So you've been busy making some beats and you're ready to share them with the world. What do you do now? Make a demo and send it out? Sure if you live in the 90's. Now you can do it all yourself from the recording to the releasing and the PR. New sites to share music are popping up all over the place. Before you sign up for any of them make sure you know the fine print and don't lose control over your music and your money. The options can be confusing so I am here to share what I have learned so far.
Let's start with Soundcloud. You probably already have one if not set one up. It has a nice free option that allows some downloads and free streaming as well as a huge community to get involved with. http://soundcloud.com/sparkyandtherandomband However you cannot charge for downloads to make money even if you sign up for the premium stuff. http://soundcloud.com/premium So I don't recommend paying them because you want to make money right? Bandcamp is another site that has been gaining a lot of users and I almost signed up but they take 15% of your sales. http://bandcamp.com/pricing So it has a lot of great features but was not right for me. Reverbnation is another option. They'll have a custom website for you for $18 a month and you can sell downloads on Itunes and a bunch of other sites for $35 a year. reverbnation The site is big and they have a lot of extras for the price and you get 100% of the profits. But you have to pay money to make money, or do you? Then there's Vibedeck. Completely free (paypal does take it's usual transaction fees) and you can customize your own page. No limits to uploads or downloads. You can set it up as fixed price, free, fan sets price or my favorite- tweet to download. http://vibedeck.com/sparkyandtherandomband They seem to be newer and are still adding new features but you can connect it to your soundcloud, Facebook and Youtube. So you pay no money and you make money. So it is what I went with to distribute my digital music.
There are many more including ways to release physical copies too. This is not the ultimate list so do your research and look out for yourself. These days you can do it all yourself. You already have your own home studio right? Even if you're not a laptop musician setting up a home studio is not that hard or expensive and so crazy convenient. I'll tell you more about my set up soon. I'll also delve into PR on a later date.
Keep making the strange things happen and tell the world as loud as you can.
-Sparky-
