This is one of the things that I have always had trouble with, getting my tracks out to the public and at the same time starting to receive some sort of income from any sales I make. I managed just that recently and thought that my story and experience so far should be shared with other musicians who want to do the same without the need for a record label…

As you may of seen I recently released my first ever EP called The Rhythm Creator EP. I had actually made this 3 track EP with the intention of it being a demo to send off to a few record labels. I went on the search for a few labels that might be interested in my tracks, only to find that my music doesn’t really fit any of the dance/electronic music labels, as they tend to release from a very narrow genre of music where most of their tracks sound the same on each label (Which I actually think is killing electronic music, but that’s another post).

So I skipped the whole getting signed to a label thing and thought to myself about what a label actually does for a musician today in the age of the internet and realised that the only thing a label does for you today is to promote your music (And it looks like they sometimes do a bad job at that too) and then take a large cut of any royalties. So I decided I’m going do this myself and release my tracks digitally on-line via the now many Mp3 stores such as iTunes.

So I went along to the mp3 stores web sites, went to their FAQs and looked for the question “I am a musician, how do I sell my music in this store”. Only to see the answer at all of these sites to be along the lines of “we only accept bands/musicians who are established/signed to a label” or that “you’ve got to fill out this hefty long form and then wait months” (With the possibility of not being accepted and I’ve even heard of people not even getting a reply just to say they are not accepted)

Surely this has got to be easier and that’s when I came across TuneCore . At first I was a bit sceptical because I have seen companies like this in the past who want to firstly charge you a hefty sign-up fee running into 3 figures, they then want to take commission on your royalties and then they also have the cheek to want to take ownership of your copyrights. But I’m glad to say that TuneCore does none of that and that’s why I’m happy as both a musician to use them for my own work as well as advise you as my blog readers to use them too.

Click here for TuneCore

So with my three Mp3 files and a cover I knocked up in GIMP (A free picture manipulation program), I applied to TuneCore to release my tracks on iTunes, Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody, eMusic, and GroupieTunes on December 3rd. I uploaded my files and cover, paid the sum of $32 (about £16), they said that it would take about 6-8 weeks and so I sat back and waited.

As I post this my EP is still in the processing stage but I decided to write this post as I am pleased to say that all my tracks have appeared on both Amazon and Napster official site after just 5 days (They may have been there before this but I just didn’t look) which is way before the 6-8 weeks, I’m still waiting for the other stores and I can’t wait to see them on there especially on iTunes. The best thing about this though is that I keep any royalties made and TuneCore doesn’t take a thing and I get to keep copyright control. What could be better than that? If you decide to use TuneCore I believe you are making a wise choice, I also believe that this looks like we could be getting towards a good era for musicians where you will see more going it alone without record labels and anyone who decides this is the way to go after reading this, I wish you good luck.

There may be some other companies that offer the same services as TuneCore, but obviously I can’t comment on them because I haven’t used them. I’m going to be using TuneCore again definately. The only thing left to do is to promote my tracks to get some interest, which is probably where I am going to struggle so if anyone has any great ideas on how to do this I would love to hear them and if anyone has had anything to add about TuneCore, I would love to hear it especially any success stories.

Article written by Edward Cufaude for Rhythm Creation.