Modern Music Publishing
I get asked by fellow bands and musicians if they should try publishing on their own. These musicians are starting to realize how the power of the internet has enabled us to take this task into our own hands. These musicians who ask me are unsure if they understand the process.
I have many reasons to tell them yes they should self publish. Here's a few:
Traditional Music Publishing
The past saw an artist or band going to a professional publisher who would contact the various retailers and online stores to publish the music so that it can be sold in their stores. The tradition is to give 50% of the royalties to the publisher and the band will divvy up the remaining 50%. Music publishers then had connections that weren't easily found or formed by someone outside of the business, or by a busy artist focused on perfecting his or her performance.
Modern Music Publishing
Now with the internet music publishing is extremely easy. The companies you want to publish with are now literally at your fingertips. You easily find the company you want to publish with and look up their procedure to submit your music.
The fast track to publishing is to decide who exactly you want to begin publishing to. An obvious choice includes iTunes, and some others include Amazon and Best Buy. Actually most musicians prefer to publish to all and any networks or retail stores that they can at one time.
Luckily there are services that you pay one flat fee to who will get your music uploaded to these online retailers for a very affordable rate. I used for my EP Reverb Nation and I recall the service was under $60 to post to about 30 online retailers and radio stations. My package included one years worth of monitoring and royality reporting and collections. I've gotten online radio play that has paid surprisingly well.
Exceptions
Some networks don't allow you to just publish your digital music on your own. Below are two examples of very popular online resources for music purchasing.
Publishing to Beatport
Beatport is a little different than iTunes and other networks where you can publish yourself using yourself using your own label. You must be already signed with a label before you can publish to Beatport. You can find the label you'd like to sign with simply by researching the labels on the site and contacting them with your music.
Publishing to Pandora
Pandora's rule is that you must have actual CDs or DVDs created alongside of your digitally distributed music. If you don't plan to press CDs, unfortunately the option of using Pandora is out. If you aren't a big artist don't worry about Pandora at this point anyways. It may not make sense economically to print CDs or DVD simply to get onto Pandora, so wait until your are at a point where you know you can make physical sales along with online sales, then shop your music to Pandora.
I suggest you shop around and read about a few different music distribution services. Each one has its own features and services offered, where one fits one person another service might be better tailored to you. Plus deals are always changing, as more competition in the music distribution services increases so do affordable packages and rates.
I have many reasons to tell them yes they should self publish. Here's a few:
- It's Easy
- It's inexpensive
- You retain all of your rights, rather than giving 50% to a publisher
- Your get all of the income rather than giving 50% to the publisher when you receive royalties.
Traditional Music Publishing
The past saw an artist or band going to a professional publisher who would contact the various retailers and online stores to publish the music so that it can be sold in their stores. The tradition is to give 50% of the royalties to the publisher and the band will divvy up the remaining 50%. Music publishers then had connections that weren't easily found or formed by someone outside of the business, or by a busy artist focused on perfecting his or her performance.
Modern Music Publishing
Now with the internet music publishing is extremely easy. The companies you want to publish with are now literally at your fingertips. You easily find the company you want to publish with and look up their procedure to submit your music.
The fast track to publishing is to decide who exactly you want to begin publishing to. An obvious choice includes iTunes, and some others include Amazon and Best Buy. Actually most musicians prefer to publish to all and any networks or retail stores that they can at one time.
Luckily there are services that you pay one flat fee to who will get your music uploaded to these online retailers for a very affordable rate. I used for my EP Reverb Nation and I recall the service was under $60 to post to about 30 online retailers and radio stations. My package included one years worth of monitoring and royality reporting and collections. I've gotten online radio play that has paid surprisingly well.
Exceptions
Some networks don't allow you to just publish your digital music on your own. Below are two examples of very popular online resources for music purchasing.
Publishing to Beatport
Beatport is a little different than iTunes and other networks where you can publish yourself using yourself using your own label. You must be already signed with a label before you can publish to Beatport. You can find the label you'd like to sign with simply by researching the labels on the site and contacting them with your music.
Publishing to Pandora
Pandora's rule is that you must have actual CDs or DVDs created alongside of your digitally distributed music. If you don't plan to press CDs, unfortunately the option of using Pandora is out. If you aren't a big artist don't worry about Pandora at this point anyways. It may not make sense economically to print CDs or DVD simply to get onto Pandora, so wait until your are at a point where you know you can make physical sales along with online sales, then shop your music to Pandora.
I suggest you shop around and read about a few different music distribution services. Each one has its own features and services offered, where one fits one person another service might be better tailored to you. Plus deals are always changing, as more competition in the music distribution services increases so do affordable packages and rates.