With so many music conferences being held, Music Pin has thrown its hat into the arena with their service. Music Pin is a digital marketing company, based out of West London, that provides promotional tools to labels and artists to maximize their exposure through download cards and their online media platform.

The simple fact is they provide a way for you to give out promotional cards with pin codes to redeem your music online. They manufacture it and its the job of the artist or label to sell it. They deliver you the pincodes and host the content on their site.

Here is the video from Derek Sivers that has a great interview with Nayo Abidoye who discusses the service in more detail.

The content essentially links to your websites and social network links. For example, the fan goes to the Music Pin website and redeems their music. The fan receives an html email with the download link and the email also contains a list to your social network profiles, blogs and websites.

I would love to promote my music through this technique. Fans can download my music and at the same time find links to my indie music marketing blog, Twitter account, Myspace page and mailing lists. Put this in comparison with someone purchasing through iTunes only. They click, buy and the transaction is over.

As an artist or label, they give you a campaign report to see who your fans are. Great marketing idea. You can load up from 1 to 20 songs: sure beats carrying Cd’s. The main advantage is you are making a fan go to their computer and potentially bookmark your webpages or follow you on your favorite social networks. Bridge the gap between the distance with fans and artists. Let the fans get to know you.

The price currently is stated at 500 cards for 300 pounds, which is roughly $426, with price breaks for higher quantity orders.

I like the fact you can use it for promos or demos, or sell them to fans, depending on your purpose. I like the versatility also: sell them after your shows or use them when you go out and network with others during your daily encounters. This packaging might get you some extra attention and spark the curiousity to want to hear your music.

Music packaging is what is intriguing to me. By changing the way music is delivered to the fan, we can introduce them to more than just a song, but our brand and mission.

With the recent Myspace Music relaunch, a pivotal question has been posed to indie musicians: what kind of distribution is right for me? As an indie artist and label owner, having your music online is pivotal to any band’s success. You can reach a global audience and increase fanbase size by creating mailing lists and article submissions to multiple directories.

Many musician friends of mine were happy to see Myspace get a shot in the arm so to speak by bringing attention back to their network. They wanted to be part of this distribution launch and signed up for Snocap and asked me if it was a good move.

Snocap allows you to set up a store instantly and sell your music on your profile page. The key thing here is that the service is Free, however, Snocap makes their share of profit. According to Snocap’s FAQ page: “SNOCAP charges a transaction fee of $.39 per download that includes all the costs of providing the SNOCAP MyStore: the bandwidth, storage, audio fingerprint license, PayPal and payment management costs, customer service, etc.” In my eyes it is a pretty steep cut. You are forced to raise your prices on a single or album just to recoup the cost of setup.

Songcast offers 100% royalties and places your music with major online retailers such as iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody and Napster. This is critical for our operation. We used to have our major releases just on our own website and you have to work on getting fans to find your store.

Songcast charges $5.99 a month for unlimited album upload. You will be spending some money here but your fans can feel more secure spending their money on a trusted storefront and it helps add some credibility to your operation. That is the tradeoff I was looking for. We have sold more albums because we were on iTunes than when we were selling off of our own site. Food for thought.

With selling music online their is always going to be some cost, you just have to place yourself in a position that can reap you the most profits with the least cost.

Keep informed on sales statistics and opinions all around you. The key to success with the future of the music industry is understanding the different dimensions that the Music Business Model presents. Mashable presents a great article on the future of music sales. Read more below.

read more | digg story

David Cook from Blue Springs, Missouri was named the 2008 American Idol winner. I am personally not a big fan of the show, but in essence the contest is one big music distribution opportunity. Their is so much focus on the actual winner of the show that some people really don’t realize all the positives of the exposure for all contestants.

As a musician, you should always put yourself in a position so your fans can buy your music. This goes out to all levels of the game, even if you have a small fanbase. American Idol’s numbers were very good. Over 97.5 million votes were tabulated. David Cook beat David Archuleta by over 12 million more votes, but hypothetically, if both artist had some albums on iTunes of earlier work, their personal sales would look very good. Millions of Fox viewers could turn into nice profit.

I feel secure because I have affordable distribution with Songcast for any opportunity that comes up. Your future exposure is good to think about. If you are an artist that is going after auditions for tv shows, gigs or anywhere you might receive more spotlight, make sure you have some distribution for yourself. Establish the foundations for success.

Digital distribution packages now come with different angles and options. Catapult Digital Distribution helps artist and labels get their music on iTunes and other major online retailers. Their distribution outlets include: iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, Emusic, Amazon mp3, Best Buy Digital Music Store, Connect, Puretracks, Audio Lunchbox, Urge, Independent Bands, V Cast.

The cost for setup is only $25. There are no yearly or monthly charges. I was shocked at first to see this pricing because services like Tunecore and Songcast have yearly or monthly costs and basically provide the same service. The difference between services lies in the amount of royalties you want to receive, and what payment structure fits your bands needs.

1. Catapult: 91-95% royalties, $25 setup fee, no monthly or yearly fee
2. Songcast: 100% royalties, $25 setup fee, $5.99/month for unlimited albums
3. Tunecore: 100% royalties, $19.98 setup fee, $19.98/year per album

The plans listed above all have great aspects and are affordable. The question really lies in factoring your specific costs according to your future plans. I currently use Songcast because I like the fact you can get 100% royalties and you can upload unlimited albums, which means alot for our record label.

Catapult gives another easy option to upload your music with major online retailers, explore your choices and see which one you suits your needs best.