Monetizing Your Digital Record Label(part one)

We know selling music online gives us the control over our music. But selling music online is no easy task. Selling music on CD, directly to the consumer (out the trunk) maybe a littler easier to move, that’s if your music is good and if you have good salesmanship skills.

With all the digital music distributors and resellers online, it almost impossible to know where to place your music. Some promise they can place your music on iTunes, and then you have a distributor like Ioda. That can place your music on over 300 plus, online and mobile music and video content providers.

This does not mean your going to sell music. You will be placing it with hundreds, maybe thousands of other musicians and artist doing the same thing. That means more competition.

Ok, my point here is we know times are tight, it cost to produces and promote a record for resale. You have to convince the fan to purchase your music, and its not easy. Please go to www.thedigitalrecordlabel.com and sign up your email, or get the RSS feed to view our blog and upcoming articles about the music business.

If your looking to getting funds to produce a record, or looking to make legitimate money with your web presences. I’ve included a few resources to help monetize your digital record label. I use these for my business, and they work.

Sellaband.com is a music social network that can turns your fans and listeners of bands into their producers, asking them to invest in a band or artist they support so that they will be able to get a recording opportunity. Every single investor that supports a successful band will take home a small cut of the profits made by them. Artists not only get financial support but also share 50% of the ad revenue coming from the free downloads of their music.

YouLicense.com is an online music licensing marketplace”, it is worth a try. They license your music to films, television, commercials, websites etc. and take only 9% commission for the service.

Rumblefish.com licenses your music to film, TV, video games, advertising and marketing campaigns, podcasts, video blogs, background usage etc. Non-exclusive licensing agreement, 1-year term, you retain full ownership to your songs and you get 50% of the net licensing fees.

Make Money from Free Ads
There are hundreds of websites that offer you the opportunity to make money by place ads on your website. But which are the best sites to earn income from. How do they pay? How long does it take to get my money?

If you have these questions in your mind, that cool, it’s expected. I will list a few websites that are legit, and will pay you by check or online.

How would I get paid online?
Well I use paypal.com. Paypal is a free online payment system, like a merchant account, that allows he user to send or receive money online. You can auction and accept donations as well. The thing I like about paypal is you can invoice payments via email. Also a lot of affiliate programs send payments via paypal; the money goes straight into your account.

How do I make money from free Ads?
Well first you will need to overstand a little about HTML codes, its not hard at all, you just have to basically copy and paste codes in you website or blog. But these ads can be place as banners, skyscrapers, block ads, etc. Some pay per click, some pay by impressions, some are videos, etc.
Since we are music related we will stay on the path, but not all ads will be exactly music related.

Fanbridge - If you’re looking for an easy way to keep track of your fans, by email and text, I recommend you use Fanbridge.com. You can sign up for free. What I like about Fanbridge is you can send out text and emails to your contacts from your computer or blackberry. It’s very easy to use, and you can make money as an affiliate. I know. I use Fanbridge for my business.

MusicSubmit - These guys have a number of services for independent musicians. Internet promotions, Radio promotions, tour promotions, etc. You can also make money as an affiliate by placing an ad on your website or in your email.


Bidvertiser - Place a Referral button or a text link on your site and you will start to earn money when a user clicks on your button or link and signs as an advertiser or a publisher. When a user signs as an advertiser and first spends $10, they will credit your account with $5. When that same advertiser spends $50, you will be credited with an additional $20.

To Be Continued

Digital Record Label Tools

I can remember when I first thought about getting into the music biz.I was introduced to the business by a DJ, and at he start, I was the executive producer, temporary manager, A&R, Radio promotions, etc. I even book many show with major hip hop artist. I think then it was less competition.Now recording artist and producers now have the ability to, promote, and sell music online without a major label. You must have to have a BUZZ. This means you have to promote, online and brick and mortar.

Right now it's not about having a flashy website, just good graphics and content. For example, take a look at craigslist.com, it’s not flashy, just a good and effective online classified ad site that works. I lived off of craigslist.com for over a year.

Now we know promoting your music online is crucial, and we know it takes a little time to put together and maintain websites and blogs. So I will give you some online tools to help you maintain your blogs and social network sites.

We know almost everyone in entertainment business has a myspace, facebook, or even a few social networking site and blogs. And updating it can be time consuming. So I have included information and links to a few sites that will help you maintain your sites.

AtomKeep to manage all of your social networking profiles in one place. AtomKeep allows you to link all of your social networking accounts into one account. After that, every time you edit your profile with Atomkeep, all of your social networking accounts automatically get updated with your latest profile information. When joining new social networking sites, you can simply link to AtomKeep and push your profile information across.

Updating.Me is another service that allows you to update your status on multiple sites from one place. Sites like Facebook, FriendFeed, Friendster, Identi.ca, Jaiku, Koornk, Plurk, Pownce, and Twitter.


HelloTxt lets you update your status and read your friends' status across all main microblogging and social networks all at once. You can update your status on the website, or using email or even from your mobile phone. You can also embed photos and video right into your status updates.

Last but not least log on to Ping.Fm the future is NOW!

We will continue to update you about the many resources that are available to help you with your digital record label. Thank you for joining us. Until the next time.

Create Your Own Digital Record Label

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