I just posted this on another blog and then something struck me. Hey, I have a blog, duh! So, I am going to repost a quick comparison between the two distribution services I have used (or will use) to get my music sold in online stores like iTunes, eMusic, Amazon Mp3, Rhapsody, and more.
Big-time labels are no longer a necessity to break into music sales. I suppose they haven't been for quite a while, but until recently, I had never ever dreamed it could be this easy to sell my music online. You can't deny the marketing muscle and influence a brand-name label offers an artist. If you're like me, however, you haven't gotten noticed by the 'players', yet you still want to share your music with the world. Well the good news is that there is no shortage of options for the indie musician to get his/her music to the marketplace. I want to talk, specifically, about two of these options: Tunecore and ReverbNation.
These companies are digital music distribution services. They will submit your music for distribution to online stores on your behalf. The big online stores like iTunes and Amazon don't deal with us little guys directly, but they do deal with aggregators like Tunecore and ReverbNation. Other popular options include CD Baby, and Ditto Music, among many, many, others that are just a Google Search away.
CD Baby is arguably the largest, but they take a 9% commission from your royalties while Tunecore and ReverbNation promise you 100% of your royalties. When I first started looking at distribution options, this 9% fee immediately turned me off and I did not explore CD Baby's services further. However, CD Baby may still be a good option for those of you who don't plan to sell very many albums, as they don't charge an annual fee for listing your album/singles like the former do.
I started with Tunecore. I released my first three singles through their service with no real complaints. They charged me a flat fee of $9.99 to distribute each single to all of their online stores, which inlude all of the big players. To my surprise, my songs were up on iTunes within hours, and not weeks, like I had originally expected. Their customer service is top-notch. I really can't adequately articulate my admiration and respect for the way they treat their customers, even problem customers like me, with all of my rookie mistakes. Their customer service was helpful, courteous, and FAST! Marta, my agent, was even kind enough to send me a reminder to provide some critical information for an issue she was helping me with, after I had forgotten to respond for a few days.
My only real complaint about Tunecore is that their user community is almost non-existant. Their forums see very little activity, even though the founders of the company routinely post follow-ups to user questions and comments. The unfortunate part is that there really is no vehicle for interaction with fellow artists besides their barren forums. Compared to the other service I have used, with Tunecore, you really feel like you're on an island and aside from releasing music and perhaps reading their free guides, there isn't much to do on their website. That may be fine for some, especially those no-nonsense, socially awkward types. I don't know many artists who aren't interested in community interaction, however.
As completion of my first album became more of a reality, I decided to explore some options for distribution. I landed atReverbNation next. This experience was like going to sleep in Wasilla, AK and waking up in New York City. While Tunecore resembles the quaint bedroom community in which I live and work, ReverbNation is big, noisy, and bustling with activity. My artist page was packed with so many features and tools that I spent the better part of a day playing with all of my new toys.
ReverbNation, in addition to offering distribution service just like Tunecore, also offers a host of tools for promotion and marketing, and well as tools to help you analyze your page traffic, fans, and your band's progress up the charts. They also offer you the ability to sell your music in your own online store, complete with on-demand custom merchandise, in addition to music.
ReverbNation really is the Facebook of digital music distributors. Their community is extremely active and they provide so many ways for you to interact with fellow artists and fans. Within minutes of setting up my page and uploading some songs, I started getting visits to my pages. People were listening to my music, commenting on it, and becoming fans. The option to look at local charts is also amazing. It made for some great networking opportunities.
Reverb also offers FREE trending reports from iTunes. Tunecore charges $2.98 for each weekly trending report, or a little less if you subscribe to the report service. I'll take free, thank you. Lastly, my favorite thing about RN happened today when I logged into my artist page. I received notification that I had a deposit! I was a tad disappointed that it wasn't an .mp3 or merchandise sale, but a deposit is a deposit, right? I made a modest amount of money by signing up for their "Fair Share" program, which, from what I can tell, pays ME for the traffic my page brings to RN. Neat-o!
So, to sum it all up:
Tunecore has low start-up cost options, excellent customer service, great owners, but their community is lacking
ReverbNation offers tools to help market your band, has an amazing vibrant community, and pays you for driving traffic to your page. Oh, and FREE trending reports!
I don't mean to gush, and I really have nothing against Tunecore as their service has been exemplary, but I am finding it hard to ignore ReverbNation's community and interactivity, and I will most likely use their service to distribute my album. I'll post an update when that happens so I can talk about their actual distribution service. Who knows, maybe they lack in this regard and I'll have to come crawling back to Tunecore.
15 comments:
Great post. Wondering how Reverbnation has been for you.
We're in a slightly different boat, as we produced a film called Dying to do Letterman about a comedian.
