Nobody wants to watch you live stream bro cut it out.
You can leave and change a distributor anytime you want they aren't trying to grab anything. Don't try make them out to be something they aren't.
It doesn't make sense to have the same songs with two distributors does it.
Nobody buys your stuff on Bandcamp stop telling stories.
You are definitely misinformed.
Distrokid pay only $19.99 to upload unlimited albums & songs for a year. Unlimited uploads, keep 100% of your earnings. And there are other distributors like it.
If you don't think you can even make $19.99 back in a year stop wasting your time and go do something else.

 

Thank you all for the input. Yeah... this is exactly what I have in mind... to sketch up here a sort of guide/tutorial on how to properly self-release as an independent artist. I'll be sure to post here the various steps of the process and in the end to summarize it nicely for others to hopefully learn something useful.

And no... I am not after money in this music making journey of mine. Fortunately or not, I have other totally unrelated to music means of earning a decent living. It's just that I feel my output deserves to be treated properly after many years of investing so much time, energy and money into it. And I am old enough not to foul myself in thinking I'm the next Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada. As an artist/creator it is OK to dream, but it is equally important to be reflexive about your own limitations and treat them with respect. For me... music making is a thing I've done for the last 20 years or more and I'll continue to do it until the end whether or not it gets played, listened to, distributed, sold or whatever. Music for music's sake. That's just too bad too many producers nowadays don't fell the same way, therefore their output is mere shit flooding the eventual gems hidden "in the vast sea of musical output" as @m.sarti nicely said.

 

That just sounds like some crap people tell themselves to make low quality poor standard badly produced, mixed, mastered music.
If you want to aim low sounds like you will be adding to the flooding instead of producing quality music.

 

@recycle
Keep it in the forum. Just because someone doesn't agree with the nonsense you are spreading doesn't mean they are trolling.
I'm not the only one who can see through your lies.

 

Yo, bro, I detect a lot of negativity in all your remarks. You seem to be in a bad mood and, sorry, I can't help you with that as much as I'd want to. Please behave, follow the forum rules, stay on topic and respect the other members and their opinions, or go express your hysterical spurs elsewhere. This thread isn't the place for all that.

 

This is a forum not a dictatorship.
All my comments have been replies on topic that got your thread going.
If someone doesn't agree with your comments or opinions doesn't make them negative.
You have a an opinion of music for music's sake etc. And I'm of the opinion that is a negative attitude that will be adding to the flood of crap as you call it.
And that is my opinion so take your own comment and respect other members and their opinions.

It's not about the money but if you don't even believe you can make $19.99 a year from your music then you don't believe in your music!

 

I second pretty much everything that mr. Jim Von Gucci said already. I've been using Distrokid for almost 4 years now and never had any problems with rights, ownership, takedowns or anything like that. My only issue with them is that their support is bloody awful and pretty much useless most of the time, so be wary of that. Luckily I didn't have any major issues or things that I couldn't resolve by myself. Other than that it's a great service, $20 a year for a basic account is a great deal. If you think you can make this money back, I say it's definitely worth it.

I will also add to that it is most probably useless to publish your music to big stores and streaming services if you have no following at all and you don't plan on investing into promoting yourself. Couple of people I know tried, one of them had a following of about 100 people from facebook, soundcloud and youtube, and he made just something like $5 in a year from sales and spotify streams, not enough to even pay for the service. 20 bucks is just a pocket change, I would give it at least a try for one year and see how it'll go, but don't expect that people will suddenly discover you and will be willing to give you a chance just because you're on itunes or spotify, literally everyone and their mama is there now. And like some folks here already said, most people use these services for things they already know, not to discover some new small indie artist with his first release.

And yes, people, let's keep it civil, no need to argue. Just post whatever experience you had with digital distributors and let others weigh the pros and cons, and decide for themselves if it's something that they're interested in based on your feedback.

 

It depends on the type of music you're producing; in my experience, if it's EDM electronic music with no vocals (4 tracks a week type of stuff) create a wordpress site with Music Maker WordPress Theme push the music on social media, SoundCloud etc build your mailing list.

Its how I do it - no feeling like selling your first track and keeping the whole £1.49

Just my opinion and of course all the music should be original.

 

Allen Lee Geddes Music LLC, my business, has made about 47 cents for thousands of plays. I wonder what souncloud made off my songs? Be careful....

 

Anyone of you sue promotion services ? Releasing alone makes less sense if no one finds one.

Related somehow and keep an eye on:
https://thepopnetwork.org/
TL;DR:

One can just release music, videos etc and earn when somone streams it, or somone can run a masternode (p2p server/client) and get payed for seeding




https://www.rocki.app/
TL;DR:

Get payed when your music get played,

 

Last edited: Dec 30, 2020

Interesting subject so far. I recently found this link > https://tracklauncher.com/ (Robin Albers aka Jaydee is one of the guys behind it)
What do people think about this and the € 49 a track price? It's in Dutch but let me translate the important parts.

