Getting Started With Digital Music Distribution
Today, selling your music has become easier than ever, thanks to the Internet. You don’t need a PR guru or a record company to promote your music. Whether you have printed a few hundred CDs or just recorded one of your live shows, you can easily sell your work on independent CD stores or online retailers like Rhapsody, iTunes, Amazon and E-Music without the need of a record company.
Music Retailers
Founded in 2005, TuneCore is a great place to start for independent artists, as you do not have to give up your copyrights and they or share exclusive content. They offer good service at a reasonable price. It has a great flat-flee music delivery and distribution and sell your music with original cover and label music and they use stores like: iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, Sony Connect, eMusic, MusicNet, and more. Great news: they are not taking money from your sales!
CD Baby was founded in 1997, under the name of Hit Media. CD Baby allows artists to set their price for the compact discs. CD Baby is a great distributor for your work. They have a nice digital program witch permit you to send your CD for free for the catalogue. They take 9 percent from the sales and $35 for the album. They release you a barcode for $20 witch implies your sale will count towards a chart position if you make enough sales.
TuneCore vs. CD Baby
There is no need for CD’s on TuneCore! You are lucky because it is enough to upload your tunes to the website. You have to pay $19.98 for album and $.99 per track.
The cost for 10 track album (released to all the stores):
- 13 stores for: $12.87
- 10 tracks for: $9.90
- annual fee: $19.98
- All the profit is completely yours!
You have to pay an annual fee, TuneCore is cheaper than CD Baby, where there is no annual fee, but they take some percent from your sales. So choose the best for you, fit the advantages for you or promote your music on both sides.
Repay Your Fans
On the internet there is always something new to show up. Popcuts is a new site that allows you to sell your music and give fans the chance to earn a small share of future sales on each track sold. This is great for your fans and also four you. The coolest thing is that every time you sell, your fans get also payed. When your tunes will become hits, your fans will be happier, they will also win more. Like this everybody wins. Even more, Popcuts have a new way to get you’re fans satisfied, they can use a personal invite link to friends on Twitter and Facebook, when somebody buy something from there will gain another 99 cents to their account. I hope you enjoy this offer for the benefit of your fans! This is cool!
You have better chances to sell more if you show your work to more distributors and… you have plenty to choose!
This article has been contributed by Aishwarya Vohra from Offshore Ally.
She is a part of the company’s virtual assistant and SEO link builder team. She has interest in a lot of things ranging from music to food to SEO. Connect with her on Twitter.