Ableton Forum

Damn, Tunecore suddenly charge me 49$ per release to keep them for a year. I got 3 days to decide if I pay or go somewhere else.

Point is Im not selling much but this is not a reason to stop making music and offer it on the stores. Tunecore was cool and I was happy with the 19$ annual fee but I never signed for 49$.

What would you suggest? Stop whining and pay or get a better deal somewhere else? (that would remove my albums from itunes for a big while.)

Im already on Bandcamp and will release a third album in the next days.

thanks!!

i use http://recordunion.com 10$ per release, no annual fee
use this A&R code to sign up and get 2 free album uploads: 480a116f8e

According to the FAQ on Record Union's website, they actually charge a $5 annual fee per album "once the album begins to generate sales," the idea being that no one gets charged if they're not getting anything out of it themselves. They also charge $10 to generate a UPC for each album, though you get two of those for free with M4M's A&R code.

Also from the FAQ: "After the initial $5 that Record Union takes, artists receive 85% from their track sales after the music services have taken their cut."

So, iTunes, Amazon, et. al take about a 30% cut, and if you go with Record Union they're taking another 15% of the 70% that remains, which leaves the artist with a little less than 60% of the retail sale price. (Still way more than the pennies you get for each 99 cent download it you're on a major label.)

Tunecore doesn't take a cut, but they're charging a lot more yearly.

So based on the situation you described (2 albums out, 1 on the way), your options are

~70% of sales - $147 (3x $49) with Tunecore

~59% of sales - $25 ($15 in yearly fees plus $10 for the third UPC) with Record Union.

What you need to know is whether the $122 in additional fees you'll pay to Tunecore is worth losing an additional 11% of revenue (or, if x is total revenue, is .11x greater than or less than 122?).

122/.11 = 1109.09, so if you expect you'll do over $1110 in revenue in the next year (let's say 120 album sales), Tunecore is actually a better deal. If you release a fourth album in the next calendar year, Tunecore charge $161 more than Record Union in fees, which means you'll need to do $1463.63 in revenue (about 150 album sales) to make up the difference.

So, if you sold 20 albums in the last year, and don't expect next year to be dramatically better, you should switch to Record Union. If you sold 200 albums in the last year, or 2000, and don't expect that number to nosedive this year, you're going to make more money by staying with Tunecore, and you should suck it up and give them their $100.

@Ryanmf exactly why i signed with them after analysing the costs and revenues, since i'm pretty far from being a best selling act, but the no down payment and receiving some money without doing squat every 3 months is pretty cool (well, i do make the music, but its a one time deal, some songs i made 3 years ago still get money in my paypal account every 3 months)

to the OP re: removing songs from itunes for a while, when i upload my wav to recordunion, it's on itunes 5 days later in average, not that big of a downtime, especially since removing songs from itunes probably take also 5 or so days of processing

Retracted. I misread what you wrote.

Why even bother with these distributors? Are you really selling on that many stores that you can't upload to each personally?

Other than Bandcamp and perhaps iTunes/Amazon (I don't like these two, but that's me) I don't see why you'd need to sell elsewhere. You can add Indietorrent (since they only take 10% - good for the musician) but that's still just 10 minutes of extra work.

@Justin; you cannot upload to itunes by yourself. You need a label or something like tunecore/cdbaby. Or at least it was like that last time I checked...

@Ryanmf; Thanks for the math! it make plenty of sens!

@Muzik 4 Machines; 5 days? your kidding? it took 6 weeks to be up on itunes with Tunecore...

Anyone else vouch for record union? I see its all cool for albums, what about singles?

just_in wrote:Why even bother with these distributors? Are you really selling on that many stores that you can't upload to each personally?

Other than Bandcamp and perhaps iTunes/Amazon (I don't like these two, but that's me) I don't see why you'd need to sell elsewhere. You can add Indietorrent (since they only take 10% - good for the musician) but that's still just 10 minutes of extra work.

As a Bandcamp user maybe I'm biased. I just don't see the point in selling your music on iTuens/Amazon unless you have serious marketing prowess behind your releases. I genuinely feel that for most amateur/semi-pro producers/musicians hocking their wares http://www.bandcamp.com is sufficient.
http://bandcamp.com/pricing

CDBaby seems a good alternative (CD included).

Ditto Music

http://www.dittomusic.com

and how they compare to Tunecore.

deanthomastunes wrote:Ditto Music

http://www.dittomusic.com

and how they compare to Tunecore.

Thanks for bringing this up, looks like a nice service. (I also agree with citizenchris that for the vast majority of people reading this, Bandcamp is a totally acceptable solution which allows you to earn more per sale than any of the alternatives.)

Anybody have any experience with Awal?

They take no fee, but 15% of sales.

http://awal.com/

interceptor wrote:Anybody have any experience with Awal?

They take no fee, but 15% of sales.

http://awal.com/

15% + VAT. They pay out quarterly, and they pay nothing until your balance reaches 20 quid. Given the volatility of the US dollar in recent memory and prospects for the future, if you're American your music could very well be worth less when they pay than when the customer bought it (not to mention the fact that it's ridiculous for a non-EU citizen to be subject to VAT). Awal also doesn't let you select which services your music is going to be submitted to, it's all or nothing (I wouldn't want my music on Spotify, for instance, so personally I wouldn't be interested).

Nevertheless, if anyone has any experiences with Awal I too would like to hear about them.

Bandcamp is cool and all but I only get sales on it when I do heavy PR operations... When I get silent, no more sales. However I keep receiving sales from Itunes and amazon. And now bandcamp take 15% of my profits unlike before. I love the front page though!!

Problem is, Im a motion designer first. No time to do any PR, internet promotion, blablablabla. Im really not proactive in that front. Too busy with my clients.