New DIY Distribution and Sale Options for New Music

In practical business terms, places like eMusic, iTunes, Rhapsody or Sony Connect still only deal with 'labels' and distributors, so it's hard-to-impossible for a single, completely independent artist to get their stuff up there without one or the other. That's where places like CD Baby and now TuneCore come in. They act like the distributor; iTunes and eMusic see them as legit old-school business entities, and are happy to take the music from them.

I started using CD Baby in 2003 to distribute my music. Besides being very open, fair and efficient for the sale of CDs from very small labels and projects, they were one of the first OMDs (Online Music Distributors) to arrange a deal with the download services (like eMusic and iTunes) so that all the micro-independent CDs they were carrying could get placed on the download sites just like the big guys. The sales for physical CDs of our kind of stuff on CD Baby are minuscule, but the cost is small to put a CD on their site (total to stock and process the CD and obtain a UPC code: ca. $60), they stock them forever, and you only need 5 initial copies of the CD to get up and running. So I made just the minimum of CDs myself and sent them five. Any sold is a fine thing; but the real reason for putting them on CD Baby was to get them into the loop so they could go to the download services.

The beauty of TuneCore is that it's the next logical step: you don't even need to make those 5 CDs! Everything is 'virtual'; your cover is simply a 600x600 JPEG file, and the tracks are all just high-bit-rate MP3s you upload straight to them, rather than having them scan the art and rip the tracks from your physical CD. All I had to do was make up a nice cover, decide on which tracks I wanted and in what order, make the 320 kbps MP3s from my original WAVE files, and I was ready to go. The whole CD project just took an easy afternoon. The total cost through TuneCore for my The Composer Plays IV CD came to about $23 (plus of course the $10-a-year they ask to keep the CD up there). That's way below what it cost to set up things through CD Baby -- figuring the cost to make the CDs, cost to mail the CDs, cost for CD Baby to process the CD, and cost for obtaining the UPC and ISRC numbers.

Every CD sold in the real business marketplace needs a UPC code (those little barcodes you see on any commercial CD), and every song streamed or downloaded needs an ISRC number for each track. That's how they tally transactions and pay for sales. Getting your own personal UPC code is a $500 proposition; but CD Baby would give you a unique UPC through them (with ISRC numbers as well for each track) for only $20. And now, TuneCore gives you the same thing free! So that's another huge plus.

We've already entered a new phase, where any artist can have direct control and connection over the sale and distribution of their music. Tunecore takes us even farther away from business "as it's always been"; we now have the ability to bypass the already-dying CD completely! The investment is tiny; the return is maximal and goes directly into our own pocket. Aside from some possible help in promotion, there begins to be less and less reason for us to ever have to sign our music over to some label to get it to a worldwide buying public. (Marketing and promotion are still a big and real hurdle, one of the last bastions of the middleman. Some labels are strong and active promoters of their artists; but for every one of those there are countless others whose service is of dubious value, at best.)

Going direct still requires the same legal footwork regarding mechanical licenses, performer and recording releases, etc., and dealing with that might surely be off-putting to some. In my case, I've spent many years exploring ways to keep the composer, performer, engineer and producer down to a single person. As long as the music still carries an authentic and full experience, I don't see that as giving up much; rather, it's more a practical trade for a kind of nimbleness and control, allowing pieces and projects to be both realized with quality and authenticity, and disseminated as quickly, easily and widely as possible. Some people will want a more "populated" environment, and that's still fine and possible. The point is that either way works, as long as both are pursued with the same commitment to the piece, performance, product and experience.

One extra thing I'm starting to do, that all these download places don't really offer, is to create some real, substantial and printable liner notes for each release. A big drawback of all the download services is the lack of full or consistent information that comes with just downloading tracks. I think potential customers will greatly appreciate being able to have real liner notes that can be freely downloaded from my own website.