Hollie Steel’s Single Available to Pre-order Now!
November 20th, 2009 | 
Author: 
Hollie’s debut single, “Where are you Christmas?” is now available to pre-order at HMV. Yay!
I have just ordered my copy online now and it was a simple process. The single costs £1.99 and delivery is free in the UK. Shipping to Europe is £2.50 and the Rest Of The World £4.50.
Remember, Dave D’Mello says buy no more than 5, and sales from outside the UK do not count towards the charts, so if possible get a friend from the UK (if you have one) to get your copy for you.
To know the cost in your local currency, you can do a currency conversion at XE.com.
Tags: 
Yaaaaaaay
Coooooool
Hollie’s dream coming true. Well done, Hollie! We are all looking forward to receiving your very first CD.
Just ordered my copy from HMV,
can’t wait to recive and hear Hollie’s Single.
Just ordered 5 copies from HMV. And it’s indeed a simple process.
Hey, hope it’s available in Hong Kong HMVs wt’s the HK price of £4.50?
£1.99 for the single plus £4.50 postage is £6.49, which is approximately 82.95 HKD.
Thanks Mandy!
I’m a new Hollie’s fan(Belgian)
Just ordered 5 copies from HMV.Thanks Mandy for your website.
Welcome to the site José and thanks for buying Hollie’s single. Do you know Léopold?
Of course José knows me! (Same street). He didn’t know who was Hollie Steel and now the whole family finds Hollie is fantastic. And now a stupid question: of course pre-orders from outside the UK do not count towards the charts but does it help to have 6000 pre-orders?
I think if we order some from home and some over friends we know, we help to make the CD attraktive. We will observe how the HMV machine computer works, when Hollies CD come in top 100 top 40 Top 10 top 1.
And observe the British UK people, if they order it.
The Preorder time goes till 7th December??
Some fans used the HMV TEST to pre-order.(£3.49)(Me and…??)
I cancelled my order and received from HVM:
“Your order has been cancelled, no goods will be sent to you.”
And then I ordered 5 copies from HMV.(£1.99)
If you pre-ordered 1(£3.49), you can cancell your order and order 2 for £0.49 more.
On the site it says that HMV have a price promise:
So, it’s a winner either way
Dear Fans
Hollie would like to ask you all a hugh favour. She needs 6,000 UK pre orders, i did a few calculations, if just 60 fans asked 100 of their friends or family to buy the single,then weve done it. If overseas fans ask UK friends or family to order for you, these figures will also be counted in the charts. The press have very high expectations of Hollie, expecting her to try for a chrismas No 1. The track certainley is good enough to achieve this, but we havent got thousands of pounds for promotion. we need all your help to make this happen. Unfortunatley having a beautiful voice isnt enough to get Hollie into the charts. We Hollies family are trying everything we can think of to ensure Hollie doesnt feel she’s failed in this exciting venture. Thankyou for listening
Nina x
I’m having a hard time ordering the cd with HMV. As soon as a go to # 2. order summary, I can’t get to # 3. payment, maybe because I live in USA. I guess I’ll have to order from amazon.com and or itunes, as soon as it becomes available. I will try my other option, to contact my aunt or cousins in London UK. I would have to send them a total payment including shipping costs to western union. I’ll do my best. I plan to buy 2, one of them would be a christmas gift.
The US is one of the countries that HMV ship to – perhaps you could email the customer services about your problem ordering and get them to sort it out. Has anyone else from the US been unable to order? Good, cheaper and safe ways to transfer money across country borders include electronic payment services such as Paypal (paypal.com) and Moneybookers (moneybookers.com).
I found this article in the Ditto music home page. It appears to answer a lot of questions regarding the pre-release of music in the UK.
How to get your music into the charts
Part 1: Sales , cheating and what not to do
Hey guys, i am going to do a videg blog answering any specific questions you have on this, so drop me an email at lee@dittomusic.com and ill do my best to answer everything for you.
One of the questions that artists ask us on a daily basis is ‘how many sales do I need to crack the UK top 40?
When we released Koopas ‘Blag Steal and Borrow’ in 2007, they sold just over 4000 and made it to number 31. Since then there has been many reports of the death of the CD single, when in fact they are actually selling more now than ever before, well on paper anyway!
