Independent music is alive and strong. I came across an article from writer Alex Pham from the LA Times that discusses Youtube’s plans to share ad revenue with independent musicians. Youtube is trying to attract more users to the social networking aspect of their site, versus just letting visitors watch a video and run.

YouTube sets its sights on independent musicians

I am all for it. This relationship before was only for artists on big labels or those who had worked out special agreements with the site. Opening up this revenue stream creates an incentive for indie musicians to promote their profiles and try to earn some ad money on the side. Youtube understands the importance of the “DIY music” movement, as seen in the trend pic below.

I can see this as being an ok source of passive income coming in to your music operation. I really want to see how this plays out according to their ad model. How much traffic is needed to generate some modest earnings?

The great thing about this is you are already working on pushing your Youtube presence. No harm, no foul. The experiment begins. I sure hope it can generate more than Adsense daily earnings.

Songcast is a music distribution service that delivers your album to iTunes and other major online retailers. Their service is amazing letting the independent musician compete with major record labels to earn their fare share of royalties.

I currently am an artist signed with Songcast and when I signed up the price was $7.99 a month. I just received news from Artist Support that

“Hi Mario,
We have indeed lowered our fees to $5.99 per month!
Best,
Alex
SongCast“

This is a great deal considering you can upload an unlimited number of albums to your account. $5.99 a month opens the door up for all independent musicians and podcasters across the world. Submit your music and album artwork and connect with online retailers.

How important is placing your music with major online retailers? iTunes is currently the number one U.S music retailer with several stores setup for worldwide distribution which allows your music to find its way across the globe.

Distribution for your record label is getting cheaper by the minute. Sell an album or even a single and earn 100% royalties through Songcast.

The purpose of this article is to see what the independent artist is thinking about in terms of their future in this changing music industry. Independent music is on the rise with digital downloads increasing, but how can we as independents make our mark in history?

This goes out to all the producers, beat makers, songwriters, musicians, and podcasters. What are the strategies or tips you use when thinking about music distribution? Hip Hop Distribution was not created to tell you what you have to do, but to hear from people involved in the music grind and learn from our experiences, creating a resource center.

It is very easy to get your music with a major online retailer. The key to earning a living as a musician is diversifying your options. From a Fried Roots standpoint, we are in the process of selling merchandise and we have distribution through Songcast and Tunecore , but we feel that music from an independents standpoint is getting stronger, so how can we capitalize?

The whole point of this is to solidify the strength of the independent artist who works just as hard as every working man, but doesn’t reap the benefits.

Leave a comment, promote your music, describe your band operation or just click by. Thank you for reading and I hope we can network together and create a new music business model for all starving artists.