Do you sell your music at Amazon or iTunes?

nolik

nolik

Member
Hello World,
I’m considering Amazon or iTunes as a sales platform for my music. I'm wondering whether it is competable for an independant musicians.
So, I appreciate your comments on:

1. Do you sell your music at Amazon or iTunes?
2. If not, I appreciate your comments.
3. What supposed to be an alternative to get sales-records for an inependant artist?

Thanks.
 
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We're kicking around this exact thing actually. Currently, we're using Bandcamp, which is fantastic because it handles both Digital sales and Physical Merchandise. Also, we keep a MUCH larger cut of the sales and everything is still reported to soundscan. It even handles pre-orders! Here's our bandcamp site: Chaos in Question

We don't have audio uploaded there yet, so we haven't been able to make good use of the analytics, but the tools are super cool. Just don't forget you have to register with soundscan/RIAA separately and get IRSC codes to track your online sales.

The only reason we're considering an alternative is because bandcamp doesn't have the subscriber base that iTunes and Amazon do.
 
CD Baby is a full-fledged distribution partnership. Basically, you pay them x% to handle all the distribution for all online sales. Then they get it on iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, etc... The kicker here is you're still paying iTunes, Amazon, ect... their cut when they sell something and then CD Baby takes their % off that. You're paying them to manage your online distribution so you don't have to keep track of all the different vendors. There are several sites that will do this.

People think being an independent musician these days is so easy, but it's still tons and tons of legwork, contracts, and management if you want to do it right. I'm sure it's a LOT easier than it once was, but it's still incredibly hard if you're trying to do it all yourself. I do all the booking, band management, and merchandise in our band as well as half the writing. Not an hour goes by that I'm not thinking about band-related stuff, which reminds me, I need to call the bass player and make sure he remembers his studio time in 40 mins...
 
Sidivan said:
People think being an independent musician these days is so easy, but it's still tons and tons of legwork,..
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Sidivan,
Thank you for complete comment.

I’m a client of CDBaby more then a year now. But I started looking for direct distribution-partnership with Amazon. Just finished reading the contract with Amazon: it is OK when it goes toMP3 selling, but In case of CD sale = they take almost 95% of sale price (if a CD priced at =10 USD). To get 10 USD royalty from one CD sale with Amazon, I have to set CD price at almost 22 USD !!!!

I believe CDBaby in the same position with Amazon, so I think there is no reason to set up any CD titles with them. I’m confused.

I’d like to be able to sell CDs but not only the MP3-downloads… What would you recommend?
Thanks.
 
Currently, we're planning to use Bandcamp, but as we are releasing our debut album in February, I can't really comment on how well it works in production. So far, pre-orders have gone off without a hitch. We get an email telling us every pre-order, how much it was, what our final take is, etc... Also, it allows for discount codes if you want to run promotions and allows you to export all of the orders with email addresses if need be. You can even generate download codes and package them with your CD if you sell a CD at a show, which would enable the user to download your album in any format they choose. So far, it's been amazing for us on our pre-order with T-shirts and CD's + Digital Downloads. We had to push the release date back and Bandcamp provided us with an easy method to export all the email addresses and kick out a canned response to everybody. You can even do teaser tracks (if you pre-order, the teaser track is available for download immediately). If you don't fulfill the orders yourself, say you have a warehouse company, you can do that too. Process all the orders through Bandcamp and they'll automatically send them over to your fulfillment company.

The other cool thing is their cut is tiered 15% until $5000 sales have been reached, in which case it goes down to 10%, but they don't take a cut off every order. Say you're at the 10% tier and you sell 9 CD's @ $10/cd. You get ALL of that $90. When you sell your 10th CD, bandcamp takes the funds from that one sale to balance itself. You'll never owe to them than 1 sale and you don't have to do any math to figure out how much to price your stuff out so it's convenient to everybody. I would totally recommend doing some research on their site and watching their videos. The tools really are incredible.

The only downside so far has been that there is not really a built-in subscriber base. Nobody is browsing around and going "Oh hey, look new music", like iTunes has their "Genius" button which suggests music to people based on their preferences.
 
nolik said:
Hello World,
I’m considering Amazon or iTunes as a sales platform for my music. I'm wondering whether it is competable for an independant musicians.
So, I appreciate your comments on:

1. Do you sell your music at Amazon or iTunes?
2. If not, I appreciate your comments.
3. What supposed to be an alternative to get sales-records for an inependant artist?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I am not an independent artist, but our distribution is through Amazon (and iTunes) and other major retailers. I think some of the issue is exposure and how much or perhaps better put is how little of the money you actually get to keep. While you might get a better percentage of sales at other music outlets, if you do much less volume in sales you just end up with a bigger percentage of less money. The music markets are so flooded now, that even big artists do not move gazillions of albums. That said, I suggest you closely evaluate several outlets and balance exposure with your financial returns. You can try the links at the bottom of my post to check out my band. You can also go to Amazon and search for Supernal Endgame and see the results you get for us. All of us that are not household names struggle with trying to get our music in front of people who are not familiar with our work. Great post. My sincere best wishes for you.
 
