Music Distribution

by TR Editor

Distributing an independent release can be tough, but its starting to get easier with some new innovative businesses that are emerging. Major distribution companies usually only distribute albums from labels, and sometimes only from reputable labels with multiple signed artists. Good news for the little guy though. Many companies like cdbaby.com, and mp3.com have realized the potential profits to be made through the digital distribution of independent music. Artists can now sign up, sometimes for a small fee, to a company that will list your music on some of the top online music distributors, and do some minimal marketing for you. Its also good to post your bands biography and tunes on other free sites that offer similar services of selling your CD for a cut of the profits, and some will even manufacture the CD for you.

For starters when distributing your own CD you will have to ensure that you produce the best quality product. This means looking over every detail. Take a look at your CD collection right now and compare how other artists present there music, carefully study, credits copyrights, record label catalogue number. All of these little details added up are what makes your CD look like a record label release instead of a friends mix tape.

I'm sure that you have noticed the compact disk logo on a few of your CD's, most people just glance past this but this logo actually has a meaning and there are several different variations of this logo. They were created for more or less a quality control to ensure customers that the quality of the CD they were buying. Not the sound quality but the ability of your CD player to actually read the disk.

Bar-Codes

If you feel that you will be selling a large amount of CD's than you will have to get your self bar-codes for your jewel case inserts. Bar-codes are sometimes a requirement for distributors and record stores will sometimes ask you to have them if you are lucky enough to get them to sell your album. Bar-codes are great for tracking the sales of your CDs, because each one can be scanned as items are sold to give an accurate inventory of your sales and stock. Bar-codes also add some professionalism to the visual appearance of your CD.

Remember to obtain copyrights and the mater disk of your music if recorded by a third party when going to get your CD duplicated for production. You will also have to make the choice of whether you want thermal printing on the CD's or if you are just going to use stickers.

Jewel Cases

There are many different choices of jewel cases on the market to help attract a new listener to your music, or to offer your fans a new innovative way of storing your CD. There are many choices that span in a range of price to fit almost any budget. a few cases that you have to choose from are: thin, rounded corners, colored, clear, translucent color, cardboard, white, black (standard), clear spines, and plastic sheaths. I'm sure there are a few more unique cases but these are the majority of what you have to choose from.

Now that you know the essentials of the process of creating a professional image for your music to be presented by, you can pick and choose what aspects of production would make the most sense to contract to another company instead of taking on the work yourself.