Digital Distribution for Independent Artists

Finished an album? Got the cd in your hand? Want to get the music up and selling in iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody and other internet outlets that sell digital downloads? Want to manage your digital distribution yourself? You need a digital aggregator.

One of the great benefits for independent artists in recent years has been the ability for artists to reach across the internet and offer music to fans directly. That’s where digital aggregators come in. Basically, a digital aggregator will take the artist’s music, distribute it to outlets like iTunes and Napster, and funnel the income back to the artist.

Let me mention a couple of them. TuneCore (www.tunecore.com) will place music into each of the international iTunes Stores, Napster and Rhapsody. There’s a modest startup fee, about $30 at the moment, and a yearly maintenance fee. They take music from all artists, and funnel full royalties back to the artists. For iTunes, that means $7 an album and 70 cents per individual track sold.

CDBaby (www.cdbaby.net) sells hard copy cds for independent artists, and also provides digital distribution in iTunes and the like. In other words, they sell cds and digital downloads for artists.

Here’s an interesting website with a few more digital aggregators to add to the list: http://www.bemuso.com/musicbiz/digitaldistribution.html#independentaggregators

I hope all your digital distribution dreams come true!