In my experience with Resonant Vibes, I’ve come across many of you independent label managers who are working tirelessly to push your music. Depending on how long you’ve been at it, you may have wrestled with the decision of whether or not to work with a distributor or a delivery service. I don’t have a definitive opinion on this important matter, but I can offer you some insights from the perspective of a download store manager.
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The first thing I want to do in this post is to explain the general ways in which you (the independent label manager) can distribute your music. (Forgive me if this seems pedantic; some of you already know this stuff, but others may not.) One way for you to get your music sold to consumers is to deal directly with an electronic music download store (like RV). This means you’ll sign a License Agreement of sorts with the store, and they will sell your music and send you royalty statements and payments on some periodic basis. A second way you can get your music sold to consumers is by dealing with a digital distributor, i.e. a middle man. They will charge you various fees, and in exchange they will deal on your behalf with the myriad download stores. Of course, the benefit of dealing with distributors is they will save you the hassle of working with many stores – i.e. the hassle of working with many different sets of delivery specs, many different royalty statements, etc. The third way you can get your music sold to consumers is by working with a delivery platform service. These guys are kind of like quasi-distributors; they give you a technical platform that makes it much easier for you to deliver music to many different stores. The key difference, however, is that unlike a distributor, the platform service will not negotiate contracts on your behalf with the stores – i.e. your label will remain in “contractual privity” with the store.
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Ok, so that basically covers your three options for getting your music to consumers. (Of course, you could always sell it directly from your label’s website, but chances are you’ll reach a very limited number of consumers if you do that.) …so which of these three options is your best move? (more…)