Music Distribution Sites ???

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Music Distribution Sites ???

Post by DigitalMusicProduction »

Hi

Concerning online music distribution sites I've read upon recently, there's seems to be a lot of advice and recommendation for new artists to release singles as apossed to EPs or albums. There have been a number of quotes as to why, however I'm still not understanding it entirly.

I myself am at the point of choosing a distribution partner to release a 5 track EP, after such advice I'm not sure what option to take, single or EP? Maybe someone here could elaborate on this, and why such advice is being given.
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Re: Music Distribution Sites ???

Post by RichardT »

DigitalMusicProduction wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:19 pm Hi

Concerning online music distribution sites I've read upon recently, there's seems to be a lot of advice and recommendation for new artists to release singles as apossed to EPs or albums. There have been a number of quotes as to why, however I'm still not understanding it entirly.

I myself am at the point of choosing a distribution partner to release a 5 track EP, after such advice I'm not sure what option to take, single or EP? Maybe someone here could elaborate on this, and why such advice is being given.

It’s largely because of playlist pitching and the algorithms of streaming services.

On Spotify, for example, it’s only possible to pitch one track to Spotify’s playlist editors per release. If you release tracks as singles on different dates, you can pitch as many as you like.

In addition, the algorithms on Spotify that put tracks into playlists allegedly reward artists with many regular releases.
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Re: Music Distribution Sites ???

Post by DigitalMusicProduction »

RichardT wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:27 pm
It’s largely because of playlist pitching and the algorithms of streaming services.

On Spotify, for example, it’s only possible to pitch one track to Spotify’s playlist editors per release. If you release tracks as singles on different dates, you can pitch as many as you like.

So what exactly does all that mean? For example if i signup with a DSP and deliver an EP, and they place that on Spotify, yet only one track per editors per release, what then happens to the remaining 4 tracks?
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Re: Music Distribution Sites ???

Post by RichardT »

DigitalMusicProduction wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 12:15 am
RichardT wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:27 pm
It’s largely because of playlist pitching and the algorithms of streaming services.

On Spotify, for example, it’s only possible to pitch one track to Spotify’s playlist editors per release. If you release tracks as singles on different dates, you can pitch as many as you like.

So what exactly does all that mean? For example if i signup with a DSP and deliver an EP, and they place that on Spotify, yet only one track per editors per release, what then happens to the remaining 4 tracks?

They will still be there, and people can listen to them, but you can’t pitch them to get onto editorial playlists. Here’s some background on playlists. If you want to promote your music, getting on playlists (editorial and user) is a good thing to do.

https://artists.spotify.com/playlisting
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Re: Music Distribution Sites ???

Post by worshiptuned »

hi
What many marketing experts suggest is that it is better to release one single at a time and promote it on social media and playlists and other means in order to building your brand as an artist and your audience progressively. If you release a single at a time you cant take advantage and optimize the release date "fever", ask interviews, be featured in blogs, doing a careful promotion for every single. And once you have enough singles you can put them together as an EP or your first album.

The EP is counterproductive because it takes months of work and you risk getting stuck on a project. Continuous months of silence doesn't help cut through the noise of the competition on social media and streaming platforms, and it's advisable to produce something every month or two rather than being silent for months, which gives the impression of a missing person and as Richard states, it's not the best for the algorithms. After the months of work, once the release moment has passed the tension wanes and the EP falls into oblivion. But this is true especially if you are a signed artist and your label doesn't want to continue to invest on your EP promotion. If you are independent there is nothing stopping you from continuing to promote your EP, even decades later. All the tracks of your EP can still be submitted to private and collaborative playlists and be promoted by other means.
Music is not like milk, which expires after a few days.

I understand that your EP is ready, so you can release it and then promote it as a whole or the single tracks of it.
It's true that you can only submit one of the tracks of the EP to Spotify's editorial playlists, but it's also true that if your Spotify profile has no following and you're an emerging artist, the likelihood of Spotify putting your track in one of their editorial playlists is the same as if you jumped and pretended to find yourself on the moon.
So release your EP in peace!!!

