Hip Hop Distribution is here to discuss issues relevant for indie musicians. Music distribution has become very easy to attain and earning a living as a musician is possible. The main obstacle for musicians is keeping consistent marketing plans during times of being understaffed or unorganized. Speaking from personal experience, nothing in this music industry comes easy.

As an independent musician and label partner in Fried Roots, distribution was the initial obstacle. Fried Roots has used services for distribution such as Songcast and Tunecore to get our music with different major online retailers, and they work just great. Since iTunes currently is the #1 digital music US retailer, we felt that our music needs to be seen by that large of a domestic and international base.

Once your music is submitted with a distribution service or you set your own store up with options like easybe 1-2-3, you still need to direct traffic to your album. Use social networks like Ourstage, Myspace, or FutureProducers to promote your music in various arenas. From personal experience, I have learned alot from speaking with fellow forum members on sites. Use your FREE resources.

The great part of this is hip hop distribution can be packaged for multiple stores, such as iTunes, Rhapsody, and Napster. The main view point with this is you don’t know what music store all of your fans prefer when it comes to listening to and purchasing your music.

Cover your ground and expand your music to other stores to reach as many people as possible. Sell your music worldwide and give yourself a chance to make it.

Myspace is a great social network to get your music heard in a quick manner, potentially leading to sales. When you sign up for Myspace, you have the option to sign up for a normal profile page or a band page. This is actually a good thing for you from a marketing standpoint.

One of the main drawbacks with only having a Myspace music page is that many people don’t add bands to their friend’s list, denying your friend request. Creating a normal myspace profile page will allow you to not miss anyground.

As a musician or artist, you want to add as many friends as possible to your account. Create your two profile pages, such as one for you as an artist and save the music page for your band This is where you can use your regular profile to add those friends. The point is to add as many fans as possible and this lets your 2 profiles cover that ground for you.

You can still customize your myspace page and add a music player to showcase your work. Here are three sites with ways to customize your page and add a flash player.

1. MyFLashFetish
2. Your Pimp Space
3. Project Playlist

Myspace is key to marketing my music and new releases to my fans. You have the opportunity to add friends and potential customers from all over the world to your friends list and network. Snocap provides you as an artist a great way to market your band and make money at the same time.

Snocap makes your Myspace page into a virtual store front to sell new music. Snocap is essentially a great tool if you don’t have any distribution and even better if you do have distribution. I currently have distribution through Songcast for one project but I can use Snocap to market newer singles, set my own price and put them for sale on my band page. Try different techniques to sell your music and see what works.

This is non exclusive and as their ad states “It’s your music. You own it.” The beauty of this is that your basic Snocap Artist Account is FREE and so is a Myspace Music page. You have a virtual store to market for free at a click of a button.