LOGOS bookstore in Dallas, Tx has begun selling WHITE FLAG, one week early and all you-know-what will now break lose. 

Maybe.

Let me explain why.

First of all, I’m not angry with LOGOS unless they sold the CD early on purpose to get a jump on competition.  That’s not fair.  But I doubt that’s what happened.  Sometimes stores, even huge chains, make mistakes, read a release date incorrectly, get confused, and put a disc on shelves before it’s time.  Mistakes happen to us all.  Easily forgiven.

But this is a bad thing, regardless of why it happened, for a few reasons – none of which are all that life and death for sure.

Street Week (the week a CD released officially) is a major opportunity for momentum to be built with retailer, media, touring and radio.  In Dallas, for instance, where my single Bless the Lord is not being played, it would be helpful perhaps to be able to report to the local station that WHITE FLAG was in the top 5 best selling CDs in the city on street week.  They might consider the single just based on the size of my audience in their station’s range.  They should anyway.  Or if a retailer down the street isn’t carrying my CD they might stock up if our sales on street week were greater than they expected.  And total nationwide sales often make great press releases that excite potential promoters and media and create buzz that generates shows, sales, coverage and, hopefully, more chances to infect brains with the messages in the music.  That’s the hope anyway.

But selling a week early means those sales at LOGOs will not count as street week sales.  And they’ll be missed since they supposedly sold tons by setting up shop at a massive Christian festival in Dallas hosted by the largest station in town.  That’s a lot of sales that will never be tallied.

But that’s not all.  What about the person who pre-ordered WHITE FLAG weeks ago? 600+ pre-orders have been taken just at my shows in the last month or so.  These pre-ordered because it was only $5 to do so at a show and $9 on-line and because they thought they’d be some of the first people to get the CD – on July 12.

And what about LOGOS’ competition?  If I owned a store in Dallas that was playing by the rules and released when asked to on July 12th I’d be a little upset with LOGOS right now.  id’ be really upset if the record they jumped the gun on turned out to be a charting record – in the top ten even.  I’d wonder how many more sales I would have had if people had to choose between my store and LOGOS on July 12th.  I’d also wonder about LOGO’s motivations for thwarting the street date restrictions – are clueless or greedy?  I’d wonder.

The businessman side of me would wonder – fairly or not.  And the business side of me today isn’t real pleased that this happened but the preacher side of me, the nice guy side of me, doesn’t really mind.  Most of me really doesn’t care how somebody gets my music or when, as long as it’s legal, as long as the words and meaning on that round chunk of silicon go beyond the ears to the heart and mind of the listener.  That’s what really matters.  So really all that’s happened is some people in one city got to smile, cry, be challenged or encouraged (or disappointed and confused) seven days before everyone else.  Not the end of the world.

So if you work for my label please give LOGOS a break.  If you own a store in their area don’t beat them up too badly.