Distribute Yourself World-Wide with TuneCore
By Matthew Toledo - 8/18/2006
One major hurdle that independent musicians have to overcome is the problem of distribution. How do you get your band's music heard outside of your little pond? How do the major label bands do it? Lets take a basic look at the structure of the music biz today.
Traditionally, record labels "coordinate the production, manufacture, distribution, promotion, and enforcement of copyright protection for sound recordings and music videos." (Wikipedia, Record Label) Record labels are themselves owned by a larger umbrella company called a music group. Continuing up the chain, music groups are then owned by multi-national conglomerations that have access to non-music related resources like beverage companies, fast-food chains, movie studios, television stations, satellites, and new technologies. In a nutshell, these huge corporations have invested millions--if not billions--of dollars in a vast distribution oligopoly that has been streamlined over the last sixty years in order to squeeze every last dime out of a no-talent ass-clown like Ashlee Simpson by promoting her "brand" all the way from Siberia to deepest, darkest Peru.
Currently, around 80 percent of the music sold world-wide is distributed by the big four music groups: Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group, and Warner Music Group (Wikipedia, World Music Market). Any music that wasn't recorded or distributed by one of these corporations is typically considered to be independent or "indie." Unfortunately, the term "indie" or "indie music" is now being used as a marketing tool by the major labels in much the same way they polluted the 90's term "Alternative" which at first stood for Sub-Pop related bands like Nirvana, Mudhoney and Soundgarden and towards the end, also stood for crap bands like "Ugly Kid Joe."
For some musicians, the phrase "getting signed" still induces a wave of excitement and adrenaline. After all, once you're "signed" to a major; you'll have access to their vast distribution and promotion system. You'll no longer be standing on the outside looking in. To continue the analogy that we began, your "pond" would be the world and the sky would be the limit. After all, if they could keep Ashlee Simpson going all these years, imagine what they could do with an artist that actually has talent, like yourself.
The Power to Break the System
Enter the home computer. Coupled with internet access, the home computer helped online music sales triple in 2005 to account one point one billion dollars, or 6% of all music sales (IFPI). Meanwhile, traditional sales of physical media are down to a nine year low--If you call seventeen billion US dollars in sales "low."
Unlike traditional distribution networks, the internet is available to anyone with the time and the inclination to use it. However, just putting your CD up on your web site isn't good enough. Wouldn't it be better if you could list your CD on a high-traffic web site right next to a major label CD? Better yet, wouldn't it be great if potential shoppers could see that people who bought the latest Prince CD, for example, also bought the latest disk by local band, Papadosio? Or that people who bought the latest CD from The Whiles also liked Athens Ohio's own Southeast Engine?
Online digital music sales portals like Itunes, Rhapsody, Napster (yes, Napster has gone legal), Music Net, eMusic, and Sony Connect all do just that. They've made it possible for the little guy to get his independent record listed on the same page as a major label. It used to be that the only way to get your music listed on some of these music portals was to sell your CD through CD Baby for $35 dollars per album (cdbaby). Now there is a new service called TuneCore that can save you a few dollars and give you a larger percentage of your digital sales.
Getting to the Core
I signed my band up for TuneCore two months ago. However, my CD won't become available for download on all of my requested digital stores until August 31 of 2006. So, my first recommendation to anyone reading this is to send an advance copy of your album to TuneCore at least two months in advance of your physical CD release. This way you can co-ordinate your online CD release with your physical release. For that matter, CD Baby also has about a month or more of lag time, so if you want to sell your physical CD with them, you should consider sending them an advanced copy. Time for a bit of self promotion: you can also sell your physical CD's on the AMN music store for a super low commission. I also need about a month so I can get everything ready.
TuneCore's submission process was relatively simple. The first thing I needed to do was to "rip" or encode my CD. I'm not going to go over the basics of ripping a CD in this article. If you have Itunes set to its default settings, you can just rip it from there. For everyone else, you'll need to encode your CD using one of the following formats:
- 192 kbps AAC (.M4A) (or better)
- 256 kbps .MP3 file (or better)
- Apple Lossless (this is the default for Itunes)
I used lossless because anything "lossless" means better quality. However, a 320 kpbs encoded mp3 file is nothing to sneeze at either. You can also have them rip the music for you. I'm not sure if requesting them to burn the disk will slow things down. I uploaded my own tracks and I was still asked to snail mail them a copy of my CD for a backup just in case their servers exploded. So in a way, I guess it won't affect the lag that much.
