How To Sell Your Music Online

By Author: Steve Cook
Total Articles: 2
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Selling Your Music Online is Easier Than You Think.

The Internet is loaded with resources to help your band sell music online direct to your fans, with no middleman (a.k.a. record label) to take a big piece of the action.

Many of these companies offer their services for free, others ask for reasonable fees for more elaborate music marketing plans. You will find here sites that help you sell your traditional CD, as well as ways for you to promote and circulate your MP3 files.

Sites Where You Can Sell Your Music Online

CDBaby.com (http://www.cdbaby.com)

CDBaby.com only sells music that comes directly from musicians. They will not accept music from distributors. All you need to do is send them your CDs. They will warehouse them, sell them to your customers and pay you directly every week.

Garageband.com (http://www.garageband.com)

Garageband Records offers this service in partnership with CDBaby.com, allowing you to leverage their branding to sell your music to hundreds of thousands of music buyers worldwide. In addition to all of the services offered by CDBaby, Garageband ...
... Records will create an Album Profile page for your band where you can enter your sleeve notes and select tracks on your album that are also on garageband.com. You can link to this page from your own website, so all of your visitors have instant access to purchase your music. Garageband promotes your CD and CDBaby mails you a check every week.

Hostbaby.com (http://www.hostbaby.com)

Also in conjunction with CDBaby, Hostbaby is a full service web hosting company with tools, services, technology and special features specifically geared toward bands and musicians. You will be able to host a full service music website with all of the bells and whistles for a very low monthly fee. Extra services that other hosting companies charge for are included in this special hosting package for bands and musicians.

CD Street (http://www.cdstreet.com)

This site will enable you to sell your music and all of your merchandise with their storefront and customizable web pages. For a one time setup fee, your band can sell as many products as you wish and accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover Card, American Express and JCB. You keep 80% of the sale.

MP3.com (http://www.mp3.com)

MP3.com offers tools and services that allow you to promote your band while selling your music online so that you can directly interact with your fan base with targeted messaging to announce upcoming performances or song releases.
They also offer perks such as your own web page with unlimited disk space at no additional cost, featured artists and music, the ability to produce and MP3/CD formatted CD (the netCD), a rewards program (Payback for Playback), promotional auctions and much more.

Amazon.com's Advantage for Music Program
Get the power and security of a proven brand with Amazon, the Internet's number 1 retailer with customers in all 50 US States and over 160 countries around the world. If you want to align your band with a brand recognized for service, reliability, and security, then Amazon might work for you.
MySpace Music
It might make the most sense to sell your music online where you fans already know where to find you and where they love you. You put a lot of time into your MySpace promotion, so why not go ahead and offer your fans the opportunity to purchase your music while they are loving you on MySpace?
MySpace teamed up in a joint venture with several major record labels to bring you MySpace music with the idea that embedding an online music store in their social network would create a more dynamic connection between you and your fans. And hopefully what that means for your band is selling more music and merchandise online.
MySpace music is like a one stop shopping experience for all things music, allowing you to offer more than just music. You can offer music, ringtones, concert tickets, merchandise, and more.
Because MySpace has over 110 million users, and over 30 million visit their music platform, they are hoping to leverage this traffic and familiarity so that MySpace Music will give Apple iTunes a run for their money.
It certainly makes a lot of sense.
No matter which site you choose to sell your music online, the fact of the matter is that online music sales are the wave of the future that is happening now and downloaded music will surpass CD sales in less than 2 years. So if your band is not selling your music online yet, now is the time to get busy. It is easier than you think and only a few clicks away.