My blog posts at Buzzsonic have been buried of late by my daily Twitter feed but to highlight some of my most popular posts I used a neat little service called BridgeURL, which is an insanely simple (and useful) idea to string a bunch of related posts, URLs or related research ideas together as a slideshow.
I’ve used it as an example here to showcase some of my most popular posts here at Buzzsonic.com to save readers having to wade thru pages of Twitter digests.
Phew, well now I’ve actually finished a blog post for the first time in over a year (hey I’ve been too busy over at Twitter) I thought I would ‘weld’ together my three lengthy posts on digital music distribution and put them out there as one lovely PDF!
Now take into account that I haven’t reorganized anything so you’ll be getting them in chronological order from the top. I’m going to post it at Google Docs so feel free to grab. This is just the rough’ beta mix’ as I do intend to tidy it up and reorganise very soon. Feedback please!
Grab it here: The Buzzsonic.com Ultimate Guide to Digital Music Distribution Extra!
I’ve actually been promising an update to my two earlier posts on digital music distribution for waaay too long now, so apologies to all for the horrible delay (April 2009? What the..). Anyway. In case you missed them…
Part 1: ‘Exploring The Digital Music Distribution Jungle’ April 2009
Part 2: ”Digital Music Distribution Round-up Part 2′ April 2009
There were seventeen companies mentioned in Pt.1 and thirteen in Pt.2. Out of them, the only change to report from part one is that Australian based Musicadium has been rolled into Valleyarm.
In part two, WaTunes dropped their bespoke distribution service and changed tack to become a ‘social music store’ and now choose to go thru ReverbNation for distribution services.
The rest, as you were.
Rather than go over the same points here you’ll be much better off catching up with the first two parts. To make things a little more convenient I’m welding the three pieces together as one PDF so you can print and study at leisure.
Some points you may want to take into consideration when choosing a distributor.
Location. Is your distributor of choice in your own country? Possibly a key issue because of currency differences and support concerns. Do they have phone support? A physical address?
Read the websites about page to find out names, history and credentials. If they have none, move on. Use Google. A lot.
Always amazes me when some site pops up claiming combined “20+ years industry experience” but giving no actual NAMES. Then you get a PO BOX for a mailing address. Run. In the opposite direction. Read the rest of this entry »
I didn’t get to mention all the digital music distribution outlets that I wanted too in my (part 1) post a few days ago, ‘Exploring The Digital Music Distribution ‘Jungle’’, so I thought I’d update the list in this ‘quick’ additional post. Thanks also to the feedback and suggestions I got, especially from 101 Distribution and @Charles at 247 Entertainment.
Again I’ll refer to the major download retailers as the ‘Big 5′ which right now would be iTunes, Amazon MP3, eMusic, Napster and Rhapsody.
Pro Music – Online Music Stores – Not a distribution company but an online worldwide map of legal online digital music retail stores listed by country and maintained by the IFPI and a very good resource for checking out worldwide outlets. The same website maintains weekly download chart links across mainland Europe and Japan. Right now Lady GaGa seems to be universally topping the charts across Europe with ‘Poker Face’.
EPM Electronic – (Maastricht, Netherlands & London, UK)- European based company with a very comprehensive list of stores they service, including the ‘big 5′ worldwide and a very large selection of niche and independent retailers, including all the major electronic dance music stores across the USA, the whole of Europe, Asia and the Far East. Also cover some of the major mobile platforms like Nokia, Vodaphone and 3 Mobile. MySpace.
Its one of those application deals, where you fill in a short form and upload a music sample. There’s no terms on the website but there’s a demo page for label management.
WaTunes -(Atlanta, Georgia, USA)- One of the newer aggregator/distribution channels around, WaTunes are different from just about all the rest in that there is no sign up fee (at the moment) and the artist gets to keep 100% of sales royalties. They distribute to four of the ‘ big 5′ (excluding Rhapsody), plus Shockhound, Zune, Beats Digital and Masterbeat. I’m not entirely comfortable with the ‘everything is free’ revenue model tbh as it doesn’t exactly stimulate financial stability. CEO Kevin Rivers is blogging here and tweeting here if you want to fire questions. MySpace.
Vidzone Digital Media -(London, UK) – leading distributor of Independent music via mobile networks internationally. More than 130 distribution partnerships across 40 countries. Have a very informative PDF of digital music FAQs too. A checklist of the basics and more advanced info on need to know stuff like UPCs, Metadata and ISRCs. Aimed at labels rather than individuals.
Digital Pressure -(Hollywood, CA, USA)- Another long standing big player on the digital distribution front and one of the first. Digital Pressure have been around since 1997 and are a subdivision of Peer Music. Seem to work more with labels/catalog and a percentage cut with no upfront fees. MySpace. Twitter.
“Our contracts with content owners are four-year, non-exclusive distribution agreements. These simple contracts empower Digitalpressure to become your exclusive agent for all of the partners within our global distribution network, but allow you to distribute your music outside of our relationship through any other service or site, including your own.” Contact page.
