A New Way To Distribute Music Digitally

If you want your music on iTunes, Spotify, and other digital services, most artists choose to use either Tunecore or CD Baby as a distribution method. Each have their upsides and downsides, with the downsides mostly being financial, with Tunecore charging a flat per year for each release and CD Baby taking a percentage of the sale. Now there may be a cheaper and easier way to do it, thanks to DistroKid.

DistroKid is an offshoot of Fandalism, the social network for musicians started by Philip Kaplan. What makes it different from most other distribution networks is that it costs only a subscription fee of $19.95 a year which allows unlimited uploads of your music. You can even upload one song for free before you enter any credit card information.

Kaplan started the service with an eye on democratizing music distribution even further than it currently is by making it a snap for anyone to release their music. While on the surface this seems like a noble idea, the big problem is that since there are really no record label gatekeepers to sift through the mediocre to find the brilliant, at least the service fees of Tunecore and CD Baby would make people think twice before they'd release something that might not be up to par.

The flip side of that coin is, who really knows what another person might like? Music history is filled with big hits that their writers, artists or record labels thought weren't very good and were later pleasantly surprised by the public's enthusiasm. The beauty of Music 3.0 is that if you look hard enough, you'll find at least a small audience for it somewhere. The downside is that it's hard for the consumer to sift through all the noise.

DistroKid is a boot-strap operation despite the earlier online successes of Kaplan (the ad network AdBrite and social shopping Blippy), so it's yet to be seen just how effective it will be in getting your music to all of the sites it claims. Plus, there's not a lot known about how the accounting is handled yet. That said, if you want to get your music on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and Amazon in 2 to 4 hours (which is really fast), give it a try.

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Fandalism: A Social Network For Musicians

Fandalism is an interesting network designed especially for musicians. It's not like ReverbNation or BandCamp in that it's not designed around the business of being an artist; instead it's more like a cross between YouTube, where artists can upload videos of their performances, and Matchmaker, where compatible musicians can find each other.

To register, you answer basic questions like where you're located, what instrument you play, your influences and musical history. You can then share your work through photos, videos, lyrics or Soundcloud audio. After you've set everything up, you can follow other musicians, give them "props" (likes), and send them private messages.

One of the cool new features on Fandalism is the ability to distribute your songs to iTunes, Spotify and Google Play. It's cheaper than either Tunecore or CD Baby in that you get unlimited uploads for only $19.95 per year, as compared to Tunecore's $29.95 per album per year or CD Baby's $49 per album per year (plus a percentage of the sale). Fandalism also gives you the first upload to iTunes for free.

There's been a lot of attempts to create a musician's network and none of them have caught on. Fandalsim already has over 550,000 members and has the feeling of something that is simple and non-intimidating enough to finally break through in a big way. Here's a video overview.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.