If anything, the real advice I would give you is to choose your distributor carefully and read all the clauses.
I am not an expert, I have only 4 songs, released with 3 different distributors, 2 of them have revealed with time some disadvantages and I am already planning to move my tracks to another distributor, which is not easy and very time consuming
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Re: Music Distribution Sites ???

Post by DigitalMusicProduction »

Thank you both for that very helpful information, will endeavour to market that strategy. :-|
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Re: Music Distribution Sites ???

Post by BWC »

worshiptuned wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 12:03 pm I am not an expert, I have only 4 songs, released with 3 different distributors, 2 of them have revealed with time some disadvantages and I am already planning to move my tracks to another distributor, which is not easy and very time consuming

Care to share your findings so far? Which distributors? What advantages / disadvantages have you found?
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Re: Music Distribution Sites ???

Post by worshiptuned »

BWC wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 10:23 pm Care to share your findings so far? Which distributors? What advantages / disadvantages have you found?

Sure! So far I am using iMusician, Distrokid and ONErpm
imusician has a fixed price with several options. The prices are fair and the customer service is fast.
Once you pay to publish a song there are no more costs in subsequent years.
Unfortunately, they got the name of the audio file wrong on the YouTube self-generated video - it's not clear whether the mistake was made by them or YouTube, but they are my intermediary and should correct it. And the self-generated YouTube video was not included in my artist channel, but remains in the boundless sea of the web. Distrokid, on the other hand, has correctly added the videos published with them to my YouTube channel.
I wrote to imusician and they replied that they did everything they could but YouTube doesn't want to correct it and YouTube want me to write directly to them. Too bad that only those with 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of views can access YouTube's customer service...so apparently there's no way to correct this or reach YouTube with an email, if you are not in their "partner" program.

Distrokid worked fine, it has a fee of about $20 a year and you can release as much music as you want. But the YouTube content id of each song involves a payment of about 4.7 dollars that has to be renewed every year... If you have 7 songs it means that you have some 30 dollars that ever year you have to add to the subscription, which in the end is not convenient for me because of the few streams I have

So I was looking for a free service that would take a percentage of the royalties, and I settled on OneRpm. OneRpm also failed to post the autogenerated YouTube video on my artist channel. Otherwise it worked fine though.
The problems here are in their contract, and after signing it - without reading it carefully enough - I discovered that there are clauses in it that are certainly legal, but very difficult for me to digest. Unfortunately I cannot reveal the details of the contract because there is a Confidentiality clause. It is precisely because of this type of clause that certain data are hidden in the comparative tables of distributors found on the web.
In other words, beware of hidden fees and hidden clauses and read the contracts well.

I 'll probably continue with imusician which has an option of 5 Euros fee per release and take 15% commissions and the YouTube content id costs 1 Euro, a one time payment.
Or now I've seen there's a new service called Artist Republic, I think I'll look into that, it looks promising. Does anyone have any other advice? Cdbaby and Tunecore are too expensive for me.

Wouldn't that be a great topic for a Sound on Sound article? How to choose a good music distributor? Maybe a music marketing column could be developed, even if it is not the main interest of SOS readers
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Re: Music Distribution Sites ???

Post by RichardT »

They all have pluses and minuses. They vary a lot in levels of customer service, which is hard to judge from the comparison tables. If you keep swapping you’re going to end up in a very confused position in relation to royalties. None of them is perfect though, so if they do a pretty good job I’d stick to what you have…
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Re: Music Distribution Sites ???

Post by worshiptuned »

RichardT wrote: Sun Sep 26, 2021 11:08 pm They all have pluses and minuses. They vary a lot in levels of customer service, which is hard to judge from the comparison tables. If you keep swapping you’re going to end up in a very confused position in relation to royalties. None of them is perfect though, so if they do a pretty good job I’d stick to what you have…

Yes my approach wasn't the ideal one. Often we learn from our errors and trials. I definitely plan to choose one and stick with it.
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