Remove this if it is bending or breaking the rules, but contact me for digital distribution alternatives.
 
I sell my own stuff on CD Baby, and whatever Tunecore offers.

But, I also sell direct downloads - which I prefer.

In my experience, people who are looking for my music know where to find me - so I prefer to sell direct to them.

But the newbees usually find me via other outlets - not iTunes, or CD Baby, or Amazon... Usually it's through either YouTube, or Forums, or podcasts.

It's an interesting time for sure.

L
 
larryseyer said:
But the newbees usually find me via other outlets - not iTunes, or CD Baby, or Amazon... Usually it's through either YouTube, or Forums, or podcasts.L
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Larry Thanks for sharing,
I'm with you. But we have to get UPC and ISRC codes in order to be able to report sales.
I appreciate if you can comment on:

1. Which alternatives do we have to get UPC and ISRC?
2. How difficult to register with SounScan for an independent?

Thanks.
 
ISRC codes used to be free. But now you have to pay for them.

If you really want them, go here and get your first owner codes:

ISRC - International Standard Recording Code (they are now $75 for the first 100,000). Then you can make your own for life.

As far as UPC codes, you can get those just about anywhere for around $35.

CD Baby is probably the best bet for them.

Digital Music UPC Barcodes - How to Sell Music Online

But really, if you think you're going to make your money back on your ISRC registration codes, you might want to do the math.

Royalty rates (via reported plays) are so low now that for the $100 you're talking about just to get the codes, you would need to get about 100,000 airplays to break even - not likely.

So go for the direct sale. Screw the big business guys. They don't give a !@#$% about you anyway. They're only looking to make their bottom line bigger.

The people who are interested in buying your music can download the files directly from you and you can keep 100% of the sale.

Also, if you make your music ONLY available on your site, then it makes it 'special' and you can control the supply. (not to mention, you also have the ability to make 'upgrades' to the mixes later and re-sell (or give away) the improvements to your customers.

Put it on iTunes and everyone assumes it SHOULD be priced at .99 cents... STUPID! Not only that, but you're competing with EVERYBODY ELSE on those huge sales portals. Not a good situation at all.

If it's only available on your site, then you can charge more for it because of supply and demand. Also, you are free to make 'collections' and 'compilations' on down the road simply by 're-packaging' the downloads into new products. (i.e have an entry level product, a mid-level product, and a high-end product all using the same material but packaged uniquely).

That's my suggestion anyway and what I've been doing for the last 4 years or so.

I still have my stuff listed on iTunes, Amazon, and CD Baby, but there's not enough sales to spit at from those sources.

But I still make a decent income from direct downloads.

So my two cents is that UPC and ISRC are icing on the cake and I wouldn't worry about them too much. Sell via direct downloads and screw making physical products.

Who wants to spend the time shipping that crap anyway? And it's an oil based product that puts this county further into debt to big energy companies.

Obviously, I'm opinionated. Sorry for the rant.

Good luck!

PS

(It's a good idea to give away a good portion of your products - encourage your customers to make YouTube 'fan' videos)
 
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larryseyer said:
ISRC codes used to be free. But now you have to pay for them.

If you really want them, go here and get your first owner codes:

ISRC - International Standard Recording Code (they are now $75 for the first 100,000). Then you can make your own for life.



As far as UPC codes, you can get those just about anywhere for around $35.

CD Baby is probably the best bet for them.

Digital Music UPC Barcodes - How to Sell Music Online

But really, if you think you're going to make your money back on your ISRC registration codes, you might want to do the math.

Royalty rates (via reported plays) are so low now that for the $100 you're talking about just to get the codes, you would need to get about 100,000 airplays to break even - not likely.

So go for the direct sale. Screw the big business guys. They don't give a !@#$% about you anyway. They're only looking to make their bottom line bigger.

The people who are interested in buying your music can download the files directly from you and you can keep 100% of the sale.

Also, if you make your music ONLY available on your site, then it makes it 'special' and you can control the supply. (not to mention, you also have the ability to make 'upgrades' to the mixes later and re-sell (or give away) the improvements to your customers.

Put it on iTunes and everyone assumes it SHOULD be priced at .99 cents... STUPID! Not only that, but you're competing with EVERYBODY ELSE on those huge sales portals. Not a good situation at all.

