Posted on: July 7, 2005 in Music
How to get your songs on the iTunes Music Store
So you think iTunes is a pretty good idea. Your Mom and all her friends would gladly pay a buck a pop to boost your rockstar ego, but as an independent artist, how do you get your music on the iTunes music store?
There are several options available to the independent artist. To start with, go to Apple’s own sign up form. After you have carefully filled in the appropriate details, waited for 2 months for a reply, and finally given up all hope of receiving any kind of acknowledgment, mosey on over to CD Baby.
CD Baby is a great service, run by musicians for musicians. Simply sign up to be a member (this involves filling out a form, mailing them a CD and paying $35 fee) and CD Baby will distribute your music online for you. In addition to iTunes, CD Baby will also get your music onto other ‘legitimate’ music services like Rhapsody, Napster, MSN Music, MP3tunes, AOL’s MusicNet, Yahoo MusicMatch, and more. The price for this service is a 9% commission on whatever each service gives back to CD Baby, which is reasonable. For more details on CD Baby digital distribution service, go here: http://www.cdbaby.net/dd
For some further food for thought, keep in mind that iTunes takes a whopping $0.35 for every $0.99 tune sold, and the other music services are similar. Digital distribution of music has often been trumpeted as “empowering musicians”, but at times, it seems like the money is just flowing in a different direction with musicians still cut off! The website DownhillBattle.org and their iTunes rip off site do a good job portraying the dark side of major lables and the digital distribution of music.
But don’t let this scare you! For an independent artist, using a fantastic service like CD Baby is a great way of making your music available to the masses, with a minimal investment of time and money on your part.
March 16th, 2010 at 9:37 am
see ive recently signed with AR select. Whats everyones opinion on AR select? Do they actually do what they say cause I haven’t really gotten any help after paying 200 bucks. Whats the BEST website that will promote my music to Itunes?
April 24th, 2009 at 8:35 am
www.dittomusic.com are a long way ahead of these distributors. They upload you to iTunes FREE of charge, cover over 700 stores ( new sites like Spotify, Nokia, we7, as well as all of the tunecore stores )
And get you up in half the time of tunecore.
They can also make you chart eligible and collect airplay royalties.
Tunecore take too long and have no coverage.
March 24th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Take it from me. The only place that you’ll actually make money from is CDBaby. Even then, a decently selling album will net you maybe $20 a month in digital sales. Maybe double that if you work your butt off promoting yourself.
Other sites don’t get enough hits and most are a ripoff too.
The only other option is to license your music with a music library. Again, you’ll make maybe $20 a month if you’re lucky.
Either way, you’ll never make back any money you invested in time, instruments and recording equipment
November 5th, 2008 at 3:59 am
Alfred Mcleod a Musician that has converted his style to Pop/Techno
Hi, everyone. It`s been a while, once again. I have been working hard on two CD Album`s. One of which is called reincarnation, a 9 song Album that will be available on the 5th of this Month on a Web Site that I have completed. To compliment the release is another new Album called Raunch. A 14 Song Album.
On the new Site will have an Internet Theatre, where Tribe 40 will be seen. It is not yet confirmed how much it will cost to see the Movie, however, the New reincarnation is set to sell at $8.00
I feel confident the New Album will Sell good. The Album has already been delivered to some Radio Stations. However, in it`s final say, the Album will be available at the New Web Site.
I Thank you for your Support. For those of you that have stood by me, thick & Thin Man!. Thanks!.
Important Message!.
Congratulations Obama, the Worlds first Black President. This event will change world history. We are all proud of you obama.
Big Brother!.
From, Alfred Mcleod
Any information about The Movie Tribe 40 - The Two CD Releases reincarnation - Raunch can be inquired about by Calling (807)-733-2444. The call might be picked up, however, `I may be recording, editing, out Filming, and in this case the machine will have a message of any information about the Products.
Thank you Kindly again!.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:45 am
Why use CDBaby when there is a new service out that is growing at a rapid pace and doesnt cost any money upfront. http://routenote.com. Head over and take a look.
June 6th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I am looking for help with a website and getting my music on ITUNES. Please help me someone
May 26th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
To help unsigned artist and indie labels get there music on the iTunes Music store. We have developed an Upload application we are calling
“Audio Odyssey Director”.
http://www.audioodyssey.co.uk/setup.exe
With this Application users can:-
1) Create an album, enter song metadata.
