Howdy, gang - 

 

I have some high-quality recordings that I would like to try and sell as digital downloads online. 

I've done my time and paid my dues doing it the "old fashioned way": pressing everything from cassettes and vinyl to CDs, etc. Not to mention, I've given away much more music than I've ever sold.

Now, I want to try selling the tunes individually the digital way.

 

Please send me your advice on how to go about doing this. 

I know there are many routes that can be taken: bandcamp, tunecore, emusic, iTunes, reverbnation, etc.

What is the best way?

What is the easiest way?

What is the best way for low overhead?

What are red flags to look out for?

What are places to avoid?

 

I am not a money-hungry merchandiser, I just want to try my hand at making some legitimate digital sales.

 

thanks, 

KK

Reverbnation has a digital media app, that sends the songs to I tunes, napster, amazon, last FM plus a bunch more. You have to sign up on an annual basis i thinks its about $150. But you get paid every time someone streams a song. for the price they have web hosting, electronic press kits, lots of widgets. Its worth giving it a look.

you can do amazon yourself by making a create space account with no fee! As far as associates, as I remember, their cut comes from amazon. which means, it would be cool for both if people were suggesting to others to buy your music! Tunecore will put your stuff on all the "important" places, so thats the easiest way but their is the cost. To be on itunes for example you have to go with "someone" and Tunecore seems to be the best. Total freedom is the paypal button. just my two cent KK :-)

So, are you saying that people will re-sell a band's digital music on Amazon?

How do they do that so easily?

 

Otherwise, thanks for the advice. Please keep it coming.

Depends how much you sell - I think I figued out the magic number for tunecore vs cdbaby is 172 annual downloads but always do the math for yourself.  They are both making the majority of their sales through iTunes as far as our stuff goes.  Tunecore is a straight fee and CD Baby is a %.  I heard Bandcamp is good and I'm sure Amazon is as well but identifying and stopping download re-sellers on Amazon seems to be brutal.  Anyone has more info around Amazon (and the associates program) that would be interesting.

Try Bandcamp.

We use it for free downloads but the paid downloads seem a right deal as well, so check it out. Also emusic looks good.