iTunes question

[Telestrastic]

How hard is it to get music on iTunes to sell? What experiences have you guys had?

[PeterTuneCore]

How hard is it to get music on iTunes to sell? What experiences have you guys had?

Well, my company will do it for about $30, and you'll keep all your rights and when your music sells, you get all the money.

Craig started this forum so I could answer questions. I'm not really here to plug my company, but I can't help but respond to a direct question!

Visit us: http://www.tunecore.com

Read the FAQ, read the Terms and Conditions, educate yourself on the realities of digital distribution. And ask questions, we're here to help!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[Telestrastic]

Well, my company will do it for about $30, and you'll keep all your rights and when your music sells, you get all the money.

Craig started this forum so I could answer questions. I'm not really here to plug my company, but I can't help but respond to a direct question!

Visit us: http://www.tunecore.com

Read the FAQ, read the Terms and Conditions, educate yourself on the realities of digital distribution. And ask questions, we're here to help!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

Thanks Peter. One Question.

in the faq it says this "Lossless .WAV or .FLAC files. NOTE: This is the iTunes required format."

but when reading the ripping and uploading tutorial it says use .acc

that confuses me

[pjrake]

we use tunecore for all of our online distributions (itunes, rhapsody, amazon, etc.) and so far have been very satisfied with their service! highly recommend!

-PJ

[buzzsonic]

I've just uploaded my second release to Tunecore and can vouch for the service. Very straight forward and so far so good. Would like to see the range of stores they distribute too expanded though. I do some dance music so it would be nice to be reaching stores like Beatport (http://beatport.com) and TrackitDown. (http://trackitdown.net)

Ade

PS. Forgot to add that it takes about 8 weeks from you uploading your release to the tracks actually appearing on the store.

[PeterTuneCore]

Thanks Peter. One Question.

in the faq it says this "Lossless .WAV or .FLAC files. NOTE: This is the iTunes required format."

but when reading the ripping and uploading tutorial it says use .acc

that confuses me

You know, that DOES sound confusing! I'll amend that. It should be .WAV or .FLAC if it's going to iTunes. Thanks!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[PeterTuneCore]

I've just uploaded my second release to Tunecore and can vouch for the service. Very straight forward and so far so good. Would like to see the range of stores they distribute too expanded though. I do some dance music so it would be nice to be reaching stores like Beatport (http://beatport.com) and TrackitDown. (http://trackitdown.net)

Ade

PS. Forgot to add that it takes about 8 weeks from you uploading your release to the tracks actually appearing on the store.

Thank you! And while we say it takes up to 8 weeks, we actually deliver to iTunes and the other stores in SIX HOURS. But after that, it's out of our control: usually they put it up pretty quick, but they can take weeks, so we have to warn folks it takes a while.

Lately, iTunes has been moving quite quickly. AmazonMP3 even faster!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[Telestrastic]

You know, that DOES sound confusing! I'll amend that. It should be .WAV or .FLAC if it's going to iTunes. Thanks!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

Thank you Peter! I'll definitely be taking advantage of your services when my band and I finish our full length!

[richardmac]

I have a question about this. I am considering TuneCore over CDBaby for my next CD. But if I stop paying TuneCore... will my music then be pulled off of iTunes? Meaning, do I have to pay TuneCore each and every year or my music will disappear from iTunes? And if TuneCore goes out of business, will my music be yanked from iTunes?

[Mosby]

I have a question about this. I am considering TuneCore over CDBaby for my next CD. But if I stop paying TuneCore... will my music then be pulled off of iTunes? Meaning, do I have to pay TuneCore each and every year or my music will disappear from iTunes? And if TuneCore goes out of business, will my music be yanked from iTunes?


I believe the answer is yes.

[DanielQ]

I was wondering this as well. Can I deal directly with itunes to sell my music?

[PeterTuneCore]

I have a question about this. I am considering TuneCore over CDBaby for my next CD. But if I stop paying TuneCore... will my music then be pulled off of iTunes? Meaning, do I have to pay TuneCore each and every year or my music will disappear from iTunes? And if TuneCore goes out of business, will my music be yanked from iTunes?

TuneCore does have a yearly maintenance and storage fee of $19.98 per album, it's true. If you decided after a year your album wasn't pulling in enough to make it worthwhile, you're welcome not to pay it, and we'll take it down with no questions asked. Most albums only need to sell three times to make that money--three times in a whole year! For almost all our customers, that's not a problem, and more than makes up for maintaining all their rights and not losing a percentage on every sale.

Generally, the math works out that it's considerably cheaper to use TuneCore than to go with any service that takes a percentage if you are at all serious about selling your music. It's possible your album isn't meant to sell: some people just have vanity projects they want in iTunes and other stores simply to say it's there. If that's the case, and the $19.98 is an issue, you might want to consider other options. I figure most bands will spend more in a year on guitar picks during practice, which puts it in perspective for me. :)

Hope that helps!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[richardmac]

Well, in a previous thread, I already worked out the math and exactly how many CD's you'd have to sell for TuneCore to be a better deal, and you're right, it's not that many.

