I get asked by local bands all the time, “So how do I get Amoeba to sell my CD?” Often, when I explain the process to them, I see their little eyes glaze over and I can imagine my voice turns into voice of the teacher from the Peanuts cartoon (whaa whaa whaa whaaaaaaa…). Truth is, with many musicians, if the process is not instantaneous, it is not worth it, and that’s a shame. Getting a release sold at Amoeba is a pretty easy process. I wrote something on one of my first blogs that Amoeba is the great equalizer; It’s a place where a Ska-Punk group from South Gate could outsell some big name pop star with thousands of dollars of promotion behind them. All you have to do is take that chance.

There are two ways we get CDs from local artists. The first is on consignment. Consignment means that we take anywhere from one to a few copies of your release and give it a three month trial. We do not pay up front. We issue a contract that stipulates that after the term is done, we pay you for what we sold and return the copies that haven’t sold. If all the CDs that we consign are sold before the term, we will call you before the term is up and pay you for what we sold and order more. It’s a way to take a chance on a group that maybe is not as known.

The second is usually for known artists. We call it OTC, short for “over the counter.” These are artists that have an established sales history or have a tremendous buzz and that our buyers know will sell, so we buy their products direct. Artists such as Matisyahu and Zoe sold their independent releases direct to the store before they were signed. Amoeba has done well in the past with international artists such as Inspector, Celso Pina, Ceci Bastida, Bocafloja, Troker, Tita Lima, Ricardo Lemvo and the artists on the ZZK label out of Argentina, all which have come into the store while on tour to sell their releases direct.