Ingrooves -(San Francisco, CA, USA) - Long standing distributor who also specialize in licensing music. Main site was down at time of writing. Another aggregator working with a percentage share. MySpace.
Zebralution -(Berlin/London/LA)- One of the longer standing independent digital music distributors headed up in Berlin, Germany with multiple regional offices worldwide. Huge network of retailers worldwide including the ‘big 5′, genre specific retailers and mobile music outlets. Warners acquired a significant stake in the company in 2007. There’s an application process for labels here. MySpace.
The CAN -(Australia) – Oz based Chaos Artist Network supply all major digital retailers globally (iTunes etc) and traditional retailers throughout Australia (JB Hi Fi, Sanity, Big W, Leading Edge etc). Distribute physical product, CDs and DVDs as well as servicing digital retailers. Part of the Stomp entertainment group. MySpace.
EarBuzz.com -(New Jersey, USA)- Two programs offered here, the earBuzz set-up, which costs $25 sign-up and $2 a month for you to sell Cds and downloads on the earBuzz website. An additional $39 enters you into the WWX program which gets you into the ‘big 5′ retailers, ringtone store Myxer, We7 and LaLa. There’s same day payout for sales onsite and 100% royalty share. MySpace.
DashGo -(Santa Monica, CA,USA) – A slightly different selling point from Dashgo. They distribute music via the usual ‘big 5′ retailers and also offer placement on social music outlets including LastFM, iMeem, Blast My Music, iLike and YouTube which includes analytics breakdown. Also provide “full-service digital sales and marketing solutions, promoting your content to digital retailers, securing positioning with social sites, and soliciting coverage on influencer blogs and discovery sites.” Also offer the Audioswop service with YouTube. Twitter.
Kontor New Media -(Hamburg, Germany)- Worldwide digital content distribution of music, video, ringtones and audio books. Include the ‘big 5′ and a bunch of dance music outlets, Zune, Nokia, FNAC, 7 Digital and mobile music retailers. Contact. MySpace.
Consolidated Independent – (London, UK)- Not a service for individual artists. CI only works with labels or distributors with more than 200 tracks in their catalog. Fees start from £150 a month. Cover just about every retailer on the planet it seems and promise to get labels into ones that aren’t already on their list.
FineTunes-(Hamburg, Germany)- Not to be confused with Finetune. Finetunes distribute across all the major digital retailers as well as providing software solutions for labels, download stores and artists websites. Twitter. MySpace.
Was going to add Wild Palms but their website seems to be in disaray right know, so we’ll see later.
Related Resources
Digital Distribution For Unsigned Artists (PDF) (Chaos.com)
WaTunes Sells Your Music On iTunes And Amazon Free Of Charge (Techcrunch.com)
Get Music Online-Online Music Stores (Pro-Music.org)
DashGo Connects Musicians and Labels to Social Media (Mashable.com)
IFPI Digital Music Report 2009 (32pg. PDF) (IFPI)
The Digital Top 40 FAQ PDF (VidZone Digital Media)
Independent Distribution Solution:Getting Records from Concept To Consumer (Narip.com) (MP3 audio files with PDF and Excel Spreadsheet documents in a zip file.$59.99)
Music and Metadata (XML.com)
Digital Distribution (BeMuso.com)
Should I Do Something About Metadata? (NewMusicStrategies.com)
I’ve touched on music distribution issues here before with Tunecore, Bit Torrent and even good old analogue vinyl but thought I’d dig around a bit deeper as there seems to be new distribution services springing up on a regular basis these days. Be they aggregator or ‘widget’ type tools. Ill be covering digital music aggregators here first and covering website widgets later in the week.
The Music Void – Denzyl Feigelson on MUZU
Things To Consider When Choosing Digital Music Distribution
With the Internet its easy to research background on companies these days. Thats what Google is for. Do it. Search around the distributors website. Look for the names of people running the company. Put a shout out on Twitter or music forums if you need user feedback on any service.
What is the distributors background, how long has the company been around? What is the revenue model ? Upfront yearly admin fee (like Tunecore) or a percentage of sales (CD Baby take 9%).
Which digital retailers do the aggregators distribute too? Also, check the distributors list of bands, artists and labels that are using their services. Always a good reference point. Its reassuring to know that Tunecore (who I use) also handle digital distribution for established artists such as NiN, David Byrne & Brian Eno and Jay Z and newer MP3 blog faves like MGMT.
Also you need to know that you wont be signing away rights to your music and that you wont be tied down to any lengthy fixed terms
Music industry scribe Moses Avalon has a good breakdown of distribution terms for a few aggregators on his website. Its a couple of years old and as such covers only the longer established companies but is still very relevant. Read the rest of this entry »
While I get my lazy ass into gear with two new posts over the weekend I thought I’d do a shameless piece of self plugging (which is very rare for me by the way!) and highlight a couple of posts on this blog from last year that have kinda got buried by more recent posts.