But what about after 5 years? 10? Once the CD stops selling, I'm paying 20 bucks a year to keep it up there, but if it's not selling, TuneCore is basically just collecting my 20 bucks. Every year. Forever. Until I decide to stop paying the money, and then my music gets yanked. Granted, 20 bucks is not a lot of money. But what if I've got five CD's up? That's (rounded) a hundred bucks a year for the rest of my life or until TuneCore or iTunes goes out of business.

Perhaps a smart plan might be to use TuneCore for the first 5 years, and then stop paying the annual fee, get it yanked off of iTunes, sign up with CDBaby, pay the fee, and get it put back up there forever. But I have to wonder if that would be possible.

[PeterTuneCore]

Well, in a previous thread, I already worked out the math and exactly how many CD's you'd have to sell for TuneCore to be a better deal, and you're right, it's not that many.

But what about after 5 years? 10? Once the CD stops selling, I'm paying 20 bucks a year to keep it up there, but if it's not selling, TuneCore is basically just collecting my 20 bucks. Every year. Forever. Until I decide to stop paying the money, and then my music gets yanked. Granted, 20 bucks is not a lot of money. But what if I've got five CD's up? That's (rounded) a hundred bucks a year for the rest of my life or until TuneCore or iTunes goes out of business.

Perhaps a smart plan might be to use TuneCore for the first 5 years, and then stop paying the annual fee, get it yanked off of iTunes, sign up with CDBaby, pay the fee, and get it put back up there forever. But I have to wonder if that would be possible.

I'm glad you did the math! It's always good to investigate.

But ultimately, if your music stops selling after 5 years, why keep it in the store? At that point, the only reason it's in there is because you want it in even though it's not selling. That makes it a vanity project, and I figure, $19.98 a year for vanity isn't too much to pay. Or yes, move it over to an aggregator, because the % they take is meaningless because your album hasn't sold.

For all that we're open to everyone, TuneCore was never intended solely as a vanity distributor. We want people to put their music out there, and we want it to be heard and to sell, fairly, and with all your rights and complete profits intact.

Thanks!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[Deeprig9]

If Trent Reznor is wrong, I don't wanna be right-ah!

[Dreabfly]

Well, my company will do it for about $30, and you'll keep all your rights and when your music sells, you get all the money.

Craig started this forum so I could answer questions. I'm not really here to plug my company, but I can't help but respond to a direct question!

Visit us: http://www.tunecore.com

Read the FAQ, read the Terms and Conditions, educate yourself on the realities of digital distribution. And ask questions, we're here to help!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

Hi Peter,

I hate to be an antagonist, but I'm having trouble seeing how Tunecore is better than cdbaby at this point. I mean - the cdbaby distribution list is so much longer.

http://cdbaby.net/dd-partners

It's also included as a part of the $35 setup fee, you never have to pay another fee again to keep your music up at all those sites, and it includes physical CD fullfillment. Yes - of course, they take 9% on the sales, but it seems to me that you get so much more from them.

I wanted to give you the opportunity to respond - most specifically - about the partners list - rather than simply post a crappy - "well I think cdbaby is so much better" response.

The Tunecore site does look very professional and of course, the keeping 100% of royalties is great! It's just that I'm looking at the math this way:

Tunecore: We have 2 albums online. I pay you $20 for each each year. Let's say I make $30 on distribution each year for 5 years. That means each year I lose $10 = -$10 x 5 years = -$50.

CDbaby: We have 2 albums online. Same scenario. I pay CD baby a one-time $35 to set up each album online. Year One = -$70 minus $27.30 ($30 less 9%) = -42.70. Year Two = -15.40 (-42.70 plus 27.30). Year Three = +$11.90 (-15.40 plus 27.30). Year Four = +$66.50 (11.90 + 27.30). Year Five = +$93.80 (66.50 +27.30).

Under this scenario, with Tunecore, I'm out $50, but with CDbaby I've made almost $100. In addition, they are doing all my cd fullfillment for me and I'm getting paid for that, too.

Your yearly fee to keep distribution available seems to be a dealbreaker for me. :confused:

[PeterTuneCore]

Hi Peter,

I hate to be an antagonist, but I'm having trouble seeing how Tunecore is better than cdbaby at this point. I mean - the cdbaby distribution list is so much longer...It's also included as a part of the $35 setup fee, you never have to pay another fee again to keep your music up at all those sites, and it includes physical CD fullfillment. Yes - of course, they take 9% on the sales, but it seems to me that you get so much more from them.

Well, Dreabfly, we're both firm believers in math, so that gives us common ground. And your math is just fine. The problem comes with some basic assumptions.

