Where do independent musicians publish their music these days?

[Newfoundfreedom]

I tried the whole Distrokid, streaming services route a couple of years ago and although it's not really about the money, the chance of even covering subscription costs is pretty slim considering you need thousands of streams just to make a couple of quid. 

 

So where do people put their original music these days? Is Bandcamp still a thing and worth doing, or are there any better options now?

[petebassist]

I really rate CDBaby to easily & cheaply get music out onto multiple streaming sites, the website's great. I use this for promotion, not for an income stream - I'm not a commercial artist. Not tried Distrokid but I imagine these services are all pretty similar, and the more you pay the less you have to do yourself. 

Do you put a lot of music out?

 

[Newfoundfreedom]

3 minutes ago, petebassist said:

I really rate CDBaby to easily & cheaply get music out onto multiple streaming sites, the website's great. I use this for promotion, not for an income stream - I'm not a commercial artist. Not tried Distrokid but I imagine these services are all pretty similar, and the more you pay the less you have to do yourself. 

Do you put a lot of music out?

 

 

No. Only one track so far a couple of years ago but the band has just got back together after a couple of years of "life" and we want to get back in the studio again to record some of our originals. 

 

Not really bothered about making money to be fair but it would be nice to at least cover costs..

 

I think CDBaby and Distrokid are pretty much the same animal and it's always an option but I'd rather do something more independently for the time being. 

 

 

[petebassist]

4 minutes ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

 

No. Only one track so far a couple of years ago but the band has just got back together after a couple of years of "life" and we want to get back in the studio again to record some of our originals. 

 

Not really bothered about making money to be fair but it would be nice to at least cover costs..

 

I think CDBaby and Distrokid are pretty much the same animal and it's always an option but I'd rather do something more independently for the time being. 

 

 

I guess it depends on your studio costs and what your budget is. If you're good with technology you can do the publishing yourself for free.

[Newfoundfreedom]

5 minutes ago, petebassist said:

I guess it depends on your studio costs and what your budget is. If you're good with technology you can do the publishing yourself for free.

 

Not really any costs involved. I have my own studio at home and do all the mixing and mastering. But I have no idea how to get the music "out there" which I think is pretty common due to the absolute over saturation of the market. I really can't do the social media thing any more. 

[BigRedX]

Unless you are doing active promotion and probably also gigging you are unlikely to make enough back to pay for a subscription Aggregator service like Distrokid. However if you are in no hurry to break even one of the single payment services should eventually allow you to break even.

 

Compared with the cost of making a CD or record in the pre-internet days either method is a complete bargain.

 

If it's essentially a vanity project then you are better off using one of the Aggregator services that just requires a one-off payment. CD Baby is currently $9.99 for an album and they take approximately 10% of your streaming and download income. 

 

As an example I put out an "album" by my band from the late 1990s. With zero promotion it has taken 15 years to make just under $12 in streaming and downloads. On the other hand my current band who are actively gigging and promoting our music expect to make several hundred pounds from Spotify payments alone this year. It also helps that we have no overheads for releasing music other than our Aggregator fees - we record and produce everything ourselves and I do all the graphic design for the cover art.

[BigRedX]

Bandcamp is a completely separate thing. It only gets your music on Bandcamp and unfortunately the vast majority of bandcamp users are other musicians.

 

If you want your music available to "ordinary" people it will need to be on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and YouTube at the very minimum, and that means using an Aggregator as described in my previous post.

 

To maximise your exposure you need to be on Bandcamp too, but be aware that only people likely to buy a copy of your album on there are other basschat members.

[simonlittle]

49 minutes ago, petebassist said:

I really rate CDBaby to easily & cheaply get music out onto multiple streaming sites, the website's great. I use this for promotion, not for an income stream - I'm not a commercial artist. Not tried Distrokid but I imagine these services are all pretty similar, and the more you pay the less you have to do yourself. 

Do you put a lot of music out?

 

I’d also recommend CD Baby if you want to make your music available on all the digital/streaming services. The big difference between that and Distrokid is that CD Baby charges a (very reasonable) one-off fee per release as opposed to a yearly subscription. I’ve released a load of music via CD Baby alongside Bandcamp.
Bandcamp is fantastic but operates very much its own eco-system; you’ll make more per download, can set up subscription services and have full control over pricing etc with , but sadly Joe Bloggs on the street isn’t as likely to get on board. 
Running Bandcamp alongside CD Baby is a good combo I reckon. 

[neepheid]

We use Emubands, same reason as CD Baby - one off fee per release.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

I've used routenote for some releases - similar to the other aggregators but they have a tier with no upfront costs.

[Newfoundfreedom]

12 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

I've used routenote for some releases - similar to the other aggregators but they have a tier with no upfront costs.

 

That sounds interesting. Thanks. I'll check them out. 

[PaulWarning]

we use soundrop, costs about £1 a track (or did last time we used it) and they put it on most if not all the streaming sites, get a statement every month giving details of how many streams and where the songs have been streamed, when the amount reaches $20 we get a payment, which takes an age, especially now spotify don't pay anything till a 1000 streams in a 12 month period is reached

[Newfoundfreedom]

Thanks for all the responses so far. 

 

I wasn't even aware about the "free" distributors before now. (Or at least with a small fee or stream percentage as opposed to an upfront annual subscription like Distrokid etc).

 

One of those plus Bandcamp for downloads would probably be the ideal solution for us. 

 

So we have Routnote and Soundrop. Any other recommendations? 

[BigRedX]

Of all the Aggregators I have used over the past 15 years CD Baby are currently the cheapest with a $9.99 one off fee for an album and 9% of your streaming and download payments.

 

The prices of all the Aggregator services have come down massively in recent years. When I first started using them it was about $50 for a one-off fee for an album and "singles" (which meant just one track) were only marginally cheaper.

 

Whichever service you pick you want to make sure that it supports as many download and streaming sites as possible. While Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and YouTube are by far the biggest source of streams there are lots of others you might not have heard of, but they all contribute to the income from your songs.

Edited 5 hours ago by BigRedX

[Supernaut]

CDBaby and Distrokid.