4 Ways To Handle Distribution Costs For Your First Album

Creating a great body of work is the first step towards a successful career in the music business, but getting the songs heard by countless people across the world should be the next move. It can be challenging to get your first album distributed and into the homes, cars, and playlist of music listeners, but it is not impossible. Below are some of the ways that you can handle the distribution cost for your first album, putting you even closer to a great music career.

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The Process Of Releasing Electronic Music In 6 Simple Steps

For anyone who hasn’t worked their way through my free course “Getting Started With Self Releasing Music” I’d like to simplify the process of going from having a few tracks made, right through to releasing your music and seeing it on iTunes, Spotify and everywhere else.

This process will be more suited to electronic musicians, although could feasibly apply to bands and solo artists too. This is going to be a very simplified process, but should help those who don’t know about it, understand things better.

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Tips For Launching Your First Indie Album

Today’s artist is in a whole new world when it comes to getting noticed by the record industry. Years ago, it was a matter of pounding the pavement getting the big labels to at least listen to a demo you produced and hoping that someone would like what you did enough to sign you on. Sometimes you’d get noticed in clubs and sometimes studio musicians would catch a lucky break when a big name they had the chance to work with noticed them and gave them their start.

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How To Choose The Best Digital Distributor For You

Part and parcel of getting your music out there into the world is ensuring that you can be found in all the right stores.

I say “right” because, not everybody will want full coverage in every store, and appropriateness of certain services or platforms will be down to your judgement but generally most artists will likely want to get their music onto many of the key online stores and streaming platforms like iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Shazam and so on.

There are a few ways of doing this.

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We do need curators, but we don't need gatekeepers or why you should stop using Pandora

Allegedly, Pandora now controls 3.6% of radio listening. This is an impressive figure, but, to me, a disturbing one. We’ve all spent the last few years touting how the Internet has changed music distribution and flattened the playing field so that everyone has equal access to distribution. Traditional terrestrial radio, with ever-shrinking playlists that contain almost new music certainly aren’t designed to appeal to a future audience, they are designed to grasp onto a shrinking past audience.

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10 Stupid Album Release Screw Ups

I’m filling in on bass for a band that’s gearing up to release their new CD. When filling in for a band, I try to take a back seat on the band’s business. However, I sometimes just cannot keep my big mouth shut. In this case, the guys were discussing details of their upcoming CD release, and I had to chime in. Here’s a rant based on both my experience with my former band and quite a few drunken conversations with various bands over the years.

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Question: Can there be another "CD Baby"?

Derek Sivers revolutionised the way music is distributed when he created CD Baby. Since then many others versions have popped up. Is there scope now for another CD Baby-esque venture?

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New in MTT Open: Endorsements, Internet Radio, Relationships, Money, and Virtual Tours

Simon Tam explains the approach that artists should take to get endorsements and sponsors. Artists need to create opportunities by initiating contact in a unique way. Artists need to focus on how they can provide value to the company instead of the other way around. To start, artists can contact companies with less competition such as local businesses that may be more likely to become a sponsor. 

“It’s about creating a lasting relationship where you can build an audience together with that company.” (Read On)

Internet Radio Is the Future…Duh

Charles Hill writes about his rant on recent articles that he finds obvious. 

“I run across articles with titles like “Internet Radio is the Future”. This cracks me up. Its like writing a book on the fact that the sky is blue.” (Read On)

Relationships Are The New Distribution

Greg Bates discusses one aspect of the 4 P’s of Marketing: Place. Most artists think that their distribution is taken care of by putting their music on iTunes or Bandcamp, but distribution is made up of the quality of your relationships. Artists need to build relationships with fans and reach out to other bands, businesses, etc. to collaborate on projects.

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Digital Distributor Math: Choosing the Right Distributor for Your Band

Question:
You are a musician and you want to sell your music on digital retail sites.  You are deciding between two digital distributors to deliver your new album to retailers.  The two distributors, Distributor A and Distributor B, have different payment terms and fees.

• Distributor A charges a one-time album set-up fee of $20, plus an annual “maintenance” fee of $20, and takes no percentage of your sales (Distributor A passes 100% of the sales revenue it collects on to the artist).


• Distributor B does not charge any set-up or annual maintenance fees, and takes a 10% cut of your sales revenue (you the artist keep 90%).

Assume both distributors will deliver your content to the same stores and offer identical service except for the payment terms. Which distributor do you choose?

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