Yes, CD Baby's list of stores is longer. TuneCore made a decision to be very, very restrictive about which stores to offer our customers, based on how stable they are (even big stores go out of business all the time, we want ones with staying power), good deals (some stores practically give away the music, or charge very oddly), openness of reporting (do they clearly show sales?), timeliness of reporting (do they pay on time and regularly?) and perhaps most importantly, is the store worth it for our customers? That is, will they make even someone without a huge budget any money at all?

We've got all the "big guns" possible at the moment which fit the bill, and are in pretty deep talks to get more--they're knocking down our doors trying to get access to all the music we distribute. BUT YOU'RE QUITE RIGHT, it's a larger list, so I often recommend if those stores are important to you (perhaps yours is a niche music market?), use CD Baby to get into them: since the sales totals from these stores tends to be so low, losing 9% may be less of a problem than not having the exposure. A number of folks take this route.

I wanted to give you the opportunity to respond - most specifically - about the partners list - rather than simply post a crappy - "well I think cdbaby is so much better" response.

And I appreciate that enough to give you a full response!

The Tunecore site does look very professional and of course, the keeping 100% of royalties is great! It's just that I'm looking at the math this way:

Tunecore: We have 2 albums online. I pay you $20 for each each year. Let's say I make $30 on distribution each year for 5 years. That means each year I lose $10 = -$10 x 5 years = -$50.

I'll stop you there. If Premise #1 is that all stores are equal, so more must be a better deal, than Premise #2 is that you'll only sell a tiny of your music. $150 in digital distribution for two albums over FIVE YEARS? Heck, if only your friends and family buy them, you'll make more than that.

TuneCore was never conceived as a vanity project: we're for folks who want to sell, who plan to push, tour, work very hard to get their music into the hands of fans in a fair way, and who want access to the big stores because they consider their output good enough for any league. Those who work hard do, indeed, sell, and it becomes a question of hundreds and thousands of dollars--at that point, losing 9% is catastrophic.

But let me stick with your example for a moment:

CDbaby: We have 2 albums online. Same scenario. I pay CD baby a one-time $35 to set up each album online. Year One = -$70 minus $27.30 ($30 less 9%) = -42.70. Year Two = -15.40 (-42.70 plus 27.30). Year Three = +$11.90 (-15.40 plus 27.30). Year Four = +$66.50 (11.90 + 27.30). Year Five = +$93.80 (66.50 +27.30).

Under this scenario, with Tunecore, I'm out $50, but with CDbaby I've made almost $100. In addition, they are doing all my cd fullfillment for me and I'm getting paid for that, too.

Did you factor into your math the fact you had to produce 4 copies of your disk and mail them in to CD Baby's distribution center? TuneCore lets you upload everything for free. Do you have your own UPC? Those cost an additional $20 at CD Baby, but TuneCore gives them free to all customers. How about ISRC codes? Again, free from TuneCore. Oddly, if you have your own ISRC and UPC and barcodes and don't mind shipping your CDs around, you're probably a small label or a dedicated musician trying to make a career out of your art: in which case, you sure plan on grossing more than $150 in TWO YEARS on two whole albums?! So a 9% loss--WITHOUT CAP, with no limit--would be a terrible thing indeed.

Your yearly fee to keep distribution available seems to be a dealbreaker for me. :confused:

But that's the whole thing: our fees are capped. They're set. No hidden expenses, no nothing. If you have an album up that doesn't sell $19.98 worth of gross in 12 months, just don't pay the next year's, we'll take it down, no questions asked, no fee charged. And we certainly don't take a percentage, IN PERPETUITY, forever, WITHOUT CAP.

It always comes down to numbers. If your music is just for fun, if you want to be in iTunes and AmazonMP3 and the other large stores and in as many other stores as possible, just to say you're there, without it mattering the nature of those stores, and with no expectation of selling more than a few songs and a couple of albums, then by all means use CD Baby. What's 9% on no sales? And if you had to spend $35 startup and $20 for a UPC and $10-20 more to pack and ship four copies over (note we're well over $50 here already), go for it! This really is the best fit for many hobbyists, and it's one reason we don't really see CD Baby as competition. CD Baby also does pick/pack/ship fulfillment, and I'm sure they do a great job, no reason not to use them for that--but use TuneCore for your digital distribution because...

...TuneCore customers have access to things no one else can provide, such as being a TuneCore Staff pick, editor's pick or more, inclusion in our newsletter that reaches 4,000,000 musicians and much much more, and we do it without charging anything...I think you'll find the math favors TuneCore. Run your calculations just as above, but assume you sell one full album a week and five individual songs a week for those same two years. You'll like what you see.

Thanks!

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[jrm27]

peter:

You mention TuneCore Staff pick. Hwo does one get thrown into the running for that?

By the way, your answers here have been very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to spell it out.

[PeterTuneCore]

peter:

You mention TuneCore Staff pick. Hwo does one get thrown into the running for that?

By the way, your answers here have been very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to spell it out.

My pleasure, Jrm.

