Digital Distribution
I've just started looking at the available Digital Distributors as I want to find the best place to upload an album onto the main selling sites (like iTunes, Amazon, etc).
Can anybody share some experience they've had with any of the distributors that they've used, what they think are the better ones to use and the like?
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Gwen Stefani
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the only ones I've used are Tunecore and AWAL
both of them have been fine in terms of the process of getting stuff into stores. Tunecore is more popular and more flexible but is quite expensive these days—$50 a year if I remember correctly—which is why I switched to AWAL. AWAL take a fixed percentage instead of a flat fee, though they don't pay up until you accumulate a set amount of royalties (something like £20 I think).
With AWAL
do you have to hit that £20 each month or just over the time of the contract you have with them?
Also, is the 15% in addition to the amount that iTunes, Amazon, etc or is it just 15% on the sale?
hmm
I can't see it on their FAQ, but I'm pretty sure the 15% is after the retailer has taken their share.
The £20 limit is calculated since the last time they paid out, if you see what I mean: http://awal.com/help/frequently-asked-questions/#royaltiesPayMe
AWAL seem good
Just uploaded to them after reasonable but not great experience with Ditto. Ditto take a £15/year 'subscription fee' per album, while AWAL take a 15% cut. Depends on how many sales you're expecting i suppose!
I'd avoid both of those mentioned...
..they're just delivery systems. You'd be much better off trying someone like State51.
I had a quick look at the State51 site
but that just looks like a delivery system too. What is it I'm missing?
I didn't mean to this the above.
They have a proper sales team so they actually try and gain you coverage - front page of iTunes / eMusic etc.
Don't know if I got the right site
But there's not information on there. Do you know what their terms and conditions are and do they just work in the UK. I ask this, as the artist is in Bulgaria
This post from Trent Reznor is well worth a read re: digital distribution:
http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?30,767183,767183
I like this post by Trent
But, I don't fully agree with always giving away music. I think big artists can do this, but not entirely sure small bands can do this. They need to recover some costs from the cost of recording. I agree that most of the money bands will get is from gigs and merch these days
http://www.routenote.com/
i used these guys recently. uper easy to use, and seemingly quite flexible. stuff was up on spotify and amazon super quick. not on itunes yet, so i need to chase that up.
http://aded.us
We've used a bunch of other companies in the past like TuneCore, CDBaby, RouteNote, and Ditto Music but to be honest they all sucked (each individually for different reasons). We recently signed up with ADEDistribution at http://aded.us They only charge $5 a month and they pay every week. their submission fee is only $3 per single/album/EP you are submitting and each 5th submission is FREE with promo code ADED5x. I have another promo code to knock off the $3 submission fee for the first album if you want it but you have to be signed up first.