What Every Musician Should Know About Digital Distribution

Here's the start of an article I'm writing for several online resources. Enjoy!
--Peter

Part I: Distribution and Doing It Yourself

You can sell your music yourself right to your fans, on CDs you mail out of your home, from the trunk of your car, from a knapsack or on a collapsible table at your concerts or on a street corner. Direct selling has some real advantages—piracy is practically impossible, and as long as you track your inventory well, theft and even damage can be kept to a minimum. You keep all the money, other than your expenses. You can even decide who gets to be your customer.

But if you want help selling, if you want other people to sell or even give away your music for you, you have to get the music into their hands. That’s distribution: getting your product into the hands of other people who sell it for you. It costs, because there’s no way people are going to do the work of selling your music unless you pay them somehow, and it costs to get the music into their hands. How are you going to decide who should sell your music for you and under what deal terms? How do you get them the music, how will it be stored, how quickly and effectively can stock be replenished? How will you track the process, audit them to make sure they aren’t making mistakes or skimming? You’ll need to communicate with them about errors and suggest how you want your music sold. There’s a lot to keep track of when distributing, which is why musicians and labels traditionally hired experts, distributors, and paid them (often with a percentage) for their full-time efforts.

The digital music revolution changed many things: you don’t have to make CDs or vinyl or cassettes any more; you only have to make one unit and then you can duplicate it instantly, infinitely; you don’t have to store copies or even make them before you sell them; you don’t have to ship anything physical, and the cost of “shipping” the music is negligible per copy; there’s no such thing as damage, and if something goes wrong, replacement costs almost nothing extra. Even “returns” can be dispensed with, in some cases. But it’s still distribution, and the core problems remain: who do you get to sell your music and under what deal terms? How do you get them the music, how do you track the process? Once again, it’s time to call in the experts, the distributors who specialize in this new digital world, the digital distributor.

A word about doing it yourself

Right now, millions of people are their own digital vendors, selling their music off their Websites, using PayPal or accepting checks in the mail and using file transfers to get the music to their fans case-by-case. That works if you have a few fans, but if you have hundreds, thousands or more, it gets expensive: your Website might not be able to handle the traffic, downloading and bandwidth costs could wipe out profits, as might the costs of credit card processing, etc. Taxes and Internet vending laws can keep you up nights, too. But by 2008, a few key stores have emerged as the “big guns” of online music retail, and they’re the only ones attracting customers in huge numbers and generating the sales revenue. So if you want to be your own digital distributor, you need to find some way to get your music into iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody, Napster, Beatport, AmazonMP3 and, in the case of more specialized music, a few key genre-specific online stores that attract fans of certain types of music.

Many of these stores will not work with individual artists or even small labels. They just won’t do it, as a matter of policy. Remember, every time a store sets up with a distributor, there has to be a contract, there has to be auditing tools, a relationship must be in place, the deal terms. The stores have enormous businesses to run, they have to be able to count on the music coming on time, in the proper format, with all the legal bases covered. When it comes time to pay royalties, the stores have to issue accounting statements and checks. iTunes, for instance, would have to employ a staff of hundreds or even thousands to set up and manage deals with individual bands and artists. Even labels with less than 100 releases might be too small to warrant that kind of commitment. The legal exposure alone could cripple iTunes. So they are very, very picky about doing deals with labels directly: they prefer distributors. It’s pretty much impossible to get into iTunes on your own.

So even though in this day of incredibly cheap and available options for creating your music, for recording it, for mixing it, mastering it, producing it and even marketing and promoting it, the one thing you can’t do on your own is distribute it, not to the top digital music retailers in the world. You’re going to need a digital distributor for help.

Coming up in Part II: What to Look For in a Digital Distributor

Comments

[Craig Morrison]

Why does itunes send out a page selling artists that we all know?

Do they have a pay plan for this extra marketing or is it just a reward of the money already recieved to the digital distributor?

[Craig Morrison]

I wonder how emails go out about an artist's new CD on tunecore?

Do they pay extra for that marketing or is it who likes whom?