That brings me to the part that might be most challenging for some people: uploading the songs. You will need some form of broadband--cable, wireless or DSL. It will take days to upload your songs via dial up. Since most dial up connections automatically disconnect after a few hours, it will be IMPOSSIBLE if not next to impossible to upload your songs on a dial up connection. If you have a laptop or a friend with a laptop, I suggest that you burn your songs onto a CD, get a laptop computer with a wireless card, and upload your songs at one of the dozen or so free wireless hotspots in Athens, Ohio like the Donkey, Casa Cantina, Tony's or The Union.
After uploading your audio files, you'll need to upload some artwork. They require that your cover art doesn't violate any copyright laws. As for the format of your images, you'll need to convert your cover art into a 600 x 600 pixel .JPEG, .GIF, or .PNG file in best-quality RGB Color mode. Anyone with access to Adobe Photo Shop can do this in a minute or two.
The only other things left to do were simple tasks like entering the names of the songs, the album, the date of the release, and a band biography. You also need to provide them with your bank account information so they can direct deposit your profits into your account. Likewise, they need a credit card number to charge for their services. A word of warning, they will automatically charge you $7.98 each year on the anniversary date to renew your listing. You can cancel at any time; however I don't suggest canceling in the first six months. More about that below.
Life Beyond ITMS?
TuneCore and similarly, CD Baby, both let you sell your digital release on various different digital music stores. Some come with exotic names, some use exotic technologies. But if you want to get to the heart of the matter, there is only one online music store when it comes to digital distribution. Thanks to the popularity of the iPod, that store is: Itunes Music Store or ITMS for short. They sold over 800 million dollars of the 1.1 billion dollars of online sales. That's a huge market share.
What a lot of people don't know is that the Itunes store you and I see here in America is not the same one folks see in the U.K., Japan, or Australia. If you list your CD on Itunes USA, it won't be available for download in England.
TuneCore lets you sell your CD on one store for free. That store can be Itunes USA if you wish. Additional stores cost a one time charge of 99 cents. For instance, I'm selling our CD in the UK, Australia and Japan just for kicks. CD Baby's $35 fee allows you to submit your disk to 40 or so online stores at no additional charge, but honestly, I have never heard of half of them. As I mentioned, Apple is the king of online music sales, so those 40 or so other stores really aren't an added value. Exposure is exposure. Perhaps one of the 200,000 people world-wide on the internet using one of these odd services will become your next biggest fan?
Get Down With U-P-C!
We've all seen Universal Product Codes. They are those black and white
zebra-looking things on the bottom of a box or breakfast cereal or
on the side of a can of tuna. A store-bought CD also has its own unique
twelve digit UPC code. These codes allow a machine to track the items
wish to purchase.
UPC's are handed out by a GS1 company. All you need to know is that the GS1 is a standards organization like ISO or ASA. They try and make sure everyone around the world is labeling their products the same way so that a grocery store laser scanner in Egypt and one in Taiwan both know that 011110834423 is a can of Krogers Tuna. It actually is, ya know.
UPC codes are not cheap. A few of the numbers in a UPC code form a prefix of sorts which identifies your company. You can apply for a prefix directly from the GS1 yourself, if you wish. A UPC code prefix from them will cost you anywhere from $150 to a couple of thousand depending on how many items you intend to sell. A record label may want to invest in its own UPC prefix, but for us indie guys, that's way too much Ramen noodle money.
CD Baby states on their web site that they had to pay $750 for their UPC prefix, however they are still charging people an additional $20 for a barcode on their CD. That's $35 plus $20 for a UPC which comes to $55. Of all the thousands of CD's they've sold, you'd think they'd covered their initial $750 dollar investment by now--even if it was an annual fee.
TuneCore does not charge anything to assign your CD a unique UPC code. The code they assign your release can be used in real stores or at digital stores online. You can have this UPC code placed on your cover art when you go to a professional CD replicator, or you can even use this UPC if you decide to submit your CD to CD Baby. It's completely valid.
What's My Rating?
Major labels use a UPC to track record sales. You can do the same if you wish. There are various services out there that collect the information from stores from you. One such service is Nielsen SoundScan. You know, Nielsen... the guys who do the Nielsen television ratings. Their web site states that, "Since March 1, 1991, Billboard Magazine charts have been constructed directly from Nielsen SoundScan data. MTV, VH1, CMT and all major media regularly use Nielsen SoundScan data as well."
