Selling Tracks / Online Distribution - What to do?

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Oct 25, 2015
Hi guys,

it's been a while since I have been on here and it has also been a while since I made tracks.

Now, after a change in my job I have more spear time and want to get back into making tunes. So I have been making music for seven years and I have tons of unfinished loops and old tracks. Now I have gotten a lot better at mixing and feel as if I should try to make some passive income with something I do anyways.

I have some neurofunk tracks and then other genres and styles which, I feel, are more mainstream, that I would like to get out there.

After 4 days of researching (litarelly about 25 hours) I am more confused than before.

I have read tons of bad reviews just about any digital distribution site (such as ditto, feiyr, tunecore, etc.). They are also quite expensive.

If I want to sell to DJs, it seems it would be best to set up your own label and sell directly, but that's also a lot of effort and money.

On the other hand you can sell royalty free stock music on sites such as audio jungle.

To be honest I would like to sell licenced music and get roaylties, but I don't have much funds. I would be willing to pay fees, if I felt I would get a return on my investements. But right now, I have no clue how to proceed, besides making my own website and selling from there (which also comes with effort and investements).

No matter what option I consider, it seems most of them cost money.


So my questions are:

Have any of you been making money with tracks one way or the other? If yes, what strategy do you persue?

What's the best way to try selling your tracks without being screwed and spending tons of money to even get the chance?

Have you, or are you using an digital dsitribution service? If yes, which ones and why? Made any bad experiences, or good?

Are you selling royalty free stock music? If yes, where and why?


Have you had any success with any of these sites or services?


I need some real data and experiences from people, which is hard to find online.


I am a no-name artist and want to use my tracks somehow to at least fund my equipment, which I spent lots of money on. So, do any of you have any advice, or experiences you can share?


Thanks for any and all replies!
 
First off I would say that I think you will be disappointed if money is the main goal of your music making. With that being said I think that the best way to make a small amount of money as a no-name artist would be selling merchandise or physical releases of your music. Sites as bandcamp.com is very useful for this. There is not a lot of money in streaming services, and considering that your audience isn't that big yet, I don't think you should rely on that as a way to make money. Distrokid is one of the cheapest ways to get your your music on streaming services and iTunes etc. that I know of.
 
"disappointed if money is the main goal of your music making", as I have said, I am making music either way and spent tons of money (which might not be much to others) on euipment. I just want to get some of it back. I make music because it makes me happy and I like experimenting.

I am just wondering if it's worth spending more money on mastering and distribution, with a chance of not selling a single track.

Producing for a stock site on the other hand, feels like making music with the goal of selling it and not actually producing what comes to mind. Which I would do, if I knew it was worth the time spent on doing it.
 
Well, there will be a big risk that you don't earn more money than you spend when it comes to music on an amateur level (meaning that you're not a known artist, yet, and maybe you never will be)
It's worth spending money on it if you want to give it a shot, but you can't predict how people will receive your music. So I think you should lower your expectations of making money and focus on doing it because it makes you happy as you wrote yourself.
 
Guess I will have to try to find out.

I think it can't hurt to make some tracks specifically for a stock site.
 
as some1 noted above, DistoKid is prob your best choice.
it cost 20$ per year for a single artists (like you)
you need a credit card to pay them (as far as i know)
they have very good reviews overall

they'll get your music into itunes, beatport, juno, google play, amazon and all the other big outlets...

as long as you pay them those 20$/year, you can upload as many tunes/albums as you want. when you stop paying them
those 20 bucks they take all your stuff down again, which is the only big downside imo.

i was in a similar position you are in right now, a few months ago - i did some research, but ended up not distributing on a bigger scale (cuz i dont have a creditcard and it would'nt have been worth it), but instead just uploaded my stuff to bandcamp. there you can offer it as freebie, paid or pay-what-you-want. and no setup cost for an account needed.
 
blumarten said:
the mechanics of getting your music available on platforms are easy.
it's actually making people aware of it then getting them to pay for it that's the incredibly difficult part
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What's the process for making people aware? Is it as 'simple' as getting the right opinion leaders to play your tracks, like Friction on Radio one? Or would you trust more in the process of good music finding its audience based on its quality alone?
 
