What's the cleanest way to get your music on various distribution sites?

Vamecx

Vamecx

New member
I always hear about sites that claim for a price they'll put your music up on pretty much every site imaginable. The only real place I want to put my music up, though, is Spotify and maybe iTunes. Everything else doesn't feel like it has much of an audience. I have a Tunecore account, but I haven't used it yet since I don't have any money for it.

I was wondering what's the best way to get your music up with keeping all the rights and getting the most amount of money back? I submitted some songs to Spotmeup, they claim to put music up on Spotify for free but it'll take 6-8 weeks, I haven't heard too good things from them when I just Googled them now. Apparently they take all the streaming money, but you get some of the money when people buy tracks from Spotify.

Basically the topic of conversation is, in a world where scamming on the internet is everywhere and people are too lazy to read the terms of service, what are the most legit ways to get your music on popular distribution sites?
 
The first thing you should do is forget about making any money. The second thing you should do is just use CD Baby.
 
Greg_L said:
The first thing you should do is forget about making any money. The second thing you should do is just use CD Baby.
Click to expand...
Hah, I don't expect to make a living. Some side-money would be nice, but I'm not counting on anything. And yeah, I hear good things about CD Baby, I might try it out.
 
I'm not trying to plug CDBaby too much here, but I just put my first album out through their online distribution service, and I was very impressed with the whole process. The latest cool thing they do is allow you to "opt in" some or all of your tracks to non-exclusive sync licensing, which makes the tracks you opt in available for placement in television, games, movies, etc. That also gets your tunes added to YouTube's music catalog so that people making vids on YouTube can choose your music if they like it to use in their videos. They've recently partnered with Rumblefish to implement something called digital ID (or something like that) which takes some kind of digital fingerprint of your tracks, and then can ID whenever one of your songs is played on YouTube, no matter who uploaded it or clicked it. Then, if/when someone uses your music in any of those streams, you get paid. Probably not much...but hey, it's something.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, since I just got my album done, and what I am starting to think is that even though it's cool to have the album up on iTunes, and Amazon.com, the really interesting thing is the places where people click to play/stream, like Rhapsody, or Spotify, etc. I may be thinking about this wrong, but it seems to me that an iTunes purchase is a once and done event...they buy your album, you get your $6 or whatever, and then they go off and listen to your stuff out of their iTunes library or on their mobile device as much as they want and you never get paid again. On the other hand, the streaming model gets you paid for every listen, from now on - forever. I like that better :)

Just my $0.02 (which by the way, is probably about what I get paid for each click...lol)

Very Best,
 
So I guess I'm going to use CD Baby, since it's pretty much what everyone is recommending. :P I've always liked the look of their site, it looks professional and not like a gimmick. I have a question for all the CD Baby users, though. Is there any way I can put my music only on Spotify and (hopefully) pay a small one-time fee? How much is the fee if you can do it? I don't have much of a fan base that extends out past my friends, and most of them use Spotify, so it could be a good advertising method with the whole "see what your friends are listening to" stuff. Then I'd be selling it on BandCamp. And if for some crazy reason I get a decent fan base? Then yeah I'd throw it up on iTunes and all that.
 
Vamecx said:
So I guess I'm going to use CD Baby, since it's pretty much what everyone is recommending. :P I've always liked the look of their site, it looks professional and not like a gimmick. I have a question for all the CD Baby users, though. Is there any way I can put my music only on Spotify and (hopefully) pay a small one-time fee? How much is the fee if you can do it? I don't have much of a fan base that extends out past my friends, and most of them use Spotify, so it could be a good advertising method with the whole "see what your friends are listening to" stuff. Then I'd be selling it on BandCamp. And if for some crazy reason I get a decent fan base? Then yeah I'd throw it up on iTunes and all that.
Click to expand...

Put it up everywhere. The fee is the same. When registering with CD Baby, you can pick and choose which online sites you want it sent out to. Or you can check the "everywhere" box.
 
Yup, put it everywhere. Spotify pays less than a penny per stream, so don't expect much side money. Your hope would be the streams will yield a download or two.
 
It does seem a little backwards to limit yourself unless you get a bigger fanbase. Why wouldn't you want it up everywhere you can get it, especially if it doesn't cost you anymore? Then if people only see it on Spotify, oh well. But if they see it everywhere, your fanbase would grow. I've never heard of Spotify until today.

I only started my research recently, but I'm leaning toward Tunecore. Many of you expressed ambivalence about that publisher. I'd like to hear more about both CD Baby and Tunecore.

edit: I just found that some artists seem to be using both/multiple services. I searched an artist who put a testimonial on CD Baby, and it took me to their Tunecore page. Is there an advantage to going with both, or is that just paying double for the same stuff?
 
Last edited:
It is possible to make money at music. I use believe digital , and although im not jaking enough to give up my 9 to 5 grind , im making some for sure.
Dont discount juno download as an online shop.

Also , considering spotify pay an artist something like 0.0000004 per play , why would you be so exclusively interested in that. It would take 10,000 plays to get 1 cent.
 
it doesnt really matter where you post your music, No one is going to buy it and No one is going to listen to it no matter how good it is, if it were just you>record company>retailer, then you would stand a chance, but the middle men like simon callow etc want to make ALL the money. so the get 5 good looking little boys and pay them peanuts to mime to music written by there friends and they make millions out of little girls and peadafiles that are interested in young boys. after a year they dump them and start again, leaveing a trail of snivaling,media hungry nonentities to fill the places on big brother and the jeromy kyle show.
WOW i feel better getting that off my chest. rant over:-)))))
 
dashwood616 said:
it doesnt really matter where you post your music, No one is going to buy it and No one is going to listen to it no matter how good it is, if it were just you>record company>retailer, then you would stand a chance, but the middle men like simon callow etc want to make ALL the money. so the get 5 good looking little boys and pay them peanuts to mime to music written by there friends and they make millions out of little girls and peadafiles that are interested in young boys. after a year they dump them and start again, leaveing a trail of snivaling,media hungry nonentities to fill the places on big brother and the jeromy kyle show.
WOW i feel better getting that off my chest. rant over:-)))))
Click to expand...


Just what we need - another newbie with a chip on his shoulder! :eek:
 
yes i know the truth is hard to handle. so is the compleat lack of a sence of humer:-)
i suppose you will now bemown my spelling and grammer, but i may be a newbi to this site but i have experience going back to before the punk era in music, so please dont be too fast in condeming me, you may learn something:-))))))
 
Welcome to the site. Don't take anyone around here too serious. They are just having fun, too.

...and pretty much, everyone here shares the same sentiments as you. Ain't no one gonna get rich from music!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top