Nielsen's tracking service is completely free. They just ask that you visit their web site and submit your information to them at least three weeks before the release date of your CD. I missed that deadline, but I'm going to send the info now anyway and see what happens. I'll post the outcome on the AMN.
Bloody Well Right!
The question you should all be asking yourselves is, "do I retain the rights to my music and art work?" The short answer is, yes. TuneCore states on their web site that, "TuneCore does not own your songs, your masters, your copyrights, or the rights to any art work or band photo you submit. You maintain all ownership and control of all your rights. Also remember, TuneCore gets no rights to manufacture CDs, vinyl, or anything else. These are your rights, not ours."
There is, however, a penalty for early withdrawal. Buried in the legal jargon is a clause that states any artist who removes their record from TuneCore in the fist six months will be charged a fee of $20.
The Chief Operations Officer for TuneCore, Peter Wells, stated on ilounge.com that "Yes, we charge $20.00 for pulling an album down in its first six months, but that’s just to dissuade folks from yanking our chain. Pulling down an album is a lot of work, mostly for iTunes and the other stores. It’s not a profit center for us--clearly we want folks to stay with TuneCore forever."
The End Results
Here I am on Itunes.
Here I am on Rhapsody.
I'm also listed on Napster, but we won't be listed on their until August 31st.
Yes, But What Is My Cut?
Each online store takes a cut out of the initial sale. Apple will give indie artists that aren't on a label about 70 cents for each 99 cent song sold. That's not a bad deal. Recording artists on a major label get anywhere from 4 to 11 cents per song sold depending on their contract. According to an interview with Weird Al Yankovick on The Digital Music Weblog, he states he makes more for a CD sale than he does for a digital download.
If your plan on selling a lot of CD's then TuneCore's zero percent sales commission is the best option. CD Baby takes 9% for every digital sale. However, TuneCore will charge about eight bucks each year to maintain your CD on all their stores. If you don't sell a single CD then after four or five years, you'll end up paying more than CD Baby. However, you never stop paying a commission on CD Baby sales. If you sell a lot of disks, CD Baby will cost more. I guess it depends on how well you sell.
| TuneCore | CD Baby | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup Fees | ~ $27 per disk |
$35 |
| UPC Barcode | free |
$20 |
| Digital Stores Served | ~ 10 |
~ 40 |
| Yearly Fee | $7.98 |
none |
| Sales Commission | none |
9% |
| Setup Time | ~ 2 Months |
~ 2 Months |
As for speed, they both offer expedited submission options so that you can get your digital disk online in less time. But in general, you'll want to start submitting your material to either of these services at least two months in advance. Likewise, don't forget to send your UPC code to SoundScan at least a month before the release date.
TuneCore's free UPC code is a huge bargain. CD Baby's $20 UPC fee seems a little shady to me. The best thing about either of these bar codes is that they make it a lot easier for brick-and-mortar retail stores to redistribute your CD. They also make it easy for the Nielsen rating folks to track your band's success. If you sell a few thousand CD's you want people to notice. UPC + Nielsen makes that more likely.
Oh But Wait, There's More...
Once you have A CD on Itunes, you'll need to promote it. There are ways you can do that on your own. You can send an email to your fans notifying them of your CD's availability. There is also a web site that Apple created that generates the HTML code you need to link to your iTunes account. You can put that on your myspace page. There is tons more that can be done professionally. TuneCore has links to professional publicists, but were talking big bucks there.
I hope you all enjoyed reading this HUGE article about TuneCore. We covered a lot of stuff. TuneCore, Apple, iTunes, UPC codes... man, did I mention Egypt somewhere in this Russian novel of mine? As you can see there is lots of marketing opportunities available to the little guy. Each new marketing service like TuneCore takes a little bite out of the big guys, and as long as I'm not one of them, that's a good thing.
Further Reading
15 Minutes w/ Tunecore’s Jeff Price - 75minutes.com
TuneCore FAQ - tunecore.com
References
"Record Label." Wikipedia. 16 Aug. 2006. 18 Aug. 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recording_label>
"World Music Market" Wikipedia 14 Aug 2006. 18 Aug. 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_music_market>
"Digital Sales Triple to 6% of Industry Retail Revenues as Global Music Market Falls 1.9%." IFPI. 3 Oct. 2005. International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers. 18 Aug. 2006 <http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/PRESS/20051003.html>.
"What Our $35 Fee is For." CD Baby. 18 Aug. 2006 <http://cdbaby.net/35.html>