WhoSayReload? said:
What's the process for making people aware? Is it as 'simple' as getting the right opinion leaders to play your tracks, like Friction on Radio one?
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This isn't really a question that can be answered simply, except to say it's hard work and it takes a long time....but..

WhoSayReload? said:
Or would you trust more in the process of good music finding its audience based on its quality alone?
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...this is definitely not a good strategy
 
You could also try cdbaby if you only want to pay one-time fees instead og yearly. But me and other have stated, work on your business strategy if you want people to notice (and buy) your music. Don't expect a following to come by itself
 
Thanks for your replies,

I guess I will go with band camp for a start, but I don't expect much to be honest, I don't quite have the time to get into marketing that much.

Basically I would just like to get my tracks available for DJs, so maybe just creating a label and uploading to beatport could work.
 
I just wanted to bump this thread, we have a slightly different issue and im not getting a crystal clear answer from the distributors i use at the moment (JTV Digital)

I want to distribute to all the major sites for dnb for example TID/Beatport/Juno back when i first went with JTV Digital having these sites wasn't so important i just wanted them up since we were an ambient label. Now im having trouble transferring the music and even not getting replies when i want to join a new distributor and wondering how i go about transferring.

I would like to use Cygnus for some promo so im thinking of going with them, ill send them a message and see if they can shed any light on the subject. Im also looking at labelworx at the moment but ive raised a ticket since i cant complete registration due to already having a distributor it seems with no reply. Just wondered if anyone else has had trouble changing distributors?
 
Manu said:
I just wanted to bump this thread, we have a slightly different issue and im not getting a crystal clear answer from the distributors i use at the moment (JTV Digital)

I want to distribute to all the major sites for dnb for example TID/Beatport/Juno back when i first went with JTV Digital having these sites wasn't so important i just wanted them up since we were an ambient label. Now im having trouble transferring the music and even not getting replies when i want to join a new distributor and wondering how i go about transferring.

I would like to use Cygnus for some promo so im thinking of going with them, ill send them a message and see if they can shed any light on the subject. Im also looking at labelworx at the moment but ive raised a ticket since i cant complete registration due to already having a distributor it seems with no reply. Just wondered if anyone else has had trouble changing distributors?
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I haven't got a clue about this shit but is there any way you could go to Juno, beatport etc directly and not have to pay distributors? Just seems to make sense to me if you can
 
Dannyboy93 said:
I haven't got a clue about this shit but is there any way you could go to Juno, beatport etc directly and not have to pay distributors? Just seems to make sense to me if you can
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Funny you should mention that, i actually put the top man at TID in touch with the guy at JTV digital i the hope that they can negotiate a deal between themselves and have another branch on their list. And the JTV digital guy wasn't interested in the slightest, i dont understand their thought process myself Dan.

If i remember correct i wasnt able to do that though, because that was my thinking when i spoke to the TID guys.
 
Manu said:
Funny you should mention that, i actually put the top man at TID in touch with the guy at JTV digital i the hope that they can negotiate a deal between themselves and have another branch on their list. And the JTV digital guy wasn't interested in the slightest, i dont understand their thought process myself Dan.

If i remember correct i wasnt able to do that though, because that was my thinking when i spoke to the TID guys.
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dunno man you should speak to each of the companies individually if you get what I mean, cause surely that's what your paying the distributers for? to put your tracks across multiple sights at the same time without the hassle of having to deal with each individual site directly? as I say I haven't got a fucking clue but looking it rationally I can't see why you would pay a distributor to do anything other than put your music on sites because they have the contact and the knowhow, surely if you get the contacts and pick up how to deal with it yourself you would be saving money in the long run?
 
Dannyboy93 said:
dunno man you should speak to each of the companies individually if you get what I mean, cause surely that's what your paying the distributers for? to put your tracks across multiple sights at the same time without the hassle of having to deal with each individual site directly? as I say I haven't got a fucking clue but looking it rationally I can't see why you would pay a distributor to do anything other than put your music on sites because they have the contact and the knowhow, surely if you get the contacts and pick up how to deal with it yourself you would be saving money in the long run?
Click to expand...
As I mentioned TID weren't keen on the idea but we're happy to speak to the distributor. It's a great approach in theory and would benefit a dnb label a lot since I'm unsure how many people would actually like to listen on itunes/spotify/countless others steaming sites I've never heard of.
 
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