You're a Staff pick if we like it! You're an Editor's pick if our editor likes it. That's it! :)

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[Dreabfly]

Thanks for the indepth reply, Peter. It's very helpful.

Ultimately, I see where both sites help you. I like CDbaby (obviously - I have two records on their site) because I think they offer great programs for indie artists with a physical CD to sell (like their credit card swiper program, which accounted for a large number of cd sales for us). Whether digi-only artists won't benefit from their service is, I guess - up to them. Yes, you have to factor in the barcode and the shipping of CDs if that's the case, but I don't know too many artists really serious about their career who don't have a cd already.

Tunecore seems like a viable option for extra exposure and I appreciate all your thoughtful answers. I plan on checking out the site some more. Thanks for answering my questions. :)

[strathound]

1.) TuneCore was never conceived as a vanity project: we're for folks who want to sell, who plan to push, tour, work very hard to get their music into the hands of fans in a fair way, and who want access to the big stores because they consider their output good enough for any league. Those who work hard do, indeed, sell, and it becomes a question of hundreds and thousands of dollars--at that point, losing 9% is catastrophic.

[snip]

2.) It always comes down to numbers. If your music is just for fun, if you want to be in iTunes and AmazonMP3 and the other large stores and in as many other stores as possible, just to say you're there, without it mattering the nature of those stores, and with no expectation of selling more than a few songs and a couple of albums, then by all means use CD Baby. What's 9% on no sales?

It seems to me that these two statements are in conflict, at least from your business plan perspective. I say this because those bands who "want to sell, who plan to push, tour, work very hard to get their music into the hands of fans" are typically bands trying to make it. And those bands are on the road. Thus they need physical distribution. They need disks to sell at their shows.

Now, digital distribution, that's the playground for this new generation of DIY hobbyist musicians. They are the ones that desperately want to see their music on iTunes (for vanity reasons).

How hard would it be to offer these musicians the 9% deal from Tunecore as an option? I would bet there are a LOT of musicians out there willing to sign up for your service OVER CD Baby simply because they wouldn't be required to produce a CD.

Back in 1999, I signed up with Garageband.com. I spent many years as a member there and eventually became one of the moderators on their BBS. They had TENS OF THOUSANDS of bands on their site, all of whom were just looking for their 15 minutes of fame. The psychology hasn't changed much since then. Those bands are still out there trying to figure out how to get their music heard. Take all those bands, their small number of sales plus any administrative/setup fees and add it up. Should be some coin.

Is the real issue that 9% of not much is still not much? Volume. You have to think about the volume. That's what makes it fiscally worth your time. I'm trying to make you a rich man. Help me out here.

[Dreabfly]

Now, digital distribution, that's the playground for this new generation of DIY hobbyist musicians. They are the ones that desperately want to see their music on iTunes (for vanity reasons).

LOL! This was my initial reaction, too. But I didn't want to sound like a beeatch. ;)

[PeterTuneCore]

It seems to me that these two statements are in conflict, at least from your business plan perspective. I say this because those bands who "want to sell, who plan to push, tour, work very hard to get their music into the hands of fans" are typically bands trying to make it. And those bands are on the road.

Yep. They're working hard, why should they give up 9%? They should use CD Baby's physical distribution (and pay the $4 per sale, or what have you), but use TuneCore's digital distribution so they keep their earning. :)

Thus they need physical distribution. They need disks to sell at their shows.

Well, they need physical discs to sell at their shows, that's for sure. And TuneCore provides the best CD replication and duplication from glass masters at the best price. It's a vital tool, and artists need it. And again, by all means use the CD Baby physical distribution network, it's good stuff!

Now, digital distribution, that's the playground for this new generation of DIY hobbyist musicians. They are the ones that desperately want to see their music on iTunes (for vanity reasons).

I thought about that, and I think this was true several years ago, or maybe even two years ago. But now iTunes is the #1 vendor of music in the world, anywhere, anyhow. They outsell everyone, even brick-and-mortar giant Walmart. iTunes just can't be considered a "nice to have" anymore, it's a "must have."

How hard would it be to offer these musicians the 9% deal from Tunecore as an option? I would bet there are a LOT of musicians out there willing to sign up for your service OVER CD Baby simply because they wouldn't be required to produce a CD.

You lost me here. Typically, an album costs up-front about $30 to get on iTunes and AmazonMP3 (our most popular stores), and then $19.98 a YEAR thereafter. You're saying there are people who would rather give us 9% if we just absorbed those fees? I guess you're right, in that CD Baby gets folks to do that all the time and they don't absorb their own $35 up-front fees or provide fee bar codes! I guess people want to do that.

But it's against our philosophy. We're not here to make money off of your success. You should work for yourself, not a middle-man. We provide a service, a valuable one, but that means we should be paid for our efforts, a nice, reasonable fee. I think ours are so low it's within the reach of any kid with an allowance, which is just how we envisioned TuneCore in the first place. We're not here to piggyback off your success, or play some game where one big seller subsidizes all those folks who put up their albums and never earn with their 9% cut to us the cost of our overhead. That makes the successful pay for the vanities. I cry unfair.

