I might be completely wrong, in which case this post would make little sense :-), but I have the feeling that a lot of melodic rock bands tend to still very much rely on labels to release their music.

I see very little CDs released by the artists. Most of them are with people like Frontiers, SPV or Escape.

I understand that having label support can ease certain financial difficulties in the first place. And it might also help on the promotion side.

This being said, if I take the news section of this site, there are very seldom announcements about CD released by the artists/bands and sold on cdbaby for instance.

I'd like to compare the melodic rock scene to the contemporary jazz's. A LOT of jazz artists/bands release their music independantly and sell it on the internet. These artists also suffer from low sales (in average between 2,000 and 10,000 for "names" - I am not talking Kenny G or even Boney James).

Now, I feel that the promotion offered by most labels doesn't really make a difference in terms of sales. Therefore, why wouldn't a band pay for the recording and then make a bigger margin by selling its work on the net ? I understand that not everyone has the money to fund a project in advance. But if jazz musicians can do it, why so little rock bands do it ?