People in bands - best way to distribute your music digitally?

[Sinistas]

Long story short - I've been investigating various solutions for digital distribution and I'm not really sure which road to go down. We've got 2 EPs (which we'd sell as a whole) and a bonus track we'd like to sell as a single. If I could get some pros/cons of various services, that would be fantastic. Please keep in mind that money is tight for us due to the economic climate, though a small monthly fee isn't out of the question.

Thanks!

-Scott
www.dreadedsilence.com

[Sinistas]

Bump - anybody?

[jgcable]

Let me tell you my bands story. You can google us. Just type in Fools Faith. We are on the first 5 pages of Google. Our digital music is available on every source on the web. CD Now, CD Baby, Amazon, Itunes, Musicmatch, Myspace, our official band website, several fan clubs and countless other sources. You can buy the entire album or singles, ringtones etc.... Since we won the Airplay Direct contest we have been doing radio interviews twice a week. Our website took 10,000 hits in a day and a half!! Everybody seems to love the music. We haven't sold enough tunes to pay for a Macdonalds meal for the band. At gigs.. we are lucky to sell 5 CD's the entire night. People online want the music for free so if you are looking to sell it digitally... FORGET IT. If you want to stream it live for downloads for free I would suggest contacting Airplay Direct and Taxi.

[Sinistas]

Thanks for the input John. I doubt we'll get any sales, but if we don't provide the option, I *know* we won't get any. haha.

[SEEGERMANY]

Let me tell you my bands story. You can google us. Just type in Fools Faith. We are on the first 5 pages of Google. Our digital music is available on every source on the web. CD Now, CD Baby, Amazon, Itunes, Musicmatch, Myspace, our official band website, several fan clubs and countless other sources. You can buy the entire album or singles, ringtones etc.... Since we won the Airplay Direct contest we have been doing radio interviews twice a week. Our website took 10,000 hits in a day and a half!! Everybody seems to love the music. We haven't sold enough tunes to pay for a Macdonalds meal for the band. At gigs.. we are lucky to sell 5 CD's the entire night. People online want the music for free so if you are looking to sell it digitally... FORGET IT. If you want to stream it live for downloads for free I would suggest contacting Airplay Direct and Taxi.

This pisses me off so fucking much I could chew through a wall! You work your ass off to provide a superior product and people think it's owed to them! Hey John, next time you go to the dentist, tell him that you appreciate his fine work but that since it's so good, his services should be free! Same goes for the yard man. When he walks up to get his check, say "nice job" then turn around and walk away without paying!

[OnlineStageGear]

It's a different industy for sure. There is a local band around here that won a bunch of unsigned awards, played on MTV, has a jillion friends on thier Myspace. They came as close to making it as you can. Thier music makes my skin crawl, but I guess the girls seem to like it.

They play every year at one of the food festivals and maybe there is 20 people watching them at any one time.

[Sinistas]

Yeah, we're not looking to make it big or anything along those lines (our vocalist's daughter turns 1 on the first). Just hoping to recoup some of the money we spent on recording, basically. Though I doubt that'll happen.

[jacksoncsplayer]

If you're unsigned, there are many indie music sites out there that can help. www.audio-village.com is up and coming, and there are many other indie music sites as well. I think indie net tunes is one, garageband is another., most of these sites are free. Good luck dude, you're right if you never put it out there, you'll never sell it.

[Inazone]

Tunecore and CD Baby both will get your songs on most of the major paid download sites. Our old label put our entire first album up on iTunes and elsewhere, and we've never collected a cent from whatever sales there have been, but I'll probably try CD Baby or Tunecore next time around.

[jgcable]

This pisses me off so fucking much I could chew through a wall! You work your ass off to provide a superior product and people think it's owed to them! Hey John, next time you go to the dentist, tell him that you appreciate his fine work but that since it's so good, his services should be free! Same goes for the yard man. When he walks up to get his check, say "nice job" then turn around and walk away without paying!

There are no such things as record sales profits or royalties anymore. If you want to make money you need to go on one of those big tours and you need some major endorsement deals.
Last week my band Fools Faith was given the opportunity to do a 5 week tour of London promoted by one of the larges music distributors in England. They had gigs lined up for us 5 days a week at the biggest clubs in London. All we had to do is figure out how to get our entire band and all of our equipment to London and of course there was no money alotted for lodging or any other travel expenses. What an opportunity!! Most of the gigs were either showcases or as an opening act for a major act over there so there was no pay for most of the gigs.