by Charlie Morris

Like so many others, you want your music to be heard. Whether your dreams are of worldwide airplay, MTV, stadiums and limousines, or merely of someday hearing one of your songs on a college radio station, you want to sell your recordings. Until a few years ago, it would have been a crazy dream.
October 1999

Remember Elvis in Jailhouse Rock? When the record company wouldn't give him a contract, by golly, he scraped together the money to press a box o' records himself, and they flew off the shelves. I don't think I'm being overly cynical when I say that few real people who attempted do-it-yourself record releases in those days met with as much success.

Until the advent of cassette tapes in the seventies, just making a decent recording of any kind was beyond the resources of many musicians. Once cassette decks, and later 4-track "portastudios" became common, a flood of recording activity began, for better or for worse. But cassettes deliver only mediocre-quality audio, and there was always a stigma to the "demo tape." As a friend once put it, "Vinyl speaks."

There was a window of a few years during which it was cool to have a CD of your music. Any amateur could have a cassette. Now of course, any tater can have CDs, DVDs and a Web site with MP3 and RealAudio.

Eventually, music and all other media will be sold as bits. The content will be totally decoupled from the physical storage format. Once you own a copy of a certain piece, you'll be able to listen to it on your stereo, walkman, cell phone, wristwatch, etc. as well as store it on a physical storage medium of your choice (DVD, Super-Jaz drives, whatever). Who knows, maybe there'll even be cheap machines to cut your own LPs for those so inclined.

That day isn't here yet. As of the turn of the millenium, CDs are still king of the hill. The Web has already changed the playing field of the music business, but the game still revolves around selling CDs. Digital music formats like MP3, RealAudio, and other Web audio formats, are very much a part of the scene, but their place is mainly in the "free samples" department.

There's no question, however, that we're seeing the first stages of a complete revolution in the way recorded music is marketed and sold. Traditionally, the biz has been a vertically-integrated closed shop. The only way an artist could hope to sell a substantial number of recordings was to have the awesome marketing power of a major label behind him or her. Thus, the only artists "allowed" to market to the masses were those who passed the gauntlet of the major-label tastemakers.

This arrangement leaves a bit to be desired, as I think both music fans and musicians will agree. The need for huge hits to recover the huge costs involved in making records led to a "lowest common denominator" approach common to all mass media. Only those deemed to appeal to a big segment of the "market" were pushed, so the fans were fed pablum such as the "disco craze," and the various "girl groups," while artists of narrower (but still large) appeal got short shrift. Nor have most musicians got much good to say about the "industry." Loss of artistic control and little in the way of cash, runs the tale of woe that so many sub-million-selling recording artists tell.

Well, now you can not only make your own high-quality recordings with a moderate amount of equipment (The Tapeless Studio explains how), you can market them to a worldwide audience cheaply and (fairly) easily. Record some tracks on your computer, mix 'em down and burn a CD. Get an e-commerce-enabled Web site set up, which gets easier and easier all the time, and you're ready to sell your recordings to fans from Alaska to Azerbaijan. You don't need those greedy old record companies at all. Or do you?

Well, I hate to admit it, but record companies do serve a productive purpose. Making records and selling them is a business like any other, and it's a business that requires some investment up front. Record companies are like musical investment banks or venture capitalists. They pick promising investments, put down the money to produce and (one hopes) market the music, and keep the lion's share of the dough, if there is any.

The reason that there so often isn't any, is the huge marketing costs required to stand out from the thousands and thousands of new albums released every year. Without the access to distribution and mass marketing channels that record companies have, a new release wouldn't have a prayer of any serious national recognition.

For the musician, there's also the question of the prestige of being on a real record label. Having a release on a known label, however small, puts you in a different category than having a "homemade" CD. In this way, record companies are tastemakers in a good sense. If someone who presumably knows something about music made the decision to invest a bunch of money in an artist, then he must be pretty good, right?

These issues will not disappear because of the Web, so record companies will continue to exist. Those that thrive will embrace the new sales channels available. There are signs that at least one of the majors is taking the plunge into the Web, and many of the small labels already boast impressive Web operations.

You can probably see what I'm leading up to: You ain't gonna make any pile of money selling your CDs on the Web. Unless you have some kind of angle (lots of dates on the college circuit, or a tie-in with a porno site…), you probably won't sell a darn thing.