Back in 1999, I signed up with Garageband.com. I spent many years as a member there and eventually became one of the moderators on their BBS. They had TENS OF THOUSANDS of bands on their site, all of whom were just looking for their 15 minutes of fame. The psychology hasn't changed much since then. Those bands are still out there trying to figure out how to get their music heard. Take all those bands, their small number of sales plus any administrative/setup fees and add it up. Should be some coin.

It's lovely, and we're happy to take their fees, as we provide them the service. When Keith Richards used us, it cost him about $30. Same with NIN. FedEx doesn't charge Madonna extra to send a package, neither do we. :) So anyone can use us. Then, if they don't sell, they've had their fun. If they do sell well, they keep it all. But I can't believe our $19.98 a year, which is optional after all, is a hurdle! I mean, if it IS a vanity project, then TuneCore still is far cheaper: nothing to mail in, free bar codes, and only about $30 average to start up. That's $25 less than CD Baby. The only difference is that we're another $19.98 for a subsequent year. If you haven't sold a few albums to cover that, hey, don't pay: we'll take it down, you've had a laugh and saved money.

Is the real issue that 9% of not much is still not much? Volume. You have to think about the volume. That's what makes it fiscally worth your time. I'm trying to make you a rich man. Help me out here.

FedEx, to continue the analogy, is a multi-billion dollar company with fleets of cars, trucks and jet planes. They did it on $19.98 or so a package, one by one, fairly. That's our philosophy, and so far, it seems to be working. We had our first $1,000,000+ month last month. People like having control over their rights, they like having 100% of their earnings, even if they only sell five songs ever.

I have to admit, this baffles me. People don't mind spending oodles of cash on instruments, on the latest guitar pedal, the "you gotta have it" cable. They happily pay $120 an hour for studio time, they cheerfully drop thousands of dollars on palettes of CDs they hope to sell, all these open-ended costs, storage, they tour. ALL THIS EXPENSE, and yet $30 the first year and $19.98 thereafter for unlimited, worldwide digital distribution is where they draw the line? And the pennies are counted here, vs. a big unknown of a no-limit, no-cap percentage off? I simply don't fathom it.

But CD Baby and other aggregators are up-front about their business models, and they say, "Work for us to the tune of 9%, we'll soak up any recurring yearly charges," and that deal appeals to some? Okay. It's a fair market. I just don't know why anyone would want that, now that TuneCore is here to offer so much more, at so little, and without strings.

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[Dreabfly]

But CD Baby and other aggregators are up-front about their business models, and they say, "Work for us to the tune of 9%, we'll soak up any recurring yearly charges," and that deal appeals to some? Okay. It's a fair market. I just don't know why anyone would want that, now that TuneCore is here to offer so much more, at so little, and without strings.

Well - to be fair, Peter - you're talking to some people out there who've been doing this for quite some time. We've seen every site you can imagine open with a bang claiming to be the next god-given answer to musicians trying to sell their music. Some of us started with IUMA. We moved onto mp3.com. From there we skipped through all the others that arrived each year - each with their own new take or new gimmick - each claiming we could sell more through their service. Most going under within a couple years at most and taking our fees with them.

It's great that you've done your first $1 Mil. I think CDbaby is on over $10 Mil in payouts now or something like that. I also think you're making a little much of the barcode thing, since those of us who are really being professional about this, got our barcode for free when we got our cds pressed. (Some of us even remember when they cost $300 and you had to order them yourself).

Part of the reason Derek's model worked is he gave gigging musicians working tools that they OTHERWISE COULDN'T AFFORD to sell their merchandise and CDs - like the credit card swiper for almost nothing and free slots at the NAACA conference. Is paying them $1.00 or two when someone buys my record on their site worth those things. Yes. IMO - it always has been. God knows I couldn't afford the $300/month MC/Visa fee to take credit cards at our shows before cdbaby, and that has translated into money in my pocket.

I understand that you're here to sell your company and what it offers as a service. I just think you have to understand that some of us have been through this time and time again with online music distributors. They come, they go. One of the reasons I liked cdbaby was that their whole gimmick wasn't "We can sell your songs online and you'll make a fortune! A fortune, I tell you!" Derek has always been very forthright about what he can and can't help musicians do.

It appears to me that the people you actually should be marketing to are the vanity acts. They are the only people who are going to care whether they have to pay an extra $20 for a barcode - and I believe that was Strathound's original point.

I'm not trying to bait you into an argument, Peter, so I hope you won't see my response that way. I'm just trying to help you understand why some of us may be more resistant to your company's services than others.Understanding us could really serve your company's future.

I think Strathound's suggestion was why not serve both groups of artists - why not offer no fees and a 9% take as another plan for those who want to leave their music up but not be paying your company for no reason. After all that's what cdbaby is offering them.