Up until January 2007 chart eligibility was still governed by physical release dates and you HAD to have a physical release within the last 12 months.
From January 2007 though ALL downloads were eligible for the UK top 40, whether released today or 25 years ago. This meant songs like ‘In the Air Tonight’ by Phil Collins on the back of a TV advert surged back into the top 20, 26 years after its release and purely on downloads
This week 1/02/09 you would need 6291 to break into the UK top 40, that’s not definitive of the whole year though. When releasing your single always consider seasonal peaks and monthly trends.
Festival season means higher music consumption. If Bruce Springsteen headlines Glastonbury this year you can bet your life that ‘Born To Run’ will be shooting back into the top 75 following its television coverage
So releasing your single on Reading or Glastonbury weekends is a big no if you are looking for a chart placing.
Generally the second week of January is still the quietest sales period of the year.
On average you would need
Top 10 – 18,000
Top 20 – 8, 000
Top 30 – 5,000
Top 40 – 4,000
Top 100 – 1500
Top 200 – 750
Another question we are asked is how many formats are chart eligible as well as length and numbers of tracks etc, here are the official chart rules on the matter.
1) It must be available on one or more eligible formats, these can be CD, DVD, Vinyl, Digital download, Mini Disc , digital memory service, and Flexi Disc.
You may notice that videos are not mentioned here, well they can be made chart eligible, to find out more email me on lee@dittomusic.com and I’ll let you know how.
2) All formats must contain the featured track or a version / remix of it
3) Only Three formats can be included in a singles sales. Sales of any additional formats are disregarded when calculating the chart position.
4) The single must meet the minimum dealer price, i.e. you cannot sell your download at 29 pence as it would not meet the minimum dealer price and would not be eligible for the charts.
5) Each format must have no more than four different tracks on it though each song may appear in any number of different versions.
6) The maximum running time for any format is 25 minutes if more than one different song is featured, or 40 minutes if only one song is featured in multiple versions/ mixes
7) The Mini CD is now chart eligible and was introduced to attract music buyers back into the CD buying market. It can have a running time of 8-10 minutes and contain no more than 2 tracks.
Pre release
Pre release a few years ago would mean someone going into a record shop, making an order for your CD before release date, paying for it, and then picking it up once it’s officially released.
Well that is how it works digitally. You can release a single in 3 months time and people can pre order it for the duration of that period. This means they pay for the music now but cannot download it until release day.
Then, on your release date fans can download the music and all sales from the last three months count towards your first week of sales. With our help Koopa had 3 UK top 40 singles; their third single “The Crash” sold 8,800 copies in two months taking it to number 16 on first week of release.
Lastly, we are asked how many copies an individual person can purchase.
Well, the short answer is Three.
Each person can purchase the track three times. If you have ten different credit cards don’t start imagining buying three off each, they won’t count!
Whoever’s name comes up on the credit card, they will be allowed to buy the track three times, any more than that and it will not count and could end up with disqualification.
The charts company has the right to look into any suspicious activities. If you have sold 1000 copies from the same IP address then it will flag in their system and they will look into it.
Each person can however buy separate versions. If you had 10 remixes then each person could buy each of these three times. Your sales patterns need to add up though. If you have one hundred people buying 10 versions three times and that amounts to all of your sales, it’s going to flag up as there is obvious foul play at large!
So make it available on as many versions as possible and be creative. We can help you with your bundling and make things like videos chart eligible
SMS purchasing is a great way of building up sales during pre release periods.
Since January 2008 ALL sales purchased from mobile phones during pre release periods have to be redeemed. So if you manage to get 100 people to purchase your track at a gig straight from their mobile, make sure you have their details.
Ditto music are the only company who offer the pre release service , if you have any questions regarding your release then feel free to email us or give one of us a bell in the office.
Koopa sales figures
Blag Steal and Borrow 4001 units Chart placement #31
One off song for the summer 5043units Chart placement #21
The Crash 8470 unites Chart placement #16
This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 3:55 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Hi hollie it is Becky ,
are you ok.
love your couisin
Becky x
(see you soon!)