In more recent posts this year, by far the most popular (which surprised me) has been (with this months actual page views March 27th 8.25 est):
10 New Music Industry PDFs That’ll Make You An Expert (1130) followed by:
Resources To Help Get Your Music in Films ans TV (460)
200+ Music Industry, Marketing, Social Media and Tech Blogs That’ll Make You A Media Whore! (397)
Some Other Posts You Should Read…
How To Get Your Music Distributed on iTunes (And Keep Most Of The Money)
This is a year old now but never more relevant than today as the onus on digital distribution gathers pace.
Its Official, Vinyl Not Dead Shock
My defence of the vinyl format vs the iPod! Kind of.
How To Press Up a Vinyl Single and Add Instant Kudos to Your Release
A detailed look at how (and where) to get your vinyl records pressed. There will be an updated round-up of distributors shortly.
The Best Music Biz Book You’ve Never Heard Of
I hold the KLFs legendary book, ‘The Manual (How To Have A Number One The Easy Way)’ in high regard. I followed the instructions it lays out in simple terms and didn’t hit number one, but managed to get into the UK top 30. Others have followed suit. Whatever, its a great fun read which is how I wish all music industry books were written. They’re not.
More soon………….
In a climate where many artists are struggling to find income streams every avenue helps and one area worth exploring is music placement in film and TV.
The ‘gatekeepers’ to these type of gigs are the music supervisors. The music supervisor is a person who coordinates the work of the composer, the editor, and sound mixers. Alternately, a person who researches, obtains rights to, and supplies songs for a production (namely films and television programs).
TV viewers (particularly those who are geeky about music) tend to notice what songs get used on shows, and those touches can be credited to the music supervisor.
If you want to find out who the music supervisor is on any given movie or TV show you might not have earmarked the Amazon owned Internet Movie Database as a go-to music industry resource but the site is packed with info on cast and crew members, including music supervisors.
Look up movies that have really great soundtracks then scroll through the credits and you’ll find out the names of the person responsible for music supervision.
This was supposed to be one of those short snappy posts that was concise and to the point. Instead, and this happens all the time, I continued to research as I was writing and the post grew into another lengthy monster. Hey, I’m the editor so I guess its OK.
Anyway I was looking around for radio resources and stations that play independent music and associated resources and as usual the post kept expanding.
I write using Live Writer (which plugs into my WordPress install), pulling notes in from Google Notebook at the same time as having a bunch of web pages open with my RSS reader running in the system tray. Input crazy.
I’ve concentrated mainly on terrestrial radio but I’ve also included a bunch of streaming resources. I came to the conclusion that anyone with a little time on their hands could put together a respectable mailing list for a radio ‘campaign’ with a little creativity.
I’ve also focused on the USA (where I live now) and the UK (where I’m from). I’ll probably extend things to Asia, Europe and the ROTW in a later post.
Where To Start?
Some tips from UK recording artist and radio DJ Tom Robinson first who has one of the best articles I’ve seen for a while on getting radio play. How To Send CDs To Radio. Its written from a UK perspective but the basics apply anywhere.
Now I’ve used the word ‘music industry’ here to encompass anything connected to digital music stuff, music 2.0, social media, whatever you want to call it. Truth is, the keyword today is convergence.
But if you’re struggling to come to terms with new terminology, new technology and new services I did a comprehensive scan of resources you can print out on PDF that’ll really set you up with an information boost if you’re playing catch up and haven’t got the time to dig around.
There’s some fantastic resources out there and some inspirational writers like Seth Godin, Andrew Dubber, Gerd Leonhard, Derek Sivers and even digital distributors Tunecore all offer some brilliant insight and the best news is its all out there for you to grab free as a bird. And legal too!
Promotion
Music Industry Survival Guide. This compact guide from digital distributor Tunecore crams a lot into its 30 pages covering college radio promotion, iTunes promotion, street marketing, music discovery, mp3 blogs and press and media tips. Some people actually charge for this stuff. There’s seven PDF guides from Tunecore including a vinyl 101 for bands/artists wanting to press up vinyl records.
Their other guides cover mastering, publishing, copyright and mixing.
Mastering The Music Website Cycle. EasyB.com make e-commerce software for artists to sell music direct from their own websites. The handy 36 page guide goes into some detail on how to make and manage a successful music download website. They draw up a checklist of plans for structure, content and design. Again, some great pointers for many who may find the task a little daunting.
The Leading Question-Voice Of The Fans. This survey undertaken by UK digital music industry company Musically was aired at Midem this January. 1300 music fans were questioned across the USA, UK and France.
Being in a band, your time is very important. If you are an indie musician your day-to-day can possibly consist of a day job or school, then you need to make time for songwriting, recording, Myspace-ing, Tweeting, booking shows, editing video and fending off e-mails and other online networks. Knowing that your time is important, it is easy to brush off the fans, especially the ones that you do not see everyday, week, month, year or even, ever. That does not mean that they are not important.
Now more than even your fans are vital to your success. They are the ones that dictate your income. You NEED to keep them happy. There is no excuse, no communication gaps or barriers stopping you from developing relationships with every fan that wants one.
