This shouldn’t be news to anyone really: one thing that everyone’s seems to be doing (and the rest want to do but just haven’t figured out how to yet) is distributing your own music.
When I first started with my label iTunes was the holy grail and depending on which forum troll you listened to there were all sorts of crazy criteria for getting your independent music on iTunes.
Well a short while later and that all seems to have been BS and there’s now a saturation of your-music-to-iTunes distributors and most people I speak to are at a complete loss as to who’s who so I’ve written a little here about the 2 who I think really stand out from the rest and should be the only ones you’ll ever need
I’ll start with my favourite and the one I currently use
Routenote www.routenote.com
Routenote is a cut about the rest in about every aspect of the game. Even when I logged in this morning to take some screendumps for this post I noticed that they’d made some changes that I had thought would be handy last time I logged in, these guys are really onto it.
Here’s what you need to know.
- It’s free
- Non-exclusive
- They pay a generous 90% royalty
- The quickest and easiest CMS to use in the business
- THEY GIVE YOU FREE UPCs!!!
“UPCs?” I hear you say. UPCs are Universal Product Codes, they’re pretty much just a barcode and they’re expensive as far as this digital industry goes. Once you’ve paid for recording, mastering, art and whatever else you need to pay for the last thing you need is to pay $30-$50 for a number. The great thing about this is you can take they are usable with your other download stores so if you’re also distribution to Beatport of the like you can use this UPC for them too.
Theire real times stats engine is also a really nice touch plus a good blog too if you’re looking to pass the time
Musicadium www.musicadium.com
Musicadium is quite a different model to Routnote but if you’re a band and are looking to distribute an album and have the marketing to back it up properly Musicadium should be your first port of call
The great thing about Musicadium is their personal approach to marketing, I receive their email each month and they’ve put a lot of work into creating a community viba and seem to have taken a “your success is their success” approach in their business model. Prices are from $39 AUD ex. GST per album but it’s more than worth it in my opinion.
Either way, make sure you check out their free e-book “9 Ways To Ride The Digital Music Wave”
Happy hunting 
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