Craig

[J. Gilmore]

Best fix for distribution I've found is CD Baby. A one time fee of $35., & a small percentage on each downloaded track sold. iTunes & all major stores are included. Hard copy's also sold at the price you set. They add $4. to your price for shipping. You also get distribution in over 2,400 stores in the U.S., including Walmart.com & Target.com.

Get great advise on distribution, & a lot more about the "biz" at CD Baby.net...just click the tab labeled "TIPS" at the top right. Good luck!

[archie martinez]

I bought a Boss BR1200 multi-track recorder with a CD burner for a finished product. will the quality of this equipment be good enough to be submitted as an album to Tunecore?

[richard the Hobo]

At this very Moment i am recording my first Album.I am paying the Studio $100.00 per Hour with every type of equipment and sound one can imagine.My first Song took $1500.00
to record because of faults timing forgotten lyrics.guess being nervous didn't help.But it's all Money and i am on a tight budget.its all mine the lyrics,the Music and the CD.OK after it is finished i have the Video to do .Hiring of a Camera and sound .My main song is not the best but its about a" Dog called Roy" and with a bit of luck its the Gimmick i am counting on what will sell my Record.Then still in progress my Site on the Net and that's all.I hope i can make it without the Record Company otherwise the make the Money and i make the Crumbs

[Andrew Mckenley]

This is not true! The more popular an artiste / performer / musician gets, the more beneficial it is to itunes and the many other digital distributors to get onboard. Posting your songs, without popularity or much promotion using this medium, DOES NOT guarantee that it WILL be SOLD!

[Terry Kilpatrick]

This is excellent insight. Thanks for the articles. I am confused on a separate but related topic: should a songwriter/musician join a PRO before or after their music is submitted to Tunecore for distribution? The self-publishing through digital distribution confuses me. Forgive me if this question is on the wrong thread. Thanks.

[Amyr Bruzual]

This is something for me that has fallen from heaven. I am in the process to record all my sons since I was at teenager to make an album. Your article has changed my mind and I am considering to go for digital distribution. Thank you so much on behalf of all the musicians in this planet. Amyr

[Jay Sandifer]

What can I say in a massive ocean of talant and gifting? One voice can change the world. One voice in one small place can spread like fire. Help my voice spread....but not too thin. Help me grow by finding me and sustaining me with distribution to bring change into the earth. I offer myself to you.

...can't wait to read more. Thanks for the article.

[Miami Hydroponic Systems]

"Everyone can now sell their own music... Just like Radiohead sold their album In Rainbows from their own site." Well Radiohead is the biggest band in the world, so they could afford to take the risk that no one would pay. But like I previously said, they're the biggest band in the world, so obviously people are going to dish out money.

[Lisa Cremer]

Hello Peter (and @Alvaro),

There's an alternative way of distributing your music (and doing it track by track): Oronjo.com has just gone live, a new site for content producers.

Everyone can now sell their own music, thesis, novel, photos, weblog articles or movies, all from their own webpage. Just like Radiohead sold their album In Rainbows from their own site.

The service is 100% free. Oronjo also offers the Angel Whale option, where all revenue goes to charity.

Regards,

Lisa Cremer

[Alvaro M. Rocha]

There's just one problem with TuneCore, and one alone:

One has to make a full album before one can sell - that's hard work and still "arrests" one to the old paradigma.

I, for me, would like to be able to upload and sell, single by single, song by song, eventually grouping them in an album, but before that, already allowing for them to be sold.

Is that possible?
It would mean a lot more business on my end, that meaning, a lot more things already online trough TuneCore... instead, I have to finish all albums, which takes months, instead of a song, which takes days.

Can someone look into that, please?
Albums with one music don't count. *smile*

Kind Regards,
AMR
http://www.alvaromrocha.com

PS - Great article, which brings me back to the custom grouping of one's own songs part...

[BMC]

I love this article....it's very useful!

[DonOfDon'S]

Great Article.
I didn't no how powerful distribution was.

[Ethan Bauley]

Great article, Peter! I love seeing TuneCore putting out this kind of valuable information for musicians (and managers and labels).

Your service was the first one of the many I outlined in my previous post that really proved the flatness/disaggregation of the music value chain.

I can't wait to see what you have to say when you get into flat fee vs. percentage for digital distribution ;-)

Your writing is required reading for musicians...