Distributing my music digitally

mooshoepork

Hey. I've played fingerstyle/slap acoustic style guitar for about 6 years or so.

I have never thought of distributing my music before. I play originals and I play a few covers and things I've made (own interpretations as well as straight covers)

I've been asked by a lot of people if I'm selling my music.

I'm wondering how easy this is, or if it's worth it?

As far as I've heard, a good company is http://www.tunecore.com/

Doesn't seem to cost too much, and I can get on the iTunes store apparently.

Also, does anyone know the legality of recording and selling cover songs that aren't changed by a large amount?

Has anyone here been down this road before?

wasted pixels

Here's an extremely detailed guide to securing mechanical and digital licensing of existing music (which you will need to do if you want to sell covers).

Got a link to any of your stuff?

shotime

Take a look at CD Baby. I haven't used their service and haven't read anything about their dealings with artists, but I have bought a lot of music from the store and it seems reputable. They also will sell through iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.

I'd like to hear some of your music. Do you have a link?

cooljammer00

goddamn that's complicated.

mooshoepork

Here's some of my old stuff - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZB23SS34

Really they're just rough demos. One has singing by a friend of mine, I just threw that in because.

I'm really looking to do just finger style stuff, and sometimes an instrumental. I have a lot I also haven't actually recorded.

I'd be re-recording all of it though, due to the mistakes and things present in the demos.

What do you guys think?

exoplasm

Make sure to check out Amazon MP3, iTunes, Zune Store(?), and if you don't want to deal with any red tape there is DreamHost Files Forever which works kinda like the others, though you have to market it yourself.

Crashtard

I don't have much in the way of distribution ideas, just wanted to say that I like your music.

eric.

you should get a myspace too. if you can avoid all the teenage girls and narcissistic adults, it still has a really excellent music community and is a great way to actually get some exposure.

lordswing

i've never actually bought anything from the site, but i love the concept of sellaband if that interests you at all. basically a band puts up their music on the site, and if customers like it, they'll buy "shares" for the band, which then goes into paying for recording time. the fans can earn a small percentage of future sales, as well as get signed cds. they also get swag depending on how much they invest, with top payers getting to actually see the band record in the studio

http://www.sellaband.com/

captainviolence

I'd second CD Baby--I've heard a lot of good things about them from various smaller artists I listen to, and I think they may even help you get your stuff up on iTunes and AmazonMP3.

mooshoepork

Crashtard wrote: »

I don't have much in the way of distribution ideas, just wanted to say that I like your music.

Thank you. That actually means a lot. I mean, I have people tell me they like it, and a fair few subscribers on youtube and hits (bout 100k all up I think), but I wasn't sure if it's sellable.

Thank you for all the suggestions. I'll definitely check out CDbaby.

mooshoepork

CDbaby actually looks a lot better than tunecore.

No yearly fee, just a 9% charge.

Their cover song legality page confuses me. It's for America anyway, will I need to follow steps for each country I distribute in?

Any Australian's know who I should be talking to here? AMCOS it seems like, but they won't return my emails. I might give them a call.

Crashtard

You might try soundclick.com. I used them in the past to upload music through, and you can choose to have you songs pay to download if you want. You can check out my page at http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=562717, although there's only one finished song on there (pleasant memories). The rest of it is just screwing around stuff.

mooshoepork

I do have a purevolume which I use for fun. I'd really like to get some stuff on iTunes though, it's just finding the rights to some songs is going to be an ordeal. (Finger style type ones) that don't even show up on searches.

Crashtard

Yeah, I can definitely see that being a problem. If you have enough original material you might be better going in that direction.

mooshoepork

I can make enough, but I'd like to at least have a few covers.

Getting onto AMCOS is proving quite difficult.

I might have to go in and see them.

Nappuccino

Covers are a great way to get people intersted in your music. Sad to say people don't like hearing music they haven't heard before

cooljammer00

Nappuccino wrote: »

Covers are a great way to get people intersted in your music. Sad to say people don't like hearing music they haven't heard before

You ever see Once? "Why don't you play that song during the day?"
"People wanna hear songs they know."

mooshoepork

How do I go about getting people to listen to my music? This hasn't really been a problem before due to my ...fair subscriber base on youtube.

Jimmy King

shotime wrote: »

Take a look at CD Baby. I haven't used their service and haven't read anything about their dealings with artists, but I have bought a lot of music from the store and it seems reputable. They also will sell through iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.

I'd like to hear some of your music. Do you have a link?

I know some people in bands that sell their albums through cd baby and I haven't heard any complaints, so they're probably at least reliable and you get your money if nothing else.

meeker

I am not sure, but I wanted to post this here. I wonder if there are differences in recording a cover song for profit vs. giving one away for free. Basically, make an album of original material and give away free covers on your web sites. No profit for the cover means no royalty to split.

Again, this is just an idea for you to look into. Maybe find a music lawyer or a small label who would be willing to handle the details for you.

McViking

My band does all of our digital distribution through CDBaby: Shameless Plug

They'll post your stuff to iTunes, Napster, Amazon, and a bunch of other sites, keep track of the downloads and purchases, and cut you a check when you sell above a certain threshold. They'll also sell physical media (CDs) for you if you want. I'm quite happy with them.

One thing to remember about digital distribution is that you need to have a single distributor (like CDBaby or similar). If you try to go through multiple distributors and they both try to list you on (for example) iTunes, then the listings collide. the store can't know which distributor they're supposed to pay when somebody buys your song, and they'll likely de-list it until it gets sorted out. So find a distributor you like, make sure their terms let you dump them at any time, make sure that you retain all rights to your work, and work with that single distributor.

Oh, and about covers -- they're great to play live, as long as the venue has paid their ASCAP dues. (If not, the venue can get fined -- I've seen it happen.) They're a pain in the ass to try to sell, because it's not your work, and you're going to owe royalties to somebody. As I recall, CDBaby makes you digitally sign something that says the work is either yours, or that you've received written permission to record and sell it.

Finally: join BMI, and register your original songs. On the off-chance that somebody finds your song and wants to use it in an orange juice commercial, you want them to be able to find you and pay you the millions of dollars that is your due.

EggyToast

For your first thing, I strongly suggest you skip covers. Especially if you're doing this entirely solo. If you're looking at getting signed with a small record label, then you could talk to them about including a couple cover songs, but then you would let them handle it.

Doing it on your own would be stupid because to get a license to perform the work and make money off of it (aka have it on a CD or iTunes) would require you to pay a fee and a percentage of the revenue. Advantage is that since it would be on iTunes it's tracked per-song. Disadvantage is that you're doing this for fun, not for money, and probably don't want to deal with legal contracts and revenue sharing just to get, say, "Brown eyed girl" on your digital album.

Tunecore and CDBaby are the way to go for getting your tunes into an online distributor.

For promotion, unless you want to get involved in the community at Myspace, it's probably better if you record yourself playing a song as a demo, and put the video up on Youtube. Youtube has become a better promotional venue for new musicians, it seems, especially since you can easily show live shows or home recordings. People also are free to watch youtube videos without having an account, and "fans" can distribute or embed the video on forums (ahem).

But yeah. Skip the covers for now.

mooshoepork

Good points. I'll probably skip the covers for now. It'd end up being too much of a financial outlay I think.

Now I just need to find the time to record all this music I've written down/in my head!