It is out there.

I had a question, and please don't see this as any kind of attack, as it pertains to the most frustrating of situations for score lovers when they know the release date for an album such as yours and go to a nearby store to get it- only to find the store doesn't carry the item or will get later than sooner.

You see, I've never understood why a store doesn't carry it on the day their website says they will. The poorest excuse I've heard for this was from a Best Buy store, the only one of theirs I've encountered where the say the website is the website and the store is the store. Of course, that's just bad customer service, and on a particular item like yours, it hurts business for you and for a store like that, I'm sure. I understand it's a matter of demand; and that scores don't sell as well as, say, the latest Ludacris release or Britney Spears (a sad fact that a love of scores is punished by a societal and monetary directive- but I digress...). Still, I'd have to ask the stores wh, if I'm customer that wants this item and would like to buy it at their store why I don't constitute as enough of a demand if they want to keep my business?

My question, despite my novelization way of asking it, is what it is the process that a record company like yours has to go through to get your items in stock at stores? Online stocking is a process I understand better; I'm more curious as to in-store purchase possibilities such as Tower, and the others you mentioned.

I do apologize for the lack of brevity.

Small labels face huge risk if they over-press an initial manufacturing run. No one knows how well a unit will sell until it's out there for the taking. If more people want it than have been manufactured, it won't be found everywhere immediately. It will eventually make it, as the label realizes the first manufacturing run did much better than antipated.

Not even on the same scale of units sold, but close to the same theory, this is why "Children of Dune" was so hard to get for a while.

But in the end, you have to look at numbers. Score album sales are puny. If LLL printed 2,000 copies initially of Texas Chainsaw Massacre score, it would be impossible to get just one copy in each of the stores that make up the Wal-Mart chain, as there are more than 2,000 Wal-Marts on the planet. Take this thinking further and deeper, and you begin to understand just how many copies of one title must exist just to get it in every store (or even half of them!) that sells CDs. It would be a number far far greater than that title will ever sell, typically speaking.

Also, one more reason why a place like your local Best Buy doesn't have a score album like TCM is due to inventory.

EXAMPLE: They feel that 1 TCM soundtrack may or may not sell in Tulsa, OK. However, the new Madonna album will, so they would rather one extra copy of the material girl than one copy of ol' Leatherface taking up space on their shelves.

By having an online store it is easier for them to buy a few here and a few there from the distributor when they get online orders, then it is to keep a copy or two in the stores with the possiblity of them just sitting there. However, when you have something like a TCM thoughts start to differ and store orders are placed. . .a few weeks after the fact.

This is a new age where net shopping is slowly replacing the way the retail market is. Hell, I probably do half of my purchases online. That's why it's wonderful to have stores like Moviemusic that cater to our soundtrack needs. If you can't find it at your local Best Buy, come here!

Hopefully that answers some questions.

MV Gerhard