Hi,

Does any one know how I go about geting my tunes sold on websites such as Beatport, itunes etc..

Thanks,

1DMF
Last edited by 1DMF on Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:45 am; edited 1 time in total

CDBaby offer a 50$ package that get your music distributed on all the major websites (iTunes, TuneCore, Amazon, etc...).

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Pretty sure you still have to go through a label to get onto Beatport (and it has to be one that Beatport has accepted).

Also Tunecore, and Reverbnation (which may work with Tunecore).

Be sure and read the fine print about how they break down charges (by album, for instance, and also what kind of ongoing or yearly fee they charge to keep your album in the stores).

Edit: I don't think CD baby gets you into Tunecore---Tunecore isn't a store, it's a service to get your music into stores.

www.tunecore.com

www.cdbaby.com

www.reverbnation.com

RouteNote just takes a percentage of the sale so there's no upfront free, neither the (me thinks) silly maintenance tax that Tunecore is charging for keeping the catalogue up for years.

The hardest thing is to get EDM to Beatport as Beatport is picky about incoming music -- which is good me thinks. You need a good aggregator that has connections to Beatport or then a bigger EDM label that has connections. Meanwhile, Juno is getting as much attention for EDM music and it's easier to distribute via Juno.

Maybe because they don't spam like you?

Beatport takes any old shite.

What they don't do is deal with 'the public' so you need to put your music on there via an aggregator like labelworx. Which isn't difficult.

I really don't know why people have a fascination with Beatport. Sales are laughably low. The real one to get on is iTunes. Even then you'll be amazingly lucky to make $50 per track over the course of a year unless you are life changingly good or have a very clever or expensive marketing push behind you.
Last edited by tehlord on Thu Aug 23, 2012 3:10 am; edited 1 time in total

Anyone got experience with Rebeat?

..which makes it really hard to justify the mastering expenses per tune, let alone the production costs and time spent.
It's really hard to make a living this way and the worst thing is that being in the game usually requires you keep investing in new tools which are rarely (if ever) payed off.

So it's either a "sell your soul and become a mainstream whore" or "remain being an artist and stay homeless and hungry" kind of thing.

Making EDM today is the worst thing you can do, it seems.

I've used Songcast and haven't had anything to complain about. They charge an annual fee of $60 and then $10 for a single release or $25 for an album. They don't distribute to as many stores as others though, certainly not Juno or Beatport.

I've been looking at MondoTunes recently, as they appear to distribute to more stores.

I recently read an article about it [but I can't find it now ], and from that article it turned out that CDBaby is kinda best to make a buck or two, and that is literally a buck or two, so I definitely agree with maxxxter... it's hard to make a living doing choons, mate. It also depends on what constitutes your way of living. A humble person doing good choons could possibly live from it, but it's always a good idea to keep doing something more profitable on the side, or have a day job if you can bear living like that. [I can't]

Personally, I write for my own enjoyment. It would be nice to see if other people enjoy the music I write and maybe make a little money on the side, but if it happens, that is a small bonus.

One of the problems that I think we all face is that most forums for independent musicians are full of independent musicians. Therefore you only get a response from people if you have responded to their own work. There are very few, if any venues for people to get their music in front of music consumers. Last.fm and Jango both have services where you can pay to have your track played, and my recent release seems to be picking up quite a few fans at the moment, but it is a genre which doesn't have a particularly large following any more and so is taking quite a while.

We are lucky to have services such as Songcast and Tunecore. For a fairly insignificant amount of money, you can get your music out there for people to buy, which is more than can be said for as recent as ten years ago. Unfortunately, the public are more captivated by the 15-week advert for Simon Cowell's next Christmas Number 1, the X Factor, than seeking out independent music.

I write for my own enjoyment, too. I think too many people are doing "conformist music" and that's one of the reasons why there's no such diversity in tracks as it used to be. I guess most of the people delve into music for all the wrong reason - "Mum and dad, I'm gonna be a star and make big bucks!" Which is not "unobtanium", of course, but not *all* can make it, only a *very* small percentage, and this attitude just leads to having too many people trying to do "music for the masses and a buck", which is wrong IMHO. Don't try to be Depeche Mode or some other big bucks making star, be yourself. I'm doing it for myself, too, and if it "clicks" with some people, then good, and even better if it brings a quid or two.
Last edited by DuX on Thu Aug 23, 2012 4:25 am; edited 1 time in total

Well that's all nice and peachy, but if (like me) you've been busy with it for more than 20 yrs, invested a pile of money in the set-up and spent a significant amount of your time and space on it, then the enjoyment side becomes less pronounced and money becomes important because you need to justify it all to yourself and your surroundings. Obviously you still enjoy it, but feel the existential pressure as well.

In the past it was, paradoxically so, easier to earn a living with it, but much harder to actually afford the gear and produce stuff.

Today it's the opposite; quite easy to build a set-up and publish a tune, but very difficult to earn a living with it.

Don't know which is worse.