So, should you bother to distribute your homegrown recordings on the Web? Yes, yes, yes! If nothing else, a Web site is very much a necessary part of your "promo pac." Just as you need a CD, a photo, and all that junk, in the 00s you need a Web site, with pix and audio samples at the very least.

In a previous column, we discussed how to set up a basic Web site, with audio samples in various different formats. In this article, we'll look at selling your music online. Yes, actually delivering your work to your loyal fans (in either physical or virtual form), and receiving cold, hard cash for it. If you've read this far, I'll assume you choose to ignore my warning about how little of said cold and hard substance you'll be getting. Or, you may simply feel, as I do, that a "release," which is currently available for sale to the public, is a little more impressive than a "demo," which is destined only to be heard by agents and nightclub owners (and all too often, to end its days in a wastebasket somewhere in Nashville or L.A.).

Anyway, if you want to distribute your music on the Web, there are two ways to do it: through your own Web site, or through one of many existing music sites.

Selling Your Music on Your Own Web Site

If you're a working musician, you should have a Web site. Nowadays, it's as much a part of your promo pac as the trusty old 8x10 photo. At the very least, your site should include full contact information, and a decent picture or two. You really should have some musical samples, as well. This isn't that hard to do. A previous Web Audio Workshop column explained how to create musical clips in Web formats such as MP3 and RealAudio, and how to make them available on your site. If you need even more basic info, like how to set up a Web site in the first place, see The ABCs of Building Web Sites.

Online services like AOL, and "communities" like Geocities and Fortune City, offer free Web space to members. This may be the cheapest and easiest way to set up a site, and for some folks, this is far as they need to go. If you just want a simple promotional site, something like this may do. If you want to post audio on your site, however, you're likely to run into problems with these "free" hosts. They only allow a certain amount of server space and bandwidth, which usually seems like plenty for text and a few pix, but musical files will eat it up quickly. Also, AOL is notorious for causing problems, or not working at all, with anything "fancy," like MP3 downloads, or streaming audio. If you want to offer audio samples on your site, you should get a proper Web presence account with a normal hosting service. See the ABCs of Web Hosting to get it sorted out.

So you've got a site set up, with text, graphics and sound. What about online ordering? Well, this is quite a bit more complicated, and it takes some doing to get all the pieces of the puzzle together. Basically, here are the components of an online ordering system:

1. A form on your site which allows customers to enter their orders, including their credit card information.
   
   
2. Optional, but recommended. The form should incorporate SSL, which encrypts the credit card info, and reassures your customers that ordering from your site is safe. This requires a digital certificate from a certificate authority such as Verisign, for which you must pay a $350 yearly fee.
   
   
3. A transaction processing system. The online form sends data to this software, which authorizes the transaction and transmits the data to the bank. Some of these provide real-time authorization, while some just clear the transactions in a batch at the end of the day. Theoretically, a mail order business doesn't really need real-time authorization, as if someone's credit card is refused, you just don't ship the order. However, the less sophisticated (and less expensive) payment processing software tends to require a certain amount of manual processing of orders, while systems like Authorize.net automate the entire process for you.
   
   
4. A credit card merchant account with a bank. This is the account used to clear credit card transactions. A couple of recent articles explain how merchant accounts work, and how to get one.
   
   
5. Some big envelopes and a roll of stamps. One roll should be plenty.

As you've probably guessed, steps 2, 3 and 4 involve some substantial costs, and all involve a good bit of work. As you can see, each step was worth a whole article. So, does the average musician need to go through all this? Nah. Considering the number of CDs you're likely to sell, and the fact that running a store is not really your business, for most people it would be overkill to set up online ordering on your own site.

Personally, I love overkill, so I slogged through the whole process, and set up a complete online ordering system on my site. However, this was really done as a sort of a test project - something I could learn from and write articles about. Even if you want the hassles of setting up something like this, it costs more on a monthly basis than an independent artist is likely to bring in from CD sales.

Most of you will want to sidestep the fascinating e-commerce learning curve, by piggybacking on someone else's credit card setup. Obviously, lots of people are in the same boat, and we are now seeing the emergence of "online store builders" or whatever you want to call them. Yahoo and Amazon both offer deals by which a small merchant (that's you) can easily set up an online store, without needing your own merchant account, certificate, or any of that junk.