It's possible that this model won't serve your company - maybe you've already done the math on that. ;)

[PeterTuneCore]

Dreabfly, I fear only time will help now. We never claimed to be heaven's gift to musicians. We'll keep delivering.

But honestly, I'm not here to shill for TuneCore. I'm here as at Harmony Central's invitation just to talk shop. So many folks keep asking me to compare TC with CDB, it's almost impossible not to be caught in a debate.

CD Baby has clearly done right by you, and you like how they do business, and you're satisfied: AWESOME! I wish every business was like that. I'll do everything I can to make and keep TuneCore that kind of company for as long as I can.

Thanks.

--Peter
peter@tunecore.com

[JeffCore]

I appreciate the offer of giving TuneCore 9% of the money you make when you sell your music but in the event this was a real offer, I would not take it. I do not believe you should be working for TuneCore. I believe when your music sells from your gigs and your hard work you should get paid, not TuneCore.

Its our goal never to make money off your success but to help you succeed. This is your money that you earned from your work and your song writing, gigs and passion. I believe its wrong to take it.

I would much prefer you sell thousands upon thousands of your albums and songs and simply pay us a fee for service - around $35. I do not want a % of your money with no limit. When you do succeed, you should get what you worked so hard for.

Let's take an artist like Kelly that used TuneCore - over 600,000 songs sold. He paid TuneCore a simple fee of $35 or so. If he was paying 9% of those sales as a fee to us he would have paid $37,800. And you know what, we could have gotten away with it. We really could have, but I refuse to do it. Eric Hutchinson sold over 120,000 songs in two weeks, he paid TuneCore around $35, 9% would have been $7,560.

And the list goes on and on.

In regards to the one million figure Peter mentioned, that was from one months sales. In under 18 months TuneCore customers have earned over 8 million dollars, unlike other companies, we take none of it. Every penny passed through.

In regards to barcode and UPCs, its very simple for me, I do not believe you should charge someone something because you can. They are free so we give them away.

We market and promote our customers to iTunes and all the digital stores free of charge (over 280 featured so far), we have our customers music played in over 220 Guitar Center stores free of charge, we advertise our customers albums free of charge in the Guitar Center catalogs, we send out emails each month to over 4 million musicians with suggested playlist of music (editorially selected also free of charge), we list our top sellers for free within the Guitar Center website with links to buy them at iTunes - all free, all without demanding rights or revenues from those sales

I hate the backend model, i simply believe its wrong. You work too hard, give too much to give someone else your rights and money.

Things can always be improved upon, and for now, I believe that a back-end model taking a % of the money you earn is the old school model and is wrong. Its left over from the days of the major record labels, this is exactly how they made their money. If you disagree, I still urge you to give us a try. Take all the money and give as much of it to whomever you like for whatever reason you like, with TuneCore you'll have more to give.

[Deeprig9]

Who the hell is Jeffcore?

[JeffCore]

JeffCore is me, Jeff Price, TuneCore founder

[strathound]

LOL! This was my initial reaction, too. But I didn't want to sound like a beeatch. ;)

Sounding like a beeatch is what I do. :rawk: :rawk:

[strathound]

I appreciate the offer of giving TuneCore 9% of the money you make when you sell your music but in the event this was a real offer, I would not take it. I do not believe you should be working for TuneCore. I believe when your music sells from your gigs and your hard work you should get paid, not TuneCore.

It's your business. I respect your right to run it as you wish. You claim that we "shouldn't be working for TuneCore." That's admirable, but it is misleading at best. If I choose to use your service, I will have to send a payment to TuneCore every year to make sure our music stays out there for our fans on iTunes. Your model ensures that you get paid even if we DON'T get paid. That doesn't sound like it's in my best interest. But it does sound like it's in your best interest. That's the exact reason why so many of us would prefer to pay a one time setup fee and then pay you a cut of our sales. You get paid when we get paid. It's low risk for the artist.

Here's a question. Does iTunes charge YOU an annual fee?

If this really is all about doing the best thing for the artists, as you claim, then speaking as an artist this is what I would suggest. Let people have a CHOICE. As their sales go up, warn them when they should switch payment plans from the percentage model to the flat rate model (in much the same manner my cell phone company does for their rate plans). Let them choose if they want to switch over. Then they would pay LESS when they are just starting out (9%) and then still less when they are selling lots of albums using the annual fee model.

I'm not stupid. I realize that having a predictable income stream is critical for making revenue predictions to your investors. The 9% model is unpredictable and possibly a losing proposition since many of the bands will totally suck and never sell a dime. There is a reason why nobody is doing this. But you have a model that could convert your percentage based customers to annual fee based customers. And in fact, the more you help them sell, the more eager they will be to convert. It's a win-win-win-win situation. You get rich. We get heard. How frackin' hard can this be?

