Earlier this week, I had a blog post "One step closer to be a professional musician!"
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2016/03/one-step-closer-to-be-professional.html
My entrepreneurial dreams are being realized. I have become a digital musician and independent contractor.
Now, Pablo the Mad Tiger Warrior finally has some music for sale!
2 songs are now available via CD Baby, an independent distribution company. Both are instrumental tracks.
You can find those songs at http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/PablotheMadTigerWarrior
CD Baby, despite it's name, isn't just about CDs, it also sells online downloads. So far, I'm just focused on selling singles so at this time, I'll just stick with selling downloads. When I'm ready to put out whole albums, then I'll sell CDs.
Anyways, here's a few things I want to share
1) Distribution (and why CD Baby?)
In the pre-internet days, music distribution is about getting your music into record stores.
Smaller record labels would make deals with larger corporations to get their music into stores nationwide (for example Nothing Records and Death Row Records once had distribution deals with Interscope in the 90's to get their items in the stores).
But with the internet, music distribution has changed! Much of the music transaction has moved online, with many people buying downloads via iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Music and more. Also, many people are streaming music from Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music and more.
To get your music on all those forums, online distribution companies like TuneCore, CD Baby and Reverb Nation get your music there! Submit some songs, pay a fee, and those music distribution companies will get your music on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, SlackerRadio and more! Those music distribution companies also have deals with Performance Rights Organizations (ie. ASCAP, BMI) that would collect publishing royalty payments whenever your song gets played on radio, nightclubs, and even the stereos of businesses.
Unlike traditional record companies, online music distribution companies (ie TuneCore, CD Baby, ReverbNation) do not manage artists, nor do they really do marketing campaigns, nor do they fund tours or music videos. The musicians are on their own for that!
But the great side of that is
- I manage my music content. No corporate person telling me what music to make
- I retain ownership of copyright
- I get most of the revenue, whereas musicians in traditional record labels get chump change!
The first online music distribution company I heard about was TuneCore.
TuneCore does have cheaper fees for artists to submit songs. TuneCore also lets you keep 100% of all the revenue.
The problem is, to keep your song on their distribution system, you have to pay annual fees. In other words, you don't pay annual fee per song, Tune Core will erase your song from iTunes, Google Play, etc.
If you can't pay any more annual fees per song because you're dead, your musical legacy is wiped off the entire TuneCore distribution network!
With CD Baby, you already paid your one-time fee
Here's an article making comparisons between TuneCore, CD Baby, and ReverbNation
more from that article
Which Service to Choose?
In my opinion, CDBaby. Don’t take my opinion as gold, but here are the reasons why I would choose CDBaby over the other two services.1. What if your band breaks up?
Who’s going to be stuck paying for these fees? You love what you’ve done with your band, and you want your tunes to be available forever. Also, it’d be nice to keep receiving the occasional payment for your years of hard work. But, if you’re paying hundreds of dollars per year in subscription fees, you’re a bit screwed without a touring band to support those costs.With CDBaby, you don’t have to worry about this.2. Changes in cost
Tunecore used to cost $34.95 per year and just raised their costs to $49.99 per year (over much bashing in the media). Now, you’re stuck with higher yearly fees unless you cancel and start over with a different service.With CDBaby, you don’t have to worry about this. You’ve already paid.3. Losing all your reviews, tags, and social clout
If you want to change services or discontinue your yearly subscription, your music will be removed from every digital distribution platform. That means all your reviews, tags, likes, shares, streams, etc. All gone in a blink of an eye.With CDBaby, again, no worries.4. Compound costs are unsustainable.
Consider a band that stays together for 10 years and has released 5 albums. They will be paying around $250 per year. Now, they’ve also released multiple singles over that time. Let’s say they have 10 singles, so they’ll be paying $99.50 per year, as well.It may not sound like much, but a single can be recorded for about $300.CDBaby, you’ve only paid that amount once. Not yearly.5. You have to sell a lot of music to justify the costs
Considering you are probably getting chump change per download, you would have to be selling hundreds of downloads per year to simply cover the costs.With CDBaby, you can earn over time to cover the initial cost. If your sales don’t do well, you can still make up the initial costs over a period of time. (Long tail sales.)
What this chart and article doesn't tell you is that CD Baby charges even more (for it's one-time fee) if you want CD Baby to collect publishing royalty payments. But at least with that option, you collect more money in the long run!
2) Licensing
Another way musicians make money is if their song gets used in movies, advertisements and video games.
CD Baby does offer the Sync Licensing Option, in which they chose who is using your music in ads/films/games/etc. I decided not to chose that option.
I don't want my music used to advertise alcohol, political campaigns I don't agree with, or any products I'm boycotting!
So anyone who wants to use my music for their advertisements, films, shows, or video games, just contact me at madtigerwarrior@yahoo.com. Same applies for anyone who wants to sample my tracks for their songs!
3) back to iTunes, Google Play et al
CD Baby does sell their musician's songs on their website, and also distributes them (with musician's permission) to other online stores (ie. iTunes, Google Play, etc.)
CD Baby gets first dibs. Which is why CD Baby gets to sell my songs for downloads first. In about a month, my songs should appear on iTunes, Google Play, etc.
I am boycotting anything related to Amazon for now. I started the boycott when reports emerge that the company tracks every movement by their employee, even how often they use the bathroom. As someone who takes medication to control my over-active bladder, that alone make me want to boycott Amazon. To make it even worse, Amazon was reported to have an abusive work environment in even more ways.
Learn more at "Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace"
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0
While I don't expect every workplace to be utopias, great companies will solve those types of problems instead of encouraging those problems.
I use Barnes & Nobles to buy my books and CDs.
And I don't sell my music via Amazon unless I hear news reports about improving work culture at Amazon!
4) What the future holds
For now, I'll just stick with releasing 2 songs per month. I don't want to over-burden my fans with too much stuff at once!
Hopefully, if there's enough songs of a similar style, I might even release an album!
It will take a while for payments to come in (if they actually come, since some songs have spent years on iTunes without a single buyer). I'm definitely not quitting my day job anytime soon!
