To polish or not to polish

Hi guys,

Just wanted to know whether it is better to upload a highly polished/mastered track or will a well mixed track suffice? Does the client normally do the post processing after they've purchased the track? Do they mainly take bits and pieces from our tracks?

I ask this because i'm contemplating hiring a producer to polish up a piece i'm working on.

Any advice much appreciated.

Most of the time its best to assume that the client is expecting a finished product. I mix to the best of my abilities and self master(or send to someone else to master) with all the music i submit to libraries. Usually production quality and composition skills are what make or break a sale(in my experience anyway)

thanks for the advice man!

yup, i too doubt buyers have time/or fell like/or have knowledge to do any further polishing.
as any buyer of any product, you expect a finished one.
if you can afford to take them to a professional to further polish them, do it, but frankly
the costs might not be covered by the future sales. it can be pretty expensive.
"Do they mainly take bits and pieces from our tracks?" - ? you mean if they make edits so as
to use only certain parts? i doubt this also. you should make the edits yourself (loops you
can extract from the full length, intros, outros) and post them as separate entries (separate upload files)
and name them appropriately as to resemble in name with the original file from which they originate (edits do sell too, not just the full lengths).

in the beginning i was paying someone to do my mixing and mastering. it sounded better, of course,
but the cost i think was higher than the profits those clips made in time... but ideally yes, if you
can't or don't want to handle it, pay a professional, results are better.

thanks LivingroomClassics, very helpful advice!
i think i might explore the 'edits' route as well.