How to Get Your Music on iTunes

We get asked alot of times how to get music on iTunes, the largest digital music store in the world. Well, here's the answer, with help from Crenk.com:

To get music on iTunes, you have to look at the companies that supply them with the music. These companies are referred to as "digital distribution companies", because they take music from artists all over the world and then distribute that music to the world's largest online stores. All of these companies take a cut for providing this service in some form or another.

We are also going to run through an example of how each site will work in terms of revenues for the artist. We will place 1 album per year for 2 years on each site. Each album will have 13 tracks. The artist's actual sales were $0.99 per track and the artist sold 1,000 tracks.

Cdbaby.com – Cdbaby is one of the oldest companies in this market and provide some great services, even though their website seems to be outdated by about 5 years. The prices are as follows:

Setup: $35 one time fee

Cut for Distributor: 9% of all income

Partners: You don't have a choice as to which online stores your music goes to, except for a very small list of selected retailers. The Cdbaby service is completely non-exclusive and doesn't tie up any of your rights. Their distribution partners include iTunes, eMusic, Hear Music, Last.fm, MusicNet, Napster, Rhapsody and others.

Example: The artist has to pay $35 upfront for the first album and then another $35 for second album, totaling $75 in initially. Sales would be $0.99 x 1000 tracks sold, which equals $990, and the artist would receive $900.90. Profit equals $900.90 less $75 costs = $825.90

Tunecore.com – Tunecore is the new player on the block who has been getting a lot of press attention for their business model. They've also signed some large album distribution deals.

Setup: $19.98 Per Album Per Year Storage. Plus $0.99 per store per album. Plus $0.99 per track.

Cut for Distributor: Nothing in terms of income

Partners: The choice is yours. You can send your music to one or all of their partners. Partners include iTunes, Amazon, Lala, Napster, Rhapsody, Music.com, eMusic and GroupieTunes.

Example: Costs would equal $19.98 x 2 for two years ($59.94), plus $0.99 per album for 5 stores ($9.90), plus 13 tracks on both albums at $0.99 each (25.74). Overall costs equal $95.58. Profit equals $990 less $95.58 in costs = $894.42

TheOrchard.com – The Orchard is currently one of the world's largest online distributors. They have over 350 retails partners in a variety of areas. I'm not going to run through their sections because they are very straight forward. The Orchard as far as 'Im aware doesn't charge for catalog inclusion. They also have a huge list of retail partners, but the big down side is that they are known for taking a very large percent cut. Plus, everytime I rang them, I could never actually speak to a person with any intellegance that atually got back to me on time with information about what they can provide. It was the worst service I have seen in the industry.

RouteNote.com – RouteNote is the new player on the block. They have a very basic distribution model and a growing list of retail partners. Since they are new on the block, they don't have as many retail partners as their rivals, but look for this to grow.

Setup: Free

Cut for Distributor: 10% of income

Partners: The choice is yours. You can send your music to one or all of their partners. Partners include, iTunes, eMusic, Limewire and Audio Lunchbox. They are also in talks with Amazon and Rhapsody to add their options to the RouteNote service.

Example:$990 is sales and the artist would receive = $891 (with no upfront costs)

This analysis proves that Tunecore is the best option for artists to retain the most revenue. However, the artist will have to pay $95.58 upfront and tasks the burden of selling 1000 tracks to realize the financial benefit. RouteNote is a new service but the results speak for themselves. Their service brings is nearly as much money as Tunecore, but the artist doesnt have to pay anything upfront at all! I hope this helps in your desire to getting your music on iTunes! Happy Distributing!

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