Bypassing the record deal, do it, sell it yourself questions

[pressthekey]

Would be interested to know your thoughts or tips on selling your own music, do fans still want CDs or is it more downloads? actually, how do you get payment? do you use dedicated websites for selling your music or should it be done through own website? I know almost nothing about the business side of things like Paypal or other payment methods.

[A. Einstein]

Selling thru your own website may work well to a certain limit when you are an established artist, but even then I don't think substancial earning can be made,

 

Releasing your music globally, you need distribution partners all over the place. An artist can not take care of managing this.

[MikeRivers]

Getting paid is always the problem. If you do regular gigs, make CDs, hand them to your fans, and take their cash. If you don't do regular gigs and rely on a web site for sales, you're just another little fish in a big pond unless you're really, really good at publicizing yourself.

 

No matter what, don't quit your day job (assuming it's not already making music).

.

[pressthekey]

Points noted and appreciated.

 

I've just been reading the copyright thread in another forum, wow, hadn't even thought about half of that.

[blue2blue]

I agree that gigs are the place to sell CDs. People get a few drinks in them, they're out already spending money, they're a vulnerable target. Er, I mean, a good sales opportunity.

 

Also, if you expect your market niche to be older adults, you might find a greater preference for CDs; for younger markets, not so much, I don't think. Interestingly, I've heard of bands augmenting their gig CD sales with on-site iPod and other player loading. I've also heard of bands selling -- or giving away -- thumb drives with their album already loaded on it (along with pics, vids, and other materials, optionally) and their logos silkscreened on the thumbdrives. (Craft-and-arts types could probably even do the latter themselves pretty easily.)

 

(There is interest in vinyl among some who probably consider themselves trendy, but I think it's more a collector thing, more focused on artists who are already favorites of the buyer. One thing I've seen is bands doing a package deal: buy an LP and get free DLs of the mp3s. Obviously, there's going to be a lot of emphasis on the packaging, cover art, and, any inserts or other material.)

 

Physical distribution is becoming less and less important, obviously. iTunes, Amazon and other online sales are key, again, especially for those under middle age. That's an enormous burden lifted, since getting physical distribution was typically tricky and expensive -- and physical distribution eats up an enormous amount of profit.

 

That said, there are now tools like Kunaki.com that really take a lot of the pain out of self-distribution. (It's a no frills, completely automated CD order fulfillment system that delivers some of the cheapest prices for short run CD's I've seen. However, for very small orders, shipping can eat into the profit. And most record stores will only be taking small orders. They also have a consumer-facing small order 'store' interface that can be used to allow your fans to buy one-offs.

 

Outfits like Tunecore will place your digital album in iTunes, Amazon, and other stores for a reasonable price (Amazon's easy [through their but iTunes is jumping through flaming hoops backwards with a blindfold on from what I've heard). It typically seems to cost $35-$50 to get an album on iTunes, et al through Tunecore and folks like ReverbNation (who also have their own 'artist sales' as well as artist pages; they charge higher annual fees but lower up front as I recall). iTunes passes something like 65% to the artist/label. I forget what Amazon keeps but it's similar, IIRC. [bTW, Tunecore has a special deal on single and album placements through the end of the years... a big savings.]

 

An alternative -- or adjunct -- is Bandcamp, which allows artists and labels to set up and sell albums for free -- and, get this, takes a smaller cut, giving the artist between ~75% and as much as 85% for high volume sales. (It uses Paypal as its payment system, so if you're going to sell a bunch of singles, you might want to set up a Paypal micropayments account [Paypal allows multiple accounts so if you're also selling big stuff, you can have a regular account, too; around $10-$12, but you can only have one account hooked up to your Bandcamp sales page, probably best to use the micropayments for that].) Some nice things about Bandcamp, aside from the fact you don't have to give them money up front or money for storage (ReverbNation limits mp3 sizes to 8 MB and charges for a 'premium' account if you want to stream or sell bigger files) are that you have a lot of control over how your Bandcamp sales pages look and -- this is killer -- your fans can get your singles or albums in anything from truly CD-quality 'lossless' formats (FLAC and Apple Lossless) down to phone-friendly 3gp files. The only additional service they charge for are for giving away free downloads. Their business model is about selling downloads, so giving them away cuts into their profits and they finally implemented a 200 free DL 'limit' per month (the DLs can be singles or full albums -- they both count as one DL against your 'credits'). You can buy more credits for a fairly small amount; but you get your free DL credits 'topped' back up to 200 every month, as well. They also have a mechanism for selling physical CDs in a couple of fashions. I haven't really explored that angle, but I wonder if one couldn't use Kunaki for fulfillment on that as an alternative.

 

Another alternative that's somewhat similar to Bandcamp but with elements of Reverbnation is the long-established CD Baby. Both CD Baby and Bandcamp seem to get a fair amount of good word of mouth and expressions of loyalty from artists.

[A. Einstein]

You don't sell one track without promotion. People simply wouldn't know that your music exists.

 

From the total about 12 million Western songs available worldwide today in digital portals, about 3000 sell, the rest is just laying there for nothing.

[blue2blue]

It's certainly true that you need to promote yourself to sell. And, of course, have a product that people will want. It can be the greatest stuff in the world but if no one knows it exists... you know. That said, there are a large number of ways an ambitious artist can promote himself these days. DIY vids on YouTube, social media, blogs, and zines.

 

But don't forget you have to promote those, too. A great mention in some blog or review in a local paper won't do you much good if only 3 or 4 people see it. If you get a write-up, etc, hype it, too. And you can have a great vid on YT, but people have to see it -- you need to reach critical momentum before something goes viral. Also, sad to say, great musical performances don't usually go viral unless they're tarted up with a cool, funny, memorable video -- or the artist is just some impossibly cute/adorable/cuddly teen. But that can be a dead end, too, unless you really work at conversion -- turning views into sales.

 

Obviously, indie artists can't afford the kind of payola in takes to get music on the radio or TV (er, considerations as we call payola now in the States in order to give the FCC a fig leaf for not prosecuting obvious payola), but as those media become more and more irrelevant to adults and even hip kids, I'm not so sure that's the big deal it once was.

[Johnny-Boy]

If you have broadcast quality (whatever that is) go the Music Library route. Still money to be made there. I must be crazy sending more competition to the libraries.

 

Good luck, John