We are putting his comedy CD up for sale ASAP. I'm really interested in the tools Reverbnation has to offer in terms of social media/etc. As you put it..."the Facebook" of indie music. But I have some concerns and was wondering your thoughts:
1. I've heard that Reverbnation, not ME, will own the email list I build, so I can't ever export it...is that true?
2. Street Team missions sound awesome, but do they all flow through the RN site, or can you embed such things in your blog/site?
Thanks, would love your thoughts. Our movie site is here:
http://www.DyingToDoLetterman.com
Best,
Biagio
@Biagio
1. That hasn't been my experience. When I go into the "Fan Reach" section of my RN account, I have full access to my mailing list. There is an option in a drop down menu that will let me export my mailing list in .csv format.
2. I don't have much experience with Street Team missions. I do know that they get sent out to your mailing list. Any embedding will revolve around RN's widgets, which do point back to your RN page, and all of the Analytics will be found in your RN Control Room.
Good luck with your project!
In my experience, ReverbNation appears to be an elaborate scam designed to rip off musicians. They led me (and others) to believe we would only have to pay a "One-Time Fee" to sell our music tracks in Amazon, iTunes etc for a year. However, when that year expired, they insisted on payment of an additional "Take Down Fee". Non-payment would result in them keeping (stealing) the tracks' future Royalties. In my case, they took a "renewal fee" from my bank account without permission, and despite the fact that I had clearly told them not to. They refuse to return my money. They warn that they will continue to milk my bank account on an annual basis. Catch 22 - either pay the "Take Down Fee" (which I hadn't agreed to), or have my bank account plundered every year, or give up the Royalty on the tracks that I created. This whole stinking episode reeks of entrapment. Avoid ReverbNation like the plague!
Sorry - there's more. When musicians complain about the "Takedown Fee", they get replies that are evasive (if they get a reply at all). If complainents persist, they can expect to have their Comments deleted from the ReverbNation forum. In my case, they have deleted my entire complaint thread, without warning. A few hours later, they blocked my access to their forum. As far as ReverbNation and its customers are concerned, I have been censored out of existence.
@Simon Le Boggit
Thank you for that interesting bit of information.
To be fair, Tunecore had the same policy regarding release renewals. They would automatically charge you, and if they couldn't recover the money, they would consider the music to be 'abandoned' and collect the royalties for your songs for themselves.
However, Tunecore customers complained, and they were heard. Tunecore no longer automatically pulls renewal fees for your songs, and they have always (since I've been a customer) offered FREE TAKEDOWNS. I recently decided not to renew one of my singles as it was a remix and my license for the original was about to run out. It took just one email to customer service and when my release was due, it was taken down from the online stores without any added fees.
Tunecore also listened to us when we asked for free iTunes trending reports. That was my single, biggest gripe with Tunecore, as pointed out in my original post. Now that they have taken care of it, they have continued to earn my business.
So, as of this writing, I have released another single through Tunecore and I'm now planning on releasing my album through them. I need to go hunt through ReverbNation's fine print to find this policy, and that information will be added to my original post.
We recommend MondoTunes over any of the competitors. they're the next generation music services company. Met the guys at a music conference and their value proposition can't be touched because they're not head deep vested in corp/vc funding so they benefit the artists (at this point. hopefully they don't sell their soul). the reach close to 800 online stores, they don't do BS per store fees (all stores are included), they cost the least, they don't have monthly/annual feess, artists keep their rights and receive 100% net royalties. Here's a cool link http://www.mondotunes.com/mondotunes-vs-tunecore-cdbaby
We recommend MondoTunes over any of the competitors. they're the next generation music services company. Met the guys at a music conference and their value proposition can't be touched because they're not head deep vested in corp/vc funding so they benefit the artists (at this point. hopefully they don't sell their soul). the reach close to 800 online stores, they don't do BS per store fees (all stores are included), they cost the least, they don't have monthly/annual feess, artists keep their rights and receive 100% net royalties. Here's a cool link http://www.mondotunes.com/mondotunes-vs-tunecore-cdbaby
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I uploaded my CD for sale with Reverbnation and a customer complained they never got the CD from Reverbnation. In the meantime, I am playing $10.00 per month. I just cancelled with them. I now have to reimburse the customer since this company never sent the CD as promised; it has been over a month. Initially they advertised they were doing ringtones and then that company went out of business. I am tired of misrepresentations.
like it -great read. You have been extremely helpful. Funnily enough, I had both RN and Tuncore up in my browsers and was wondering where to start when I came across your blog! It has made it clear to me to stick with RN.
Many thanks again.
Trace Taylor
Biagio > As a quick response to your point "1. I've heard that Reverbnation, not ME, will own the email list I build, so I can't ever export it...is that true?"
I've not had the time so far to explore RN as extennsively as I need to.. I did try exporting and found I couldn't so currently, I add new email subscribers to my other email platform. A bit annoying having to copy and paste over I know.. It is bad though.. Not a good way forward if my mailing list continues to grow! It would be very good of RN to allow us to export so we can sync all from one platform. I agree.
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