"Thanks to our distribution service, you retain ownership of your music and there are no difficult legal distribution contracts with publishers and / or traditional record companies."

"Sell your music worldwide on the largest streaming services and online music stores such as Spotify iTunes Apple Music Beatport Deezer Google Play DJtunes Juno Download Amazone Music and many others." (the FAQ says that this can reach up to 200+)

"We check the track and the cover whether they meet all the requirements of the worldwide carriers. As soon as the track and cover have both been technically approved by your personal case manager, we take care of the final distribution to all online music stores affiliated with us."

"The exact income of a download or stream cannot really be estimated. A download costs about € 0.60 to € 0.70 cents and a full stream costs about € 0.0040, but this can never be guaranteed. The exact amounts that the carriers of streaming services and music stores pay are neatly registered by us and of course mapped. As soon as a track is eligible for payment (lower limit is € 15.00), we proceed to pay out 90% of the amount paid out by the carrier of the streaming services and music stores. From that moment on you will also receive an overview of this."

"The International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) is an international identification system for sound recordings and music videos. An ISRC is a unique and permanent identification of a particular recording and can be encrypted like a digital fingerprint in an edition of that recording. This makes it possible to identify images automatically, for example with a view to managing royalties (collecting copyrights). The UPC code is the code with which a product is identified. Just like a barcode, actually. Both codes are created for you by Tracklauncher. But if you have your own ISRC codes as a producer and prefer to use them, you can enter them as soon as you upload a track."

About promoting your music, that should be obvious. Just having it out in the open doesn't mean people will find it automatically. But there are strategies for this. Having a weekly podcast/show for example and sharing it on several social media channels (don't forget the tags!). At the end it's all about gaining listeners and fans. That's just the way it is, although I'm also not a big fan of all that social media importance.

 

Ok, so the strategy to go for YouTube/Soundcloud for free streaming and then Bandcamp for selling to your audience sounds pretty neat, considering there isn't even a potential for rights conflicts as far as I can tell. But what do you do with the many people who only listen to music on Spotify nowadays, or on their other Apple Music services etc.? The thing is also that nowadays you are only "relevant" if you are on these platforms, right? Or are there successful artists out there who are not on there and who only sell directly on Bandcamp or even their own websites? I know a few people who can't be bothered to download music files anymore, they just listen on Spotify.

What are your thoughts on having YouTube as your main platform? Seems to be pretty viable if you can put out content regularly.

Oh and musikmakertheme looks interesting. I wonder if anyone else has experience with it.

 

sounds like a one kid operating out of his basement.
fact is no one is going to promote you for 49 euros. this is ridiculous. they get thousands of wannabe bedroom star applications, x50 or 100euros , do the math, its good business, for them.
they can buy thousands of ISRC codes for a hundred $. There are literally thousands of sites like this, everybody claiming they will make you a star.

 

Sounds interesting. Anywhere we can have a listen to any of your music?

 

Are there any like this which support BeatPort ?

Btw AMUSE has a free plan.

But the best distributor doent help you sell songs or get heard.

So what do you guys use for marketing ? What is your experience.

The most money I made with music was playing live at festivals.
After that (faaaaar less) getting payed for streams on Peertracks (no longer possible afaik)
On bandcamp i just sold ONE song one time

 

Did you actually read what I posted? Robin Albers is not a kid in some bassment
He made one of the biggest house classics already in the early 90's and is still performing.

And who said something about promoting or making you a star?
As I already mentioned - but what you clearly didn't read - that's something you'll need to do yourself obviously.
The subject is only related to what this thread is about: self releasing your music. (in this case with some help)

 

I use RouteNote for distribution; its a free plan (they take a commission on any revenue and tracks are assigned ISRC codes).

I don't expect to make any money, it's purely a facility to market to playlists, DJ's and labels.

Also, I have no issue when publishing to Youtube or Soundcloud.

 

If you are creating and posting content regularly then you definitely have more options on where you want to direct traffic then people just posting music and crossing their fingers.
Most distributors distrokid etc post both to Spotify and Apple music.
Youtube is definitely good as your main base.
You just have to look at what you are doing and where you consume music. Do you go to Bandcamp?
I've prob been on it five times in my life and those were to look into it for my own music use.
I don't even download music when I see it on the "free" sites anymore.
I mostly watch on youtube.

 

I read distrokid has some sort of beatport option but I can't confirm it.
Ditto has a beatport option.
https://www.dittomusic.com/sell-your-music/beatport

Do read reviews on any distributor before joining though.
Marketing , just think of things that got you into the music you currently follow.
But from my experience put the music first before any marketing plan.

 

@Jim Von Gucci
Thank you. I personally agree, I'm mostly listening to music on YouTube as well. Although this could change. One of the reasons why YouTube can even be so convenient is that ad blockers work nicely on it. Until now, that is. With a change in infrastructure they could make it so that ads cannot be skipped anymore, and that would drive me away personally, and I'd think a lot of others would feel the same way. With that said I've seen a lot of musicians grow heavily on YouTube, and if done right, it seems like a good platform to be on.