How To Sell Music Online

Tips For Selling Your Music Online

If you are in the market to sell music it can be tough. Many musicians, as I am sure several are reading this article, know that when it comes to actually making some money from your music it can be hit or miss. Several musicians have very little luck making any money at all from their music, and those that do make money from their music don’t always make a living from their music. Times can be tough for a musician. The internet opens up a bit of opportunity for you to better sell your music, and to be able to distribute it quickly and vastly. The only catch is there is a lot of competition in selling music online. Hopefully today though we can show you some true ways to sell your music.

Here are some quick ideas of places where you can actually promote your music:

Chat Rooms
Music Websites
Other Websites you Own
Your own band’s website
Online Radio Broadcasts
Online Music Forums
Online Music Communities
Online Stores That Sell Music

A lot of artists focus on selling CDs. A good way to do this is to have your CDS produced in mass which we talk about in more detail in our article on a Music Promotions Company, but this can be a costly start up. Plus a lot of people might come out to hear you play, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into CD sales. An easier way with less “barriers to entry” is to sell your music digitally in the form of mp3. You save a lot of money on the costs of packaging, shipping, and other items associated with CD sales. There are also many ways that you can market your CDs to the public and make money from it.

A lot of websites will partner with you where they sell your digital music for a piece of the pie. Though the fee might seem high, it is a good way to get your music in front of people and at the end of the day once you produce the mp3 the money coming in is better than nothing. If I can give one piece of advice, however, it is that you really need to make sure that when you are selling your music in a bigger forum you do put some investment into the production of the music. So many artists don’t invest here. What if some big mogul purchases your mp3? Would you want them to hear your shabby recording job just to make a buck? Your best bet is to invest your money in quality recording, and then sell the music in these. Even if you don’t recover your full investment if your music is good it may pay off tenfold.

You can always do what I did and follow the success of others. This allows you to not get caught up in the common pitfalls of music distribution. We want success and we will accept nothing less. The best way to get success is to model those who are already successful. Therefore, I suggest that you get a head start on modeling those exact people.

Free Video on Independent Music Distribution Tactics

Then Versus Now

It used to be nearly impossible to sell your music. Didn’t matter if you were selling it in a record store or any other channel. Why? Because the internet was not the hub for music. Now everyone comes on the internet and a lot of them come on it solely to find music. People want to change their state while they are on the internet. The best way for you to leverage this is to get your music in front of them. I mean, let’s face it, several years ago there was no iTunes or iPods or iPads, or any other object like that. People had to buy CDs. Usually had to buy a whole album for one song that they liked, and you better have a good song because a lot of albums weren’t sold because they didn’t like it enough to buy the whole album.

The picture has changed now. In today’s world nobody really buys an album unless they really like the artist. Today it is song sales. Though we still, as artists, measure album sales and have the platinum records. In reality when it comes down to making money we make money from song sales. Channels like itunes are incredibly effective in pushing songs and bringing in a buck. Now iTunes will not work directly with an independent artist. You have to be working through some distributor who will give you access to iTunes. My mentor will show you tactics to getting on iTunes if you want to know them. iTunes is really the place to be right now, nobody sells more music. I can’t say it will always be that way, but it will be for the distant future I am sure we all can agree on that.

Another big player is bandcamp. This is not the bandcamp where Allyson Hannigan did the thing with the flute (American Pie Reference if You are Lost). This site allows you to put up a website of your own where people can download your music or even purchase it. There are two benefits to Bandcamp, and one big drawback. The benefits are you can work directly with them, you don’t need to have a distributor you have full control over the design of your site. On top of that you get a better revenue share than you do on iTunes. This means you make more money per sale. The one drawback, and it is a biggie, is that this site does not have the sales power that iTunes does. Is this the first time you have heard of it? If not, nevermind, but if so that just proves my point. If it is the first time a musician has heard of it, how many people looking to buy music are going to this site? Everyone has heard of iTunes.

A few other sites which we will mention are ReverbNation. Tunecore will get you on iTunes but there is a pretty hefty fee, depends on if you are just releasing a single or album. To sell your music there is probably some investment involved, the trick is if you are good then once you sell music you will take off.