Sleeping (a)" have not been completed, the quality of each song is obvious.

Inside mad records, it is recognized that "Hell Speed" will be the most popular single on the album "Solomon's Key", and it is impossible to have one of the most popular singles.

In terms of popularity and singing alone, there will be no song in "The Key of Solomon" that can compare to it.

Of course, from the perspective of rock music value songs, lyrics depth, artistic and technical, that's another matter.

However, as a commercial company, Mad Records still attaches great importance to the market, so other things can be discussed for the time being.

If the songs with the most popular potential are promoted for free, even if they are just on the Internet, this will have some impact on the album.

No one can make a conclusion on whether the impact is good or bad, but since there is a safe plan, generally speaking, no one is willing to risk the album sales to make this decision.

"Even if "Hell Speed" is posted on the website and fans can listen to it for free, it will not have a big impact on the sales of the album. We can afford this loss."

This effect may be good or bad.

Someone may buy this album because of this song, or someone may choose not to pay to buy the album because they can hear it for free. No one knows which one has more people.

But even from a bad point of view, Roger doesn't care about this decline in sales.

Roger shook his head and continued, "In the series "Rock Bible", we want fame and some impact on sales, which I can accept, but I want more people to hear this song and know it comes from "Rock Bible".

Since the band itself is one of the bosses of mad records, it is obviously the band that takes the dominance between the band and the company.

Roger gave a reasonable reason. Regardless of whether this reason is convincing enough, as long as there are, few people will disobey their boss's intentions.
Chapter completed!