If it's only available on your site, then you can charge more for it because of supply and demand. Also, you are free to make 'collections' and 'compilations' on down the road simply by 're-packaging' the downloads into new products. (i.e have an entry level product, a mid-level product, and a high-end product all using the same material but packaged uniquely).

That's my suggestion anyway and what I've been doing for the last 4 years or so.

I still have my stuff listed on iTunes, Amazon, and CD Baby, but there's not enough sales to spit at from those sources.

But I still make a decent income from direct downloads.

So my two cents is that UPC and ISRC are icing on the cake and I wouldn't worry about them too much. Sell via direct downloads and screw making physical products.

Who wants to spend the time shipping that crap anyway? And it's an oil based product that puts this county further into debt to big energy companies.

Obviously, I'm opinionated. Sorry for the rant.

Good luck!

PS

(It's a good idea to give away a good portion of your products - encourage your customers to make YouTube 'fan' videos)
Click to expand...



Thanks for your observations, Larry. Marketing is a tough puzzle for the typical musician to navigate these days, and it's a moving target, always changing...I appreciate your input.
 
larryseyer said:
Also, if you make your music ONLY available on your site, then it makes it 'special' and you can control the supply. (not to mention, you also have the ability to make 'upgrades' to the mixes later and re-sell (or give away) the improvements to your customers.
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Larry, it’s very kind of you sharing your experience.
I’m with you regarding Big Retailers and selling via your own Web.Site. But in this case you have to rent any payment-processing system to have it directly on your Web.Page.

1. Which payment-processing system can you recommend? PayPall?

Thanks.
 
No you don't!

You don't need a merchant account and you don't need all that fancy payment-processing crap.

Just use PayPal...

Make a 'buy it now' button using their free system. (it's actually not totally 'free' - you pay a small percentage for the transaction)

But you don't need a merchant account and you don't need to pay any monthly payment-processing fees.

L
 
larryseyer said:
Just use PayPal...
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Well, to me it’s cleared now. I’ve spend entire week by reading contracts with retailers and comparing services they offer. I’ll try PayPal. But there are two points I’d like to clear:

1. How to report sales to Nielsen? I know where and how to acquire/register all necessary codes, but. Is there a chance to report sales via PayPal to SoundScan ?
2. Can you build your clients (persons who actually bought) your music via PayPal? I mean, is there a chance to export client’s email-addresses from PayPal??

Thanks.
 
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Can someone explain how you set up selling downloads on your own site. Like how do you create the downloads without using bandcamp or CD Baby etc. Thanks, Don
 
theblogjammers said:
Can someone explain how you set up selling downloads on your own site. Like how do you create the downloads without using bandcamp or CD Baby etc. Thanks, Don
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Hey Don,
1. Google for "Paid Downloads" regarding web site platform you use. Be ready for programming a little.
 
nolik said:
Well, to me it’s cleared now. I’ve spend entire week by reading contracts with retailers and comparing services they offer. I’ll try PayPal. But there are two points I’d like to clear:

1. How to report sales to Nielsen? I know where and how to acquire/register all necessary codes, but. Is there a chance to report sales via PayPal to SoundScan ?
2. Can you build your clients (persons who actually bought) your music via PayPal? I mean, is there a chance to export client’s email-addresses from PayPal??

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Paypal doesn't do anything except accept payments. and send you money electronically.

They will send you your customer's email address if you choose.

As far as 'Nielsen'... I don't care about that.

What? Do you really think they care that I sell 1000 CDs?

They don't. And I don't benefit from them knowing either. The trade magazines could care less about sales of 1000 (or even 5000)... You have to get upwards of 10,000 or more to even get noticed... and that's not likely with an independent artist.

But I care about making $15,000 from 1000 downloads.

There is not much money selling music today. It's has definitely become something that is done for the 'Art' of making it instead of 'the income'.

In that sense, musicians are pack leaders - forward thinkers - 'way showers' for the rest of the world.

Instead of letting profits drive what is being done in the world, musicians let 'what they love' drive what is being done in the world.

The reason most of the world is in the financial trouble they are in right now (IMHO) is because everybody is chasing money. Money doesn't do anything except imprison the people who are chasing it.

Radical ideas, I know. But because I have given up the idea of looking for 'big brother' to take care of me and because I have basically adopted a 'do it all myself' attitude, I make a living selling stuff I create and don't wait for 'big brother' to send me some measly portion of what 'they' think I should get. (i.e. keep me in prison).

Break out of prison! Give up your ideas that Nielsen even matters! It doesn't!

Make your own website, sell your own music, create your own songs... own everything you do!

That is the pathway to freedom IMHO.

All the best to you!

L
 
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