2) Attach the album music files and cover art
3) Finally upload ready for sale on iTunes.
Free UPC!!!!!!
No upfront Fees!!!!!!!!
For more info visit www.audioodyssey.org
March 1st, 2008 at 9:01 am
John: Try RumbleFish (http://www.rumblefish.com/) or IODA (http://www.iodalliance.com/) to license music for your film.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Any recommendations as to the best avenue for film music? And very fast? The premiere is in 2 weeks
February 12th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Hello everyone. Here at WaTunes, we provide a rivaled service that enables everyone to get their music and music videos placed on iTunes and other music stores freely without the hassle of paying up-front fees. We’ve helped dozens of music artists, record labels, other digital distributors, and even social communities to get their catalog placed at no cost to them while retaining a very high royalty rate. I’m very happy of our model and look forward to push the success of many talented artists. - Kevin Rivers, Founder/CEO WaTunes.com
December 8th, 2007 at 3:41 am
Selling music on iTunes is fine and very cheap to do but unless you have a large following who want to buy your music you are wasting your time as your music gets lost amongst the thousands of others on there. There are some good distributors around such as The Orchard but to use them you need a clear marketing plan and a small marketing budget also helps. Consider employing a plugger or pr company and build up your friends on myspace and similar sites. Alternatively approach some indie labels, if you have material of release standard that is already well produced they may be more likely to take a gamble on you.
You can view some info from EH Records (UK Indie Label) at http://entertainment-heaven.com/blog/
They talk about management, pr packs, pluggers and distribution.
November 18th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Question to those who have signed up with CD baby or any similar distrobution service: Do the words “work for hire” appear on the agreement? Agreeing to produce music as a “work for hire” means the artist is giving up their copyright claims and is assigning the copyright to the other party.
October 4th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I love WaTunes.com, I get on iTunes for free and I get 90% of my sales back. They even deliver my music to over 100 music stores. There way better than CD Baby. Check them out at: www.watunes.com and sign up for free!
September 17th, 2007 at 7:55 am
We put up a few albums on CDBaby and receive semi-regular (every couple months) payments on them all without any promotion. We have made back every cent invested in CDBaby and started turning a profit months ago. Imagine if we actually promoted! We’re trying to get our music on iTunes ourselves but until then we’ll stick with CDBaby.
September 10th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Sounds like you need to check out this Digital Distribution Store! You can make money in several different ways.
www.rocmp3.info/outrageousdistribution
September 10th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
I used www.tunecore.com and it took 6 weeks to get my music on iTunes. My music wasn’t mastered or mixed professionally, but it sounded well enough to be listened to on a home system… and it was ambient stuff (not a very popular genre at all).
Fees were cheap… like $35 or something.
September 6th, 2007 at 6:29 am
“Ive Basically gave CD Baby a try, half the time i was redirected to different people - and they didnt know anything about my project, when i had paid them for sum services.” “So, `i had submitted money to them and didnt recieve adequate services from them.” “My suggestion would be to look for a local distributer.” “However, doing this may cost sum, and the reality is, it does cost to get the good stuff.”
August 31st, 2007 at 7:19 am
(Moderator go for this one -completed properly :)
CDBABY kicks ass. 35 dollars, plus 20 more so i get the universal barcode to my album. irsc codes attached to my individual songs, straight onto iTunes, napster and other places to boot.
All i have to do now is promote it myself, thats obviously the hard part, and where one gets stuck, especially if you dont have a fan base.
Promotion is the demon. Once again CDBABY RULES, and have a very friendly staff.
five stars to them
August 31st, 2007 at 7:09 am
CDBABY kicks ass. 35 dollars, plus 20 more so i get the universal barcode to my album. irsc codes attached to my individual songs, straight onto iTunes, napster and other places to boot.
All i have to do now is promote it myself, thats obviously the hard part, and where one gets stuck, especially if you dont have a fan base.
Promotion is the demon. Once again CDBABY RULES, and have a very friendly staff.
five stars to them
August 7th, 2007 at 1:56 am
WaTunes.com are very good, we now use them as a distributor for us. At Entertainment Heaven you receive 100% of your sales on any music sold on our our site and we forward on the 90% from WaTunes onto bands for anything sold through them, the bonus to bands being that we do file conversions etc on their behalf