and how to get a distrokid discount
You should try all of them yourself!
Say, Whaaat?
Well, each music distribution service comes with handy and not so handy tools and hours of setting things up :-)
Depending on your artistical output and goals you must see what works best for you!
In this post I'm only telling you what works best for me, so far!
You will also find my distrokid referral link later on in this post to save you sone...
Well, let's get into this:
I've started with CDBaby back in 2015...
and enjoyed the fact of recognizing my track a seat of distance (click opens my track on Apple Music) on multiple streaming services only a few days after uploading my first track there.
Yey!
I took this track from my album "Mankind is Moving" that re-released a few month later using Distrokid. But I'll explain why I did this later!
Back in the days I also ordered 250 Promo/Download Cards from CDBaby for this release - still kept one for the memories (back and front pictures below - the free download promo code did still work a couple of weeks ago)
Back of the CDBABY DOWNLOAD CARD
(image click opens my track on Apple Music)
Front of the CDBABY DOWNLOAD CARD (image click opens my track on Apple Music)
Some weeks later also my first streamable album Understanding the World (click opens my track on Apple Music)
The good thing about, MusicHub, Distrokid, CDBaby and Bandcamp is, that you either get new ISRC or EAN or Codes for your releases, that will connect your work with your pro publishing copyright holding organization. If you are registered with one!
(GEMA - Germany, ASCAP- USA, SESAC - USA, Soundexchange, IPRS - Indian Performing Rights Society, BMI there are more...)
Those will collect royalties for you, but only if you add your tracks to their catalogs.
And you will need to check back on your accounts with them, to see if your work actually is connected with them for you yourself amd who? being the artist behind the music!
"Tony - you need a manager...."
I lost the interest with CDBaby after hearing about DISTROKID.
Well, a yearly subscription for less than 30 bucks allowing me to upload as many singles or albums I want was my better choice.
For my first re-released album on distrokid How Comes in July 3 2022 I also bought an annual subscription for $12,87 that enabled my tracks to receive royalties from youtube.
This in the other hand is included in a one-time album or single upload with CDBaby and MusicHub.
So, here you can see only one matter of facts that will help or force you to use multiple or one service that matches your needs!
The re-releasing of ood albums finds explanation here
Before I even distributed my tracks to the services already mentioned, there used to exist a service called "Nimbit".
Nimbit was similar to bandcamp allowing people to directly download your albums or singles with them. Have a nice shop...
Well after they stopped, I discovered cdbaby and them others already habing produced more than 12 Albums in the time from 2006-2015.
So, now you know why I re-released my track "A Seat of Distance"!
Bandcamp
Bandcamp used to be in my online music publishing toolbox before cdbaby.
After I discovered that cdbaby stopped having individual artist pages and that you can only directly download tracks from amazon or itunes, I also upload some of my new tracks with them again!
To give you one example and what a Bandcamp Artist Page looks like as I am writing this:
Uploading tracks from your smartphone can be trickier, but is managable. You only need to bookmark your bandcamp accounts "tools page"
I recommend to use a laptop or your desktop device!
Uploading your music to CDBaby, MusicHub, Patreon and Distrokid using a smartphone is just fine and operates smoothly!
You can even do this and check your stats using the Patreon or Distrokid App
I thought I save some money and re-release my album "How Comes" on MusicHub and on Bandcamp.
A lot of indie artist use bandcamp and the idea to allow fans to pay more for your work if they want is not found with them other 3 services for as far a I know, writing this post!
So, what else? Oh yes...
Patreon
Well, let's assume you already share your brilliant pieces of art on your featured (no paid featuring of course) patreon account.
Then you have already made extraordiarly use notified of your own in built patreon shop, right?
Yes, you can zip your music and sell it!
The music won't be streamed on spotify and them other music streaming services unless you create a video and upload it to youtube for it and add your patreon (album) link for sales, but it is another way to help people find and enjoy your music!
Many artists do this on their personal website anyways and ever since! If you don't want to invest into your own website/hosting/handling..... a free space to sell your crafts as digital downloads is right at your finger tips ;-)
I did that (a patreon ood album so to speak) with all WAV and MP3 files plus a 50% discounted price for my album: "A Song for each Month" .
This can only be found there 😘
Like I said, all services come useful promotion-community building-, design- , marketing- even video creation tools. CDbaby and Distrokid for instance could help you to enhace the sound quality of your tracks with artificial intelligence mastering amd human mastering services (cdbaby).
The content is on each service is quite overwhelming and really needs your focused attemtion on each service, rather than my impressions on what I like or dislike about it!
The Look and Feel of the Release Page
What do you want your release page to look a like?
The Distrokid HyperFollow Page
Quite a name for a page?
Well, on this release page you can add and integrate a youtube video for more watchtime, your social accounts, facebook pixels to your distrokids release hyperfollow page and even add email marketing by linking to your newsletter.
Well, you want ir don't want to sell the click/stream and not confusion...
Still the individual attention span grows with overflow but your true fan will click all them links of yours will they ;-)
So, in case you didn't dare to click any links yet:
for comparison:
MusicHub Release Page
Bandcamp Release Page
CDBaby Releases Page
cdbaby teamed up with a service called hearnow so here is what my releases page looks like with cdbanby
and finally a Patreon releases page
Conclusion
After all MusicHub's free for Gema Members plan, Bandcamp's free membership (without adding my work to streaming services) and Distrokid's yearly subscription plan, work best for me being independent at this time in my artist career.
How To Get A Distokid Discount
So, like I memtioned earlier,
I'm still using Distrokid to publish my amd should you consider to try them out for your music, you get to choose from different payment plans.
For a distrokid discount ( you get 7% off your first plan) sign up through my referral link:
Hope you enjoyed reading this post and keep cranking out them grooves
Respectfully yours,
Ood
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