I have music, right now, that I'd like on iTunes. 3 songs. We got halfway through making an album and the band broke up. But I'd love to see those tunes out there for people to listen to for years and years to come. I could do that now if I simply made a 3 song CD and sent 4 copies to CD Baby. I'd rather just upload them to your service, pay you some money (name your frackin' price) and be done with it. I want to give you my money. But you apparently don't want to take it. I don't get it. :freak:

[Dreabfly]

I could do that now if I simply made a 3 song CD and sent 4 copies to CD Baby.

Actually - you only need to burn one copy to send:

http://cdbaby.net/dd-only

Good points, Strathound - we obviously agree.

Thank you, Peter for your response. It's nice to hear humility sometimes from new business owners, so I appreciate your honesty and candor.

[JeffCore]

It's your business. I respect your right to run it as you wish. You claim that we "shouldn't be working for TuneCore." That's admirable, but it is misleading at best. If I choose to use your service, I will have to send a payment to TuneCore every year to make sure our music stays out there for our fans on iTunes. Your model ensures that you get paid even if we DON'T get paid. That doesn't sound like it's in my best interest.

I disagree with you. You do not need to pay us each year, you can simply choose not to. The first year - yes, our fee for our service is about $35. If you believe you are not going to sell any music after the first year then you can simply not pay the $1.66 a month. The choice is yours.

But this raises a larger point - you must feel the same way about CD manufacturing plants, vinyl manufactruing plants, your cell phone carrier, your cable tv provider, your broadband provider, the post office and on and on. That is, you pay them a fee for a service. Some are flat rate some are re-occurring. The fee you pay them is not based on how much music you sell with no limit to what you pay them, its a flat rate.

We are a fee for a service. And this is the way it should be. When you gig, beg, borrow, plead, pray, sleep on floors, max out credit cards, MySpace your fingers off etc and cause your music to sell why in the world should you pay me from that sale?

TuneCore provides an automated accounting system, stores all your music, keeps track of everything and allows you to use the system as you see fit. We provide a complete infrastructure for you to be your own label. We do not make money if your music sells, we are a simple fee for a service. You know up front exactly how much you are going to pay us each year - $1.66 a month.

But it does sound like it's in your best interest. That's the exact reason why so many of us would prefer to pay a one time setup fee and then pay you a cut of our sales. You get paid when we get paid. It's low risk for the artist.

Sounds good to me. If you believe you are NOT going to sell any music and $1.66 a month is too much "risk" then I agree, TuneCore is not for you. You are gambling that you are going to fail. If you fail, and sell nothing, you win as you did not lay out the $1.66 a month (well actually you did, you paid out $35 plus $20 for a bar code if you needed one, plus the cost of the shipping/envelope plus the cost of the CD around $50+ dollars.) So you gambled that if you pay $50+ dollars up front and than another 9% of any earnings you make it will be less than $1.66 a month. That sounds like a really bad gamble to me, do you really believe you will sell nothing?



Here's a question. Does iTunes charge YOU an annual fee?

No, but our server company does for storing music, graphics and accounting information so you can click to add more stores, withdraw money, run reports, change artwork, add/remove songs, delete albums from stores etc. And as the customer base grow it costs us more money to run the accounting reports and provide you even more services.

We are here as an infrastructure to support and help you do what you want, to help you succeed not to make money off your success.

If this really is all about doing the best thing for the artists, as you claim, then speaking as an artist this is what I would suggest. Let people have a CHOICE. As their sales go up, warn them when they should switch payment plans from the percentage model to the flat rate model (in much the same manner my cell phone company does for their rate plans). Let them choose if they want to switch over. Then they would pay LESS when they are just starting out (9%) and then still less when they are selling lots of albums using the annual fee model.

No, i refuse to take money from the sale of your music. The back-end model is wrong and its why I chose to start TuneCore. These same back-end companies attempted to get my label spinART Records to do a deal with them, and when the music sold, they wanted a %. Why should we have given it to them? All they did was deliver a digital file to a sever. We and the bands were the ones that worked our fingers to the bone, spent the money, took the risk, believed in ourselves and made it happen.

I refuse to bet the we would fail to the point that $1.66 a month was more money spent then we would make on selling the music.


I'm not stupid. I realize that having a predictable income stream is critical for making revenue predictions to your investors.

Knowing how much YOU are going to pay out per year is not a good idea? Do you really do not want to know how much money you are going to give to someone else? You want to just think:

"well, I have no idea what I am going to spend this year, but it could be hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of dollars"

as opposed to:

"this year to warehouse my music, have access to all my accounting data, have someone do my accounting for me, be able to add new stores for $0.99, have access to free marketing and promotion and all the other services will be $1.66 a month".

I don't know your music but I have to really doubt you are going to fail. Anyone that takes this much time to post at HC must be driven. So why are you gambling that you will.

