Patrick Farrar

Releasing Music, Why I Decided On DistroKid and How I Plan to Use it Going Forward

music business music production

Hello everybody! I hope that all is well and I wanted to share a little bit about some things I learned on my recent excursion to Montana to continue to write, record and produce my album.

Alas! Let us begin talking about the topic a hand, Music Distribution. With the increasing popularity of streaming services and paid subscription models for music lovers to have the 10101010101s of song data sent directly to their phones and computers, digital distribution is an important thing for any artist to understand, signed or independent. There are numerous channels for artists to get their music distributed to fans. Often times for independent musicians the costs of physical album (CDs, Vinyl, Cassettes, etc) are difficult and expensive and prohibitive at the beginning for the artist because of the costs related to manufacture these physical goods can be high a difficult to sell the physical goods outside of a live show merch setting.

Enter the magic of digital distribution. Ok! I'm exaggerating but digital distribution offers a cost effective solution for artists to bypass the traditional route of physical releases and get their music to the masses more quickly via the internet. I like this because the time from creation to distribution is drastically cut down.

I recently went through this process with a collection of tracks that I have in order to see what the process was like for myself. Here are some things that I learned.

** Disclaimer - I am not paid to say this and am giving advice from my personal opinion. If you find another option more suited for your needs use it. This worked for me.

After researching various different services that offered digital distribution platforms like TuneCore, Landr and CD Baby I landed on the platform DistroKid. In general these platforms serve a very similar purpose for an artist manager, or independent record label, or independent artist, they offer a turnkey solution for releasing music to the various streaming and digital platforms that sell and stream music. Each platform mentioned above has a list of features that makes them special but one of the main draws from my research regarding distribution with DistroKid was the annual flat fee and proclaimed easy process to upload. Deciding on a platform was at least a 2 year task as I tried to vet platforms before releasing music. The flat annual fee vs the per album or per track model allows me to release more tracks instead of waiting for a full EP or LP worth of tracks. This gets music faster out to the world and I can test out new ideas quicker and get feedback and response from fans.

 

Releasing this batch of singles using DistroKid was a simple process of filling out a form with metadata regarding the track/album, uploading artwork and the raw audio file then just clicking submit. It was an easy process and within a few days (in some cases a few hours) my music began to appear in some stores and then onto iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon. It still is pretty amazing firing up these platforms and seeing your work up there. The cost of the platform so far has been worth it as it allowed me to get my music up to the world in a semi-frictionless process. Separately from DistroKid, I registered my works with BMI to track royalties that way as well.

For the near future, new works of mine and artists that I will work with will DistroKid as one avenue in the process of building out a comprehensive marketing strategy for new music.

This process wasn't completely flawless though. My first releases that were released into Spotify created new artists each time, which was resolved through customer support, but needs to be remembered for future releases. Make sure you check on how your tracks look after you have submitted them.

If you are interested in signing up with them directly here is a referral link that will give you a slight discount (and a little support to me) Signup For DistroKid

Here are some examples of links of my works distributed through DistroKid in stores.

As time progresses and I release more tracks and albums through the platform I will expand my thought and write follow ups to this post. Right now I am happy with the results of getting my music onto the platforms. If you have any questions about how I did this or are looking to do this or need help in music production, marketing strategy or other aspects I am here to help.

 

 

 

 

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