7 Websites for Sharing and Selling Your Music
Friday, June 11th, 2010How can an independent artist help maximise their music-based revenue? For one, if you have several online profiles showcasing your work, you have a greater chance of being discovered by fans, building your base, and making sales as your popularity rises. Some websites offer great networking opportunities and superb features for sharing and distributing your music. Here is a quick run-down of some of the key sites that I see as being very prominent in the current and future climate of music for indie artists.
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is yet another fantastic tool allowing musicians to upload their audio, artwork, lyrics, liner notes and more, but adds some great features, by converting your audio into eight different formats, and giving you the tools to market, distribute and monetise from your tracks. It also provides heaps of analytics Here is a great video from Ethan Diamond of Bandcamp, running through the site’s features.
Reverbnation
Offering everything but the kitchen sink, Reverbnation has become immensely popular with artists of all genres. Live show schedules, music streaming, online promotion and digital distribution, it’s all here, it’s all customisable, and it’s all available in a selection of widgets. Part of the attraction of this site is it being a one-stop-shop to control all your online efforts, and also works as a great base for your offiline activities too, such as booking gigs and selling merchandise. Definitely worth checking out and getting involved.
Tunecore
Tunecore is a distributor of music, allowing you as an independent artist to showcase your music on iTunes, Amazon, emusic, Rhapsody and many more of the big online music stores. You keep 100% of the royalties, along with all the rights to the songs, Tunecore simply charge a one-off worldwide-distribution fee; Singles cost $9.99/year each; Albums cost $46.99 for the first year then $19.98/year thereafter.

Spotify
I’m going to stick my neck out, and say that despite all the negative comments regarding streaming royalties, it is important to have your music available on the Spotify system. Technically not a website (you download the interactive program to your computer), Spotify is leading the way in the UK (over 1 million subscribers and 40k joining everyday) and Europe, and after a year of speculation should be hitting the US very soon. To not be a part of this huge wave and be accessible to music listeners and potential fans could be a huge mistake. Get your music on there, share playlists, and earn some fans, who can then purchase your music elsewhere.

Soundcloud
Along with it’s Dropbox feature, Soundcloud makes it easy to share tracks with other artists and record labels alike, with the added bonus of being able to stream works before downloading if necessary. Timed comments is a very useful feature when sharing works between musicians; rather than working in beats and bars, you can pinpoint the exact part that you wish to change. The fact that you can share customisable versions of the player on your blog/ Myspace page/ Facebook profile and more makes this site a real draw.
Lee Jarvis – All I Need by Lee Jarvis
Mixcloud
With their extremely clean layout and user-friendly interface, Mixcloud is a relatively new but heavy-hitting website in the world of cloudcasts. Cloudcasts are essentially radio shows, mixtapes and podcasts, that live in the ‘cloud’ and therefore are only for streaming, not download. They don’t accept single track uploads (hopefully avoiding a heap of trouble there), and so their market focus has been towards DJ mixes and podcasts. Covering many styles of music, after a short browse you will find big names such as BBC, Mixmag and Diesel Music, along with a very easy way to discover similar new music.
They are expanding at a good pace, and even using UK Music Jobs for their search (Smart move! Check out Mixcloud on UK Music Jobs). We also celebrated when they became “One million streams old”, and again, they offer a great way to share your mixtape on websites and blogs, as shown here…
Your Website!
Finally, don’t forget that it is still very important to have your own place on the web. Online profiles and points of sale are great, but there will always be new things cropping up, and some of the older sites will fall in stature (Myspace, anyone?). Maintaining your own website will not only help hugely in search engines, but also give your fans a central hub to visit no matter where they are from or what the latest social networking fashion is. Incorporating widgets from the above places into your blog and website keeps the workload to a minimum and the exposure to a maximum.
Lee Jarvis.
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