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.

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.

Selling music online requires a nice amount of tools that can optimize your chances of getting seen and heard. I was working with my business partner, Sundy, and he came across Feedburner which allows you to create a customized feed from your site and lets say, place it on Myspace.

I wanted to direct some of my Myspace traffic to this blog so we can increase our subscribers and inform musicians on new opportunities. I created an account with Feedburner, which was acquired by Google, and from there we realized this tool is going to be a great way to bridge the gap between different social networks and this blog.

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

There is a headline animator function that allows you create your own custom RSS feed. I chose colors to match my Myspace Music page and I was ready to go. This tool allows you to sign in to Feedburner and track visitors, subscribers and live hits on your feed.

The Optimize heading allows you to make your feed more browser friendly. The Publicize heading allows you to offer feed updates via email and you can create a “Chicklet” or feed count to show off your feed circulation. I was a personal fan of PingShot which gives you a list of services you want to ping and they will notify them when you publish new content.

Just different ways that get you more traffic, promote your content, and measure your audience. You have to love all of this is FREE.

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.

The importance of music marketing is to keep up with the different techniques you encounter and implementing them in your operation. Here is an informative video just describing different aspects on how to get your music heard.