I’ll admit it, I support and have participated in my fair share of online music sharing. I disagree with the RIAA for their overhanded lawsuit tactics in trying to stop it. I bitch about it plenty, but today I decided to do something positive for my fellow musicians, look at me go. The time is clearly here for us to be selling our goods online ourselves. Does this mean the end of the music industry and record labels as we know it…absolutely not, or I don’t really care one way or another. Let’s face it, a major record label probably isn’t going to be remotely interested in signing me, my post rock instrumental band, or any of the oddball country western conglomerates I participate in. That being said, I did a little research on some of the easy ways we can all sell our “product” using this wonderful new tool. First off, you don’t necessarily even need to sell your music online, especially if you are just starting out. Give it away and tour like crazy…people need to know who you are before they will buy your wares, so give them a taste of the product and get them coming back for more, this seems to work in the drug marketplace…of course this is reliant on the fact that you have toiled away long enough and you now have some high grade gold to wet their appetite with. This is not a lecture on you and your music, we will assume that you have already come down that road, and get on with finding our helpful friends. Some of these I’ve personally used some I have not and I will note this as we go. Also, none of these are sponsors of Etherbomb (at the time of this posting in any way).
Cd Baby
We start this little list with one of our favorites CDBaby founded by Derek Sivers. This great little operation out of Portland, Oregon has really blossomed into what we feel is one of the easiest ways to get your music out there. They have some pretty noteworthy sales statistics, and will function as a nice gateway to get you into the iTunes system, which is difficult for musicians without label support. They have a small $35 set up fee which is totally worth it, as they set you up for digital downloads, and handle shipping your physical cd sales.
Costs
Set Up Fee: $35
Additional: For digital sales, they keep only a 9% cut, paying 91% of all income directly to the artist. For physical CDs, they keep $4 per CD sold. We’ve used this for all our CDs and are completely happy with their service.
Payloadz
A search for music download software lead me to two products. Payloadz came up first and my first response to their website was not good. The name of the service is kind of tacky and the website continues this trend, with an out of the box generic looking design (sorry guys i am a designer by trade so…). The payment info was difficult to locate, and the site was confusing in general. However they do seem to offer a worthy payment structure once you locate it, with two options: flat rate or percentage.
Costs
Set Up Fee: None
Additional: They don’t offer sales of physical CDs just downloads. If you want to sell by percentage they take a 15% cut. See their table for fixed rates. They also offer affiliate sales which is great, this allows others to sell your downloads from their sites for a cut you determine.
E-Junkie
Second on the search list was E-junkie which by contrast was a really good example of how to present your service via website, a very nice design with all the info you’re looking for clearly laid out. They offer sales of downloads or tangible goods, and accounts start at $5 a month. Their prices might seem a bit steep, but for the variety of services they provide it seems like a good deal. They charge flat rate not percentage with no bandwidth fees, the scale seems to be based on number of products and the size.
Costs
Set Up Fee: None, first week is free.
Additional: They have a sliding scale based on number of products.
Snocap/Myspace
The monster that is Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace recently unleashed their entry into this race in the form of Snocap. I will bitch up and down about how much I personally hate MySpace, but the bottom line is it’s actually a good service for what it is. They really have done a good job offering an easy way to promote yourself online, filling the void for musicians with no money to hire a webmaster (are there really bands out there without at least one guy who does webdesign?). This new service allows you to easily embed your extra special songs for sale on your MySpace page along with your free songs. The main downside is the cost of 45% of your sales…ouch. That’s the cost of convenience, and Rupert’s got to get his money back somehow. On the plus side the amount you charge is completely up to you.
Costs
Set Up Fee: None
Additional: Bend over and give up 45%
Paypal or Google
If you have access to a programmer or even just some basic web design skills chances are you can set up a simple system to sell your music just using Google checkout or Paypal. If you don’t do a ton of sales you can throw up a button on your site and set up a download link on your server (get your admin to help you set up a protected directory). Then send a download link to your customers directly in email, it can be that simple. Paypal has more appeal in that it’s international functionality is far superior to Google (which is at this point still US only as far as I know). Google is slightly cheaper and I’ve included a few links to various articles I discovered on the two.
Costs
Set Up Fees: None for either one.
Additional:
Paypal 1.9 to 2.9 percent of sales plus 30 cents per transaction
Google 2 percent of sales plus 20 cents per transaction (less for AdWords customers)
Links:
CNET Article comparing the two
Techcrunch article about the new Paypal Widget
In closing this is just a short list of some of the services available, please feel free to post your own suggestions, and experiences here!
