Most Digital Music Stores Don't Have the Capacity to Deal with Individual

your HOW TO GET music IN DIGITAL PLATFORMS a informative guide assembled by Future of Music Coalition

Most digital music stores don’t have the capacity to deal with individual artists directly. But that doesn’t mean you can’t participate. If you’re an artist who is self-releasing your music, you can use aggregator services like CD Baby, TuneCore, ReverbNation or Ditto Music to get your music into a vast array of digital music stores/services. Here’s a snapshot of what they offer:

CD BABY For a small fee per album, CD Baby offers an impressive array of sales and distribution opportunities.

YOUR MUSIC SERVICES OFFERED MUSICIANS’ SHARE OF REVENUE *

Mailorder: sends CDs to Artist sets price. CD Baby mailorder customers. gets $4 of every album sale. Artist gets the rest. Digital sales: offers MP3s CD BABY to website customers. Artist gets 75% of any MP3 sales off CD Baby website. pay one time fee of Digital distribution: encodes $49 fee per album or and delivers your music to Of what the services send $9.95 per single song services including iTunes to CD Baby, artist gets 91% Music Store, Amazon, of revenue, whether it’s Spotify, Rhapsody, download sales on iTunes or Google Play, eMusic, etc. streams on Rhapsody.

EXAMPLE SALES PLATFORMS MUSICIANS’ SHARE OF REVENUE *

Artist sets mailorder price of Artist gets $6 for each sale. $10 for a full-length CD. CD Baby gets $4 for each sale.

CD BABY Artist sets album download Artist gets $7.50 for each price at $10, and single album download, and 75¢ for pay one time fee of download price at $1. single downloads. $49 fee per album or $9.95 per single song Album for sale on iTunes for Artist gets about $6 per album $9.99, or 99¢ per song. download, and about 60¢ for single downloads.

For more information about pricing and additional services offered: members.cdbaby.com

© 2008 - 2012 Future of Music Coalition. futureofmusic.org 1 TUNECORE TuneCore provides digital distribution for music, video and films, publishing administration for songwrit- ers, and a full interactive administrative accounting solution.

YOUR MUSIC SERVICES OFFERED MUSICIANS’ SHARE OF REVENUE *

Digital distribution: encodes Of what the services send to TUNECORE and delivers your music to TuneCore, artist gets 100% services including iTunes of revenue, whether it’s Pay $49.99 annually for Music Store, Amazon, download sales on iTunes or each album distributed, Spotify, Rhapsody, streams on Rhapsody. or $14.99 annually for Google Play, eMusic, etc. single distribution. Publishing administration: Of the mechanical publishing For publishing admin, if you are a songwriter, royalties TuneCore can collect, a $50 one time fee. TuneCore can help you artist gets 90% of royalties. collect your international mechanical publishing royalties.

For more information about pricing and additional services offered: tunecore.com. Note that Tunecore is not well suited to ingest music from classical performers that are playing repertoire pieces from other composers.

REVERBNATION In addition to digital distribution and aggregation services, ReverbNation offers robust social networking integration, profile pages, widgets, mailing list management and much more.

YOUR MUSIC SERVICES OFFERED MUSICIANS’ SHARE OF REVENUE *

REVERBNATION Digital distribution: encodes Of what the services send to and delivers your music to RVN, artist gets 100% of rev- Pay $34.95 annually services including iTunes enue, whether it’s download for distribution to 30+ Music Store, Amazon, sales on iTunes or streams on stores, or $59.95 Spotify, Rhapsody, Rhapsody. annually for additional Google Play, eMusic, etc. stores and tools Note that digital distribution is just one of the services offered by RVN. Additional packages include mobile apps, widgets, social media integration, mailing list services, and more.

For more information about pricing and additional services offered: reverbnation.com

* With these digital aggregator options, it is the artist’s responsibility to pay the songwriter and publisher any mechanical royalties due.

2 MORE DIGITAL AGGREGATORS

There are additional companies that each provide an array of services for musicians and filmmakers, from digital distribution/aggregation, to promotion, ringtones, apps, download cards, physical manufacturing/ distribution, synch placements, charting and more. Check each site out to compare prices and services.

101 Distribution 101distribution.com Ditto Music dittomusic.com Routenote routenote.com

BASIC PRICING AND REVENUE COMPARISON

CD Baby TuneCore RVN

Annual fee $0 $49.99/yr $34.95/yr

Revenue on digital sales/streams 91% 100% 100%

Revenue on physical sales via mailorder List price - $4 N/A N/A

Revenue on publishing royalties N/A 90% N/A

INDIE LABEL DISTRIBUTION If you are working with an independent record label, the label will submit your albums to the various services. It’s highly likely that your label is using IODA or The Orchard as its distributor.

YOUR MUSIC SERVICES OFFERED

Your indie label IODA/ORCHARD Digital distribution: encodes and delivers your music to services your indie label submits your album to including iTunes Music Store, Amazon, its aggregator for digital distribution Spotify, Rhapsody, Google Play, eMusic.

Both IODA and Orchard offer many other Of the collected Indie label then services including promotional networks, revenue that the ser- splits revenue with publishing royalty collection and licensing vices send to IODA/ its artist based assistance. Orchard, they keep a on the agreement small % and send the between label rest to your indie label. and artist.

For more information about pricing and services offered: iodalliance.com

3 AMAZON’S CREATESPACE Amazon’s Createspace helps artists make CDs, books or DVDs on demand. No setup fees, no mini- mum orders. Integrated into Amazon’s sales platform for instant distribution.

YOUR MUSIC SERVICES OFFERED MUSICIANS’ SHARE OF REVENUE CD duplication: manufac- CDs manufacturing costs: CREATESPACE tures CDs on demand. High $4.95 each for 1 - 50, $3.96 quality CDs, full color printing each for 51 - 99, $2.97 of 4-page insert double-sided each for more than 100. Amazon offers both tray card, jewel cases. freestanding CD duplication services, Mailorder sales: sends CDs Artist sets list price, and gets free MP3 distribution, to customers who order 55% of any sale, after Ama- and bundled services through Amazon.com store. zon takes $4.95 for the CD that handle both the manufacturing costs. manufacturing and Digital distribution: encodes distribution through and delivers your music to Artist gets 60¢ to 65¢ for Amazon. Amazon’s MP3 store (but not digital single sale, and $4.50 iTunes or others), or you can to $6.00 for an album sale. put a storefront on your own website.

For more information about pricing and additional services offered: createspace.com

OTHER SERVICES TO CONSIDER

Bandcamp: provides an easy platform for Nimbit: provides artists with an easy way to sell musicians to sell their music or merchandise music, merchandise or tickets directly to fans. Nimbit directly to your fans. Variable pricing and also has a host of promotional tools, offers Facebook music + merch bundling are easy, and you integration, and an online tip jar. Through a partner- can sell your wares in just about any currency. ship with Ditto Music, Nimbit can also offer digital Bandcamp sales pages are easily integrated distribution to the primary stores like iTunes, Amazon, in your existing website. bandcamp.com Spotify and Rhapsody. nimbit.com

TopSpin: helps musicians and filmmakers Gumroad: allows musicians to monetize their grow their audience and sell their work. music and merch sales anywhere their fans Includes ticketing, embeddable widgets, are gathering: Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud. customized stores, and powerful promotional Easy link distribution to a simple eCommerce tools. topspinmedia.com box. No store building required. gumroad.com