Of course, you don't have to distribute your music on your own site at all. There are many sites, of various kinds, that will do it for you. Read on to find out how they work.

Selling Your Music on Third-party Sites

There are hundreds of sites that distribute music on the Web. Basically, they fall into two categories. The ones that I shall call "music sites" offer audio clips, and various other information about artists, and sell CDs as well. Examples are MP3.com, IUMA and the UBL. Another kind of site, which I'll call a "retail site," sells a variety of merchandise, including CDs. Examples are Amazon and CDnow.

Of course, there are lots of record companies and record distributors who sell CDs on their sites, but they're outside the scope of this article. Getting a record contract or a distribution deal is another matter entirely. We're talking here about sites that will distribute your existing recordings online.

As is typical of the Web, there are all kinds of sites out there, based on all kinds of business models. Some sites charge for downloads, while others hope to make their money from advertising, allowing them to pay artists while offering music to fans free. As of this writing, these sites are a bit ahead of their time. It remains to be seen when people will really start paying for downloadable music (they will sooner or later), and whether advertising will be a viable way to make money from a music site (I imagine it will, in a small way). For now, the name of the game is selling CDs by mail order, with MP3 or RealAudio files on the site as free samples.

So, what kind of deals are these outfits offering? Most allow you to post your stuff for free, and are open to all comers. Most demand no exclusivity - you're free to offer your material on one site or on a dozen. Of course, they offer no promises, either. Basically, you put your information and sample audio clips on their site, and if somebody orders a CD, they'll take a cut. Pretty much a can't-lose proposition for both parties.

MP3.com is one of these sites that's gotten a good bit of mainstream-media visibility of late. If you can stir up a buzz there about your release, you may get a lot of valuable publicity. MP3.com provides stats, so you can see how many people downloaded your songs, and what your rank is among all their artists. You can't sell your CDs on MP3.com, but you can have a link to your site, which should have links to wherever it is that your CDs are available.

In addition to big sites like MP3, which include many styles of music, there are thousands of smaller sites that distribute music, often in a particular genre. An example is BluesCDs.com, which distributes a select group of blues artists.

Many online retailers, including Amazon, seem pretty open-minded about adding small-label or even homemade-label CDs to their catalog. However, you must have a UPC code with an appropriate bar code printed on your CD package, just as you would for a traditional distributor. To get this scene together, you must obtain a UPC number from the Uniform Code Council, produce a bar code (which you can do with any of several available software packages), and print it on your labels.

So, how many online outlets do you need? The more the merrier? Well, as there are thousands of online distribution sites, and as about 99% of them probably won't be around in a year (although another ten thousand new ones will have taken their place), trying to get listed on lots of them is probably a waste of time. The big ones such as MP3.com are open to all comers and all styles of music, and getting featured billing is a matter of simple supply and demand. Whichever tunes are most popular appear at the top of the list. So it's hard to see why getting listed on lots of these sites would be a very good use of your time. I'd definitely want to be on MP3.com, because it's the one everyone's heard of. Beyond that, your time is probably best spent trying to get people to your own Web site, and directing them from there to whatever online outlet you feel does the best job for you.

The smaller, single-genre sites are a different (and more interesting) story. These are really more like low-budget record companies than anything else - the owners decide what submissions are worthy of being included, and, one hopes, they exert a bit of effort to market them. So it makes sense to send your material to as many of these sites, in appropriate styles, as you can find. If most of them do nothing for you, hopefully one will, and you have nothing to lose except coasters. This, of course, is a luxury one doesn't have with "real" record companies, which always demand exclusivity. This ability to work with different distribution outlets is really great, if you think about it.

As empowering as the new era of music distribution is, it's still basically a big experiment. If any of these sites is actually selling any substantial number of recordings, I haven't heard about it yet. Ah, but they will! They will! Among all the hoopla in the press, it's easy to forget that the whole Internet is really still in its infancy. As it matures, it will become more apparent that it's the perfect vehicle for distributing music (and video, and…). The potential rewards for musicians and musical businesspeople are enormous. It's definitely not too soon to get involved.

What's your opinion on the online music distribution revolution? Or perhaps you have a question. Express yourself on our Online Music Discussion List.