YouTube
Courtesy: YouTube.comOne of the easiest ways for a composer to reach potentially millions of listeners with their music is by uploading their music to YouTube. While this service is free, it does require an artist to put in a significant amount of time to make sure their music reaches those listeners.
The first step in this process is to create a YouTube channel for your music, either under the name of your band or named for yourself as the composer. It’s important that you make the name of your channel the name that you record under so that if someone hears your music on another platform or somewhere off the internet and wants to look you up on YouTube, they can find your body of work as effortlessly as possible.
You can also include all of your social media information and contact information on your channel so that interested fans can follow you on those channels as well. The key to getting and keeping subscribers to your YouTube channel is to regularly add fresh, quality material and to try to respond to all of the comments on your page.
At the very least, a YouTube channel is a place to put your music videos and recordings in one place. However, it’s also a handy way for your audience to learn not just about your music, but also about you or your band on a personal level. Whenever you perform live, have someone record the event and upload it to your channel.
If you use unusual or archaic instruments in your compositions, you can upload video tutorials or demonstrations of you playing that instrument, or just talking about the history and appeal of it.
If you’re a music instructor, record some of your applicable in-class lectures and upload them to your channel as well. Listening parties, fan meet-and-greets, videos taken while on tour—all of the “extras” you put on your channel can help you connect to your fans.
Bandcamp
Since its founding in 2008, Bandcamp has been the go-to for independent musicians to sell their music all over the world. In addition to the numerous charitable causes Bandcamp has donated money to, it was especially supportive of the musicians on its roster by waiving their share of download fees numerous times during the 2020 COVID-19 health crisis and awarding 100% of the revenue from sales to the bands on its site.Because Bandcamp's profit-sharing model is more generous than that of many established record labels, some mainstream artists, including Bjork and Peter Gabriel, moved much of their own music to sell exclusively on Bandcamp.
In order to sell your own music through Bandcamp, you must first set up an account with Bandcamp, which is free. Once your account is established, you can begin to upload your music to the site either as WAV, AIFF, or FLAC files, and you have the option of uploading either one new song at a time or an entire album’s worth of material.
You then have the ability to choose how much you want to charge for people to download your music—and you can even offer your music for free, which is helpful if you’re just trying to build an audience. Bandcamp receives 15 percent from all digital purchases, and if you’re selling T-shirts or posters or anything physical through your account, Bandcamp gets 10 percent of those sales.
Show.co
If you already have an album out on an independent label, or something you’ve self-released, Show.co can help you put together a variety of marketing campaigns. These can range from its free package that gets your music featured on SoundCloud, YouTube, Spotify and iTunes, to larger packages that include banner ads for your records, spotlights of you or your band on various music sites, and audio ads on Spotify and iHeart Radio to promote any tours or live performances you have coming up.You can even set up a custom package with Show.co to determine the best marketing campaign for your music. Show.co offers a free 30-day trial period when you first sign up so you can test all of the available features to see what package is right for you.
CD Baby
Founded in 1997, making it one of the oldest online distribution services for independent artists, CD Baby services a network of over 150 stores and partner sites, including Spotify and iCloud. Artists and musicians pay between approximately $10 and $70 for every single song or album uploaded, depending on the distribution package they sign up for. Once you’ve set up your account, though, there are no annual fees, and artists are paid 100 percent of royalties weekly.CD Baby has a worldwide digital distribution program, can sell your work to streaming services, and will put together physical copies of your CDs, complete with your choice of artwork, so you can sell CDs when you perform in public.
Distrokid
Distrokid’s big claim to fame is that it can get your music produced on its site and available through all of the major streaming services for purchase faster than any other company on the internet (it claims it can do this 10 to 20 times faster than anyone else). Also, unlike many other distribution services, artists can upload unlimited tracks for sale for an annual fee, and receive 100 percent of their royalties (paid out monthly) for every song or album sold. It also offers unlimited data backups to account holders.Distrokid has a distribution network of more than 150 partners, and offers service plans for one to 100 artists, which makes them an ideal distribution service for a lot of independent record labels.
ReverbNation
ReverbNation not only will help you distribute your music through all of the regular streaming channels, but also has free tools to help you put together your band’s/musician’s website, helps connect you directly to your fans, and offers cash-strapped musicians options for direct sales.There are several packages available for musicians starting at $0 for direct-sales only, all the way up to $20 per month for its full package. The full package includes an electronic press kit, access to its email lists, a website with your own domain, and sponsorship under the ReverbNation brand, where artists are introduced and exposed to music industry partners and events.
TuneCore
Not only can you get your music distributed through TuneCore, you can also choose packages where your music is professionally mastered before release and get your music released as a vinyl record or CD. Then, you can sell these at the merchandise table when you play live, or brick-and-mortar music stores can order your discs to sell in-store from the site.TuneCore charges Artists an annual fee of approximately $30 per album, which includes distribution to over 150 digital stores and streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, and Amazon Music. Account holders are provided with comprehensive monthly sales figures, and you have the backup of TuneCore’s legal and licensing team in case you have any copyright issues.
Spinnup
Spinnup’s big claim to fame is that it's operated by Universal Music Group, so when you upload your music for distribution through Spinnup, your work is not only available through major streaming platforms worldwide, but is potentially reviewed by major industry players at Universal as well.You can upload an entire album for distribution for approximately $40 annually, and you keep 100 percent of the royalties, which are sent to you monthly via PayPal. Spinnup sends out a regular newsletter featuring new bands on its site to thousands of subscribers, which helps direct traffic to new music uploaded to the site.
Amuse
Amuse is similar to many of the other distribution services listed here, with a few notable exceptions. The most obvious exception is that when you sign up for an Amuse account, it issues you a wallet app that all of your royalties are directly sent to. This means you can track how many downloads you sell, as well as how much money you’re owed from sales. You can also pull money from your Amuse wallet whenever you need to, instead of having to wait for a monthly royalty check like with most other services.The second nonstandard feature of an Amuse account is that you can sign up individual people to receive royalties from a single account, with percentages assigned to each person. So, if one band member needs to pull money from the band’s joint Amuse account, they can only access their percentage of the royalties. The entire site is structured to support professional independent musicians who want all of the benefits of working with a major label, such as tour support, access to professional mastering services, and basic professional advice, but on their own terms. Amuse also has its own label that offers higher-than-average royalties to bands that sign with them.