Take a journey with me.
There's a young punk rocker in the UK needing something fresh.
So he does as Spotify advises and looks over the bands similar in style to Flogging Molly.
Woah! Who're these American guys? He quickly adds the new artist to all his playlist and posts on his FB wall about them.
Now we go across the Atlantic to France and enter a salon where a group of young aspiring artists are in need of inspiration.
They prefer using Rhapsody for their music searches.
Like our friend from the UK, they decide it's time for some new punk rock.
Low and behold they find the same new band! Suddenly, this indie punk rock band with no label is gaining fans across the Atlantic.
Pretty fantastic, huh? This isn't a fairy tale.
It's called digital music distribution.
Every music distributor has several specific commonalities and differences.
This article lists these traits so you can get into the nitty gritty and find which company is best for your band.
Commonalities: All distributors will make sure your music sold through the biggest digital retailers.
These are iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody and MySpace.
Also, these music retailers are going to take their cut first before you see any dough.
For example, iTunes gets roughly 30¢ per $1.
00 song sold.
This means the distributor will collect 70¢.
Your take depends on what your distributor chops off the top.
I discuss this below.
Here's something I think is a hoot! Derek Sivers' marketing team at CD Baby has cleverly claimed that your single/album will be sold on iTunes "in as little as 48 hours!*" The asterisk states: "Once your content has been approved by our distribution team and finalized by you, we will deliver your music to iTunes within 2 business days.
" The funny thing is that iTunes posts your music within 48 hours of delivery, regardless of the distributor.
So again, this is something you'll receive with every distributor.
It's just that Sivers saw an opportunity to make a big deal about something other distributors have so far ignored! Good marketing if you ask me.
Another common trait among these sites and an extremely important one for you is sales tracking.
This service gives you detailed reports on how much you're making and where.
These statements will be a critical part of your marketing attack as they will let you know where your efforts are paying off.
My advice: put more muscle into areas that are working and don't worry about areas where that aren't.
Every distributor that I've researched also gives you some pretty cool marketing/promo strategies for free.
This includes how to find your perfect fan, create a marketing campaign, use social media more effectively, and promote your upcoming single/album release.
Differences: The critical differences can be categorized as follows: extra perks, pricing and customer service.
Distributors have extra perks that make them unique.
For example, CD Baby will make and distribute physical CD's for you, letting you name your selling price.
TuneCore will collect and deliver all your publishing royalties from around the globe.
Ditto Music will set you up with your own label.
Review these perks because they could ultimately tip the scales towards one distributor over another.
As far as pricing, almost all charge a setup fee for albums, singles and ringtones.
Some companies give you and the band 100% of net sales, as is the case with TuneCore.
If this is the case, you usually have to pay an annual fee for each album/single/ringtone that's being distributed.
This means if you post one album, you pay that distributor a set amount per year for every year they distribute it.
Other distributors charge a one-time setup fee and then take a percentage of your sales without charging an annual.
Before choosing which service to use, definitely crunch some numbers based on past sales of your music.
This will give you an idea as to which service will put more $$$ into your pocket.
Nothing can replace great customer service.
You don't have hours to spend on the phone trying to fix a problem.
Awesome support that will jump on any chaotic situation is a life-saver because inevitably, chaos will occur.