What digital distribution service do you use?

[nowtime]

Ready to sell some music online and thought I would be dealing with iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp and the lot myself. But it looks like paid services are the way to go and even required (with Bandcamp and Pandora the exception). After some searching, Tunecore seems the only attractive one so far. Is it the Wild West ? Is there a most popular service?

[Tarekith]

I use CDbaby myself, after trying Tunecore and Reverbnation over the years. It's one of the few services that has wide distribution, decent rates, really well done reporting, and most importantly.... no annual renewal fees for each album. It would cost me over $600 each year to renew all my albums on Tunecore, where as with CD baby I just pay the $49 fee once when I upload the albums.

A lot of it will depend on how many albums you sell too. If you're making enough that keeping 100% of the profits outweighs the yearly renewal fee, then that might change the equation.

[timday]

+1 for avoiding annual fees. I use Zimbalam for much the same reasons. One off fee, decent reporting, if necessary they will take care of ISRC codes and the like for you.
Read the small print though - Zimbalam for example will charge you to take an album off a digital sdvice so if, for example, you've originally specified Spotify then change your mind it will cost you money. I decided this wasn't a problem for me.
It's also worth checking for exclusivity - Zimbalam is non exclusive so I can sell stuff through Bandcamp as well (which most of the services don't deal with). Others have different arrangements - AWAL, for example, do not charge a fee (but you need to show a sales history of previous work to get on it as they make their admin costs back via a cut of the sales) but they ARE exclusive, in other words you can't sell a work digitally by other channels once it's signed to them.

I would imagine most of the services have quirks of one type or another, and there's no short cut through reading the damn contract. A good service will have a contract that is clear and easy to understand, and a decent FAQ page for those of us who aren't lawyers. Never sign anything you don't understand!

[SLEEarts]

CD baby and Bandcamp. Those two work for digital distribution. CD baby also does a certain amount of physical sales, but for that I rely on Amazon Advantage for the majority of physical sales.

[nowtime]

My friend just got back to and he says both CD BABY and Tunecore are both great. Thanks for everyone's feedback.

[Tarekith]

Just one note on CDbaby I forgot to mention. If you go with their $49 package, you'll still need $20 for a bar code if you want to get paid from all outlets properly. So it's more like $69 an album, though still a deal with it being a one time only payment IMO.

[Stromkraft]

I use CDbaby myself, after trying Tunecore and Reverbnation over the years. It's one of the few services that has wide distribution, decent rates, really well done reporting, and most importantly.... no annual renewal fees for each album.

I use Zimbalam for much the same reasons. One off fee, decent reporting, if necessary they will take care of ISRC codes and the like for you.

Thanks Tarekith and timday for sharing these and your experience!

[TomViolenz]

CD baby and Bandcamp. Those two work for digital distribution. CD baby also does a certain amount of physical sales

How does that work? Do they also take of making the CDs/LPs? And how would they deal with low numbers of phyiscal sales, say low double digits for Vinyl LPs?

The smallest run for Vinyl I found (above the white label quality) was 100. That's a lot of sunk dough if you do it yourself and can't move it. If CDbaby somehow spares me that risk, I would be more than interested

[timday]

I use CDbaby myself, after trying Tunecore and Reverbnation over the years. It's one of the few services that has wide distribution, decent rates, really well done reporting, and most importantly.... no annual renewal fees for each album.

I use Zimbalam for much the same reasons. One off fee, decent reporting, if necessary they will take care of ISRC codes and the like for you.

Thanks Tarekith and timday for sharing these and your experience!

Actually skip that. Literally a week or so after this post Zinmbalam announced they are closing up shop. I get a year's free Tunecore as a remnant of your sub after which I have to pay Tunecore

Pretty annoyed at this, I specifically paid a bit more to avoid repeat payments, but if the firm is shutting up shop then I guess the contract is over.

[Schmidi]

Here is a nice breakdown of the major services:

http://aristake.com/?post=92