Have
a Great Music Distribution Resource or Service to
Offer
Reach thousands
of Independent Artists who want to sell their music
AMEG
How to find the right
music distributor
Physical in-store retail
distribution and digital distribution
101
The most
important thing to do before you promote and
distribute is to identify your tarket
market:
Distributing your music both digitally and
retail
in-store.
Retail
In-Store
Physical Distribution 101
Although today may be the
time of digital music distribution and this form of
distributing your music is essential, there are still millions
of fans who like to touch and feel your actual
CD. Therefore, traditional in-store retail
music distribution is still the king and an element of
getting your music out there that should not be forgotten.
As it goes for the independent artist, this can be
tricky and difficult.
Traditional national retail music distributors
usually work with labels that have been in business for
at least 5 years, have more than one artists signed to
them, and have a track record of significant record
sales. This is not to say that as an independent
artist you can't hook up with a decent retail
music distributor.
Before you
start shopping for a music distributribution
company there are a few things and prerequisites
that you should be sure of. These are things that
the distributor will be looking for, before they
consider distributing for you. On the other hand,
there are also details and prerequisites that you should
look for in a distributor as well.
1. You should first make sure that you at
the very least release your record on a label ...
even if it's your own independent label. That
being said, if you haven't done so already, you should
form your own independent record
label. With all the necessary
business structure, legalities, and requirements of
actually being a legitimate record label. This is
not as difficult or expensive as it may sound to at
least get the structure in place. There are many
guides and books that can help you with this. The
expensive end of owning your own label comes with the
marketing and promotional end of your business.
But it is important to note that major music CD
distributors will almost always want to work
with a label.
2. You should be able to
demonstrate to the music distributor that you
have sold a significant amount of records on your
own and that you, as a label, are prepared to put
marketing and promotional dollars behind the
release. Hence, you should have a marketing
plan in place. Providing
decent sounscan statistics
is a major plus.
3. It's important
to note that the music distributors responsibility is to
get the records into the
stores and online. They are not responsible for
getting people to buy them. This is the
responsibility of the record label. The record
label or in this case ... you ... the owner
of the independent record label , must implement the
marketing, promotion, and advertising
strategies, and expend the money
necessary to sell the records a distributor places in a
retail outlet. The retail store or the distributor
may recommend advertising or marketing programs, coop
programs, point of purchase, that best suit thier
store. Touring, radio play, and publicityin the
cities where your record is for sale is an obvious
element of promotion you should employ to sell
records. Make sure you look for a national
distributor not just a regional one. Cover all the
ground you can. Be prepared to do in-store
appearances.
4. CD Distributors will require an exclusive written
agreement. You will need to pay 100% on any returns
(records that don't sell). Music Dsitributors generally
retain 20% - 50% on records shipped. They will also
require hundreds of professional designed one-sheets, a professionally
designed document including the labels marketing commitment,
retail price, UPC code, catalog number, and album cover
image.
5. Needless to say, as a, independent record label
working with a national distributor you'll need some kind of a
budget to make this all happen. This of course is where
a backer/investor in your career totally comes in handy to say
the least. There are shoestring methods of attempting to
get this all done but without money the strategies are limited
and not recommended. But it's not impossible. This
is a few of the issues a good manager or consultantcan help you
with. If you would like to be educated additionally on
some of the methods you could implement to attempt to obtain
In-Store Retail Distribution for your record you may want to
engage our consultative
service.
Digital
Distribution 101
Although physical in-store retail CD distribution is
still an extremely attractive and effective method of selling
your record, it is not as crucial to your success as it once
was. As we all are aware the landscape architecure of
the music industry and methods of distributing your music has
become far easier and far less expensive than it once was with
the Internet. The Internet has changed things
drastically to the benefit of the independent artist on a
shoestring budget.
When you stick to distributing your music digitally it
can save you money in CD pressing, artwork, and
duplication. You can pass this savings on by charging
far less for downloads then you would for a physical CD.
Not to mention on of the big benefits being "YOU POCKET MORE
MONEY". A physical Distributer takes a good portion of
the profits and the marketing and promotion is far more
expensive then marketing on the Internet. Digital music
distribution is a good alternative to physical distribution
for costing purposes, and price point for your music. It
is also far easier to facilitate and put together than a
physical distribution deal. There are
disadvantages to strictly digital distribution such as the
amount of competition you'll have to deal with. With the
onset of independent musicians, there are literally millions
of artists doing the exact same thing. This can make the
online marketing of your digital product not as easy as
you think. With physical distribution more of a buzz can
be generated by more people i.e. Distributors, labels,
retail outlets, radio, press, etc. When you go the
independent digital route exclusively, you're pretty much on
your own.
Your own your own but there are many ways to
market your digital product online. Besides the
obvious ways such as selling your CD on your official website
and vigorously marketing it through your myspace
site, you should work with other digital distributors to
gain as much exposure for your music as possible. The most
popular digital music distributor is iTunes of course.
Every artist needs to have their musi available on
iTunes. Here's a link that will give you the
information you need to make your music available on
iTunes. They also have some great stuff available at
lower cost online prices such as iPods, iPhones, music and
video while your there.
There is a few different methods of choosing the
digital music distribution web portals
that you want to distribute your music. You can pick and
choose from the thousands of digital download
websites individually or choose an all inclusive
digital distributor that has relationships with many
distributors. These music distribution companies will
facilitate your music to be downlaoded on hundreds of their
associate sites. A couple very popular ones are
CD Baby and Tunecore. Make sure that whoever you
sign on with does not require you to sign an exclusive
distribution agreement. This can greatly reduce your
options moving forward. eMusic
is also an excellent place to sell your music and download
some great music as well.
However, although distributing your music digitally on
music distribution download portals is significantly
easier and far less expensive, you must still market and
promote. You must drive the traffic and potentil buyers
of your music to these portals. Digital distributors
such as iTunes, Napster, and Rhapsody, among thousands of
others will gladly allow fans to download your music taking a
percentage of the sale, but they will not help in any
marketing and promotion. In other words, it's your
responsibility to get people there. This can be achieved
in many ways throuh many markting efforts. The simplist
and free method is simply adding a link to your music on your
websites, myspace, etc. Oher methods incude fee based
banner and link advertising on high-profile portals.
Having your CD reviied by a significant music journalist and
linked from the review is also a wonderful way to do
this.
NATIONAL
RETAIL AND DIGITAL
DISTRIBUTION OPPORTUNITY
.....
National Retail
Distribution Opportunity through ADA/Warner Bros. for
Independent Artists AMEG through its
affiliation with independent record labels and The Warner Music
Group, can place an artist's album into
our independent label associate's music distribution
system through Warner's independent music distribution channel
the ADA (Alternative Distribution Alliance). The ADA is the number one national
distributor for independent labels and artists. We will
review an artist's new release and determine which of the
attributes listed above that the record and artist have. We are
extremely selective to say
the least about the artist and release and will only choose a
few for this program. If you would like to submit your
new release for ADA/Warner Bros. national distribution
consideration you can do so by following our general submissions guidelines.
Be sure to note that you are seeking distribution for your new
release. For this particular program, it is not
necessary to have your own record label. Genres accepted
for this particular program are Rock, Alternative Rock, Hard
Rock, Punk Rock, Metal, Modern Rock. If selected, our
associate indie label will put it through
their In-Store Retail and Digital
Distribution system. All associated costs of
marketing, promotion, advertising, and label consulting fees
will still remain the responsibility of the Artist.
National Distribution will be combined with a label
program and label consulting
package which includes publicity, radio promotion,
and tour set up and media support. There are consulting
fees associated with this service.
