Prosthetic

Hi,
Thanks for all the interest in the new Junius EP. Just came across this thread and wanted to respond to a few things, if only to show that we appreciate the feedback:
 
--We had no control over the shipping rates that Indie Merch charged. In fact, as of this week we have closed our Indie Merch webshop and opened a new one with shipping rates that will hopefully be more agreeable. (I believe $5 will be our standard price for a shipping an LP domestically, which covers the USPS media mail rate for 2 lbs., tracking, the shipping materials, etc.) 
--We have a European webshop (http://www.backstreet-merch.com/stores/prostheticrecords/), but apparently they're only offering the black LP variant. Not sure why. In theory, though, European fans would pay lower shipping rates by ordering through the European webshop, as that's the primary reason we launched it.
--Just as we did last time around, we worked with the band and their former label to come up with some cool variants, as we know that some people like to order directly from the band, and we also respect that Mylene was serving their fans before we were. Hopefully everyone will be happy with whatever version they end up with.
 
The colored vinyl will finally be in hand tomorrow, so please stay tuned for pictures of the non-black variants. Thanks again for ordering, regardless of your vendor of choice!

Prosthetic USA

Hi,
Thanks for all the interest. Our e-commerce partners did indeed jump the gun today while setting up the back end, so apologies for the false start. A new song will premiere tomorrow (Tuesday) at 6 p.m. EST; the real pre-order should go live shortly after. 

We are not doing any runs of less than 300 pcs this time around. And there's a chance the specs for the 7" box set might change slightly between now and the time the pre-order goes live, so please make sure to re-read the descriptions of everything before you decide which version(s) you'd like.
 
Until tomorrow!

Prosthetic
P.S. Mameesh -- that's gotta be the funniest gif ever.

Hi,

I know most people's opinions of record labels aren't far removed their feelings on politicians, but here goes nothing: I came across this forum yesterday during a Google search for something random. Out of curiosity, I then decided to search for "Prosthetic" to see if there were any comments about our vinyl efforts -- either reassurance that we're on the right track, or complaints that we might be able to learn from. 

I'm relieved to see that the good seems to outweigh the bad. We know that vinyl fans are particularly passionate, and even though it's a difficult and expensive format, we try our best to make something that our bands' fans will enjoy. We know we don't always succeed -- sometimes, jackets turn out too flimsy, colors don't end up like we hoped, or the production costs (as with our Animals As Leaders 3D experiment) push the price higher than we'd like -- but we try to learn from those situations so we don't repeat them later.
 
A common complaint seems to involve shipping costs. We've made a few webshop changes over the last year or so -- we used to handle all order fulfillment ourselves, but now we have a shop through Indie Merch, so we don't have as much control over these costs as we used to, but please know that we're not happy with USPS rates either. Unfortunately, postage is based on weight, and vinyl packages can get heavy fast -- and if orders include shirts or hoodies too, media mail is no longer an option. International rates are another topic entirely. Long story short, please know that we've spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to get postage rates as accurate as possible, yet we still lost a ton on the international side back when we were still shipping everything ourselves because it's such a difficult thing to get right. 
 
Also on the price front, we make every effort to keep vinyl production costs down without sacrificing too much in quality so that we can charge lower prices to stores (who then add their own markups), our bands (who then sell on tour or through their own webshops) and our own direct customers. While there are surely other labels who do this even better, we really are doing the best we can -- and because every vinyl release is its own adventure with its own specs and quirks, we're always learning and (hopefully) improving. Just know that there are always different factors that come into play, that the specs dictate the retail price we have to set with our distributors (which, in turn, we can't undercut substantially in our own webshop), and that more times than you'd realize, our goal with vinyl is to simply break even. 
 
If there are any specific questions about our vinyl releases or concerns you'd like us to address, please feel free to post them here. I can't promise I'll be able to answer immediately, but I'll try to check back in on a semi-regular basis. Hopefully your comments will help us better serve you in the coming months. That said, thanks for paying attention to what we're doing, and for supporting us and our bands through this format. It can be a pain in the ass considering its fragility, the unpredictable manufacturing turn times, dealing with the USPS, etc., but reading comments from people who enjoy it makes it all worthwhile.
 
Prosthetic Records
 
P.S. Later this year, we'll have new vinyl by Scale The Summit, Skeletonwitch and Ramming Speed, in addition to some planned reissues I shouldn't jinx by mentioning publicly yet.