The 9% model is unpredictable and possibly a losing proposition since many of the bands will totally suck and never sell a dime. There is a reason why nobody is doing this. But you have a model that could convert your percentage based customers to annual fee based customers. And in fact, the more you help them sell, the more eager they will be to convert. It's a win-win-win-win situation. You get rich. We get heard. How frackin' hard can this be?

Well that's just plain rude. I would guess the majority of the bands working with any of these companies do not thing they "suck" and they believe in themselves and their music. And things like MySpace, YouTube, MP3 blogs and LastFM give them ways to reach millions of people. You can say they "suck", but I think they would disagree with you. Who am I to judge what has value, or you for that matter. Let the world decide, the music industry has been democratized and everyone can now have a fair and equal shot. And frankly I believe providing someone the ability to be their own record label for a simple flat rate is a good deal. You don't, so don't do it. Sell a lot of music and give thousands up thousands of dollars to someone else. But to suggest we are up to something by allowing all musicians a simple flat rate that does not exploit them, does not make money off their success but provides them the tools and means to succeed is way off base.

I have music, right now, that I'd like on iTunes. 3 songs. We got halfway through making an album and the band broke up. But I'd love to see those tunes out there for people to listen to for years and years to come. I could do that now if I simply made a 3 song CD and sent 4 copies to CD Baby. I'd rather just upload them to your service, pay you some money (name your frackin' price) and be done with it. I want to give you my money. But you apparently don't want to take it. I don't get it.

Our price is simple - 3 songs to iTunes US is $23.94. There you go, keep everything else, we don't want it.

[pjrake]

No, but our server company does for storing music, graphics and accounting information so you can click to add more stores, withdraw money, run reports, change artwork, add/remove songs, delete albums from stores etc.

we were charged an extra $20 to change the artwork recently, in addition to our annual fee.

-PJ

[Dreabfly]

we were charged an extra $20 to change the artwork recently, in addition to our annual fee.

-PJ

Jeff's earlier post: "In regards to barcode and UPCs, its very simple for me, I do not believe you should charge someone something because you can. They are free so we give them away."

There seems to be some contradiction here.

[Deeprig9]

Jeff's earlier post: "In regards to barcode and UPCs, its very simple for me, I do not believe you should charge someone something because you can. They are free so we give them away."

There seems to be some contradiction here.

There's no contradiction at all. A UPC code is generated freely, therefore it's given away freely.

Changing artwork is not free. They have to have one of their techs who is paid by the hour go and dig up your file on Itunes, pull it, take the old art off, put the new art on, and resub it to Itunes. And that's just Itunes. That tech has to repeat the same process for all your vendors. $20 sounds reasonable to me, especially since they don't charge you for adding artwork to your original music uploads in the first place.


For what it's worth to any readers here, I've researched the hell out of tunecore and CDbaby and Tunecore wins on most points. But everyone's situation is different, so do your own research on the sites, if you are using HC alone to make this decision, then you are an idiot.

[pjrake]

There's no contradiction at all. A UPC code is generated freely, therefore it's given away freely.

Changing artwork is not free. They have to have one of their techs who is paid by the hour go and dig up your file on Itunes, pull it, take the old art off, put the new art on, and resub it to Itunes. And that's just Itunes. That tech has to repeat the same process for all your vendors. $20 sounds reasonable to me.

i do want to mention that i've been very happy with tunecore and have not had any problems with them. i even think their model is suitable for an indie musician like myself.

i just wanted to point out that there was an extra charge for the artwork (the previous post would suggest otherwise). that's all.

-PJ

[rlindsey0]

I guess there are good reasons why both TuneCore and CDBaby exist. Different things appeal to different people.

But speaking purely from the standpoint of my personal opinion, which is no better or worse than anyone else's, I cannot for the life of me understand why $1.66 a month for a maintenance service plus a 0% percent cut of sales is such a big deal. If I'd ever been offered a deal half as good as this by a label when my band had an indie deal, I'd have thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

How many songs would I have to sell to make back that $1.66/mo? Maybe 3 albums, or 30 songs, over an entire year? If I'm really worried that I can't do that, why would I even bother to put my songs up? What would be the point? Why don't I just give them away? (And I'm not saying that would necessarily be a bad or good thing, so please don't take it that way.) If I don't think I can sell even so few downloads, I'm essentially declaring it a vanity project, and $1.66/mo is VERY little to pay for a vanity project, especially considering how much effort and time and probably money went into recording it in the first place. How much did I spend on gear? on CDs? Rehearsal space? How many hours practicing and recording? Another way of looking at it is to say that if I really can't sell anything at all online, $1.66/mo is a pretty cheap way of finding that out, and I always have the option of discontinuing the service.

I apologize if I'm coming off like I'm telling people what to do. That's not my intent at all. But I'm having a hard time understanding the reasoning of the negative reactions here, truly--why anyone who would essentially gamble all the time, money, and trouble it takes to make a good recording would draw the line at spending a meager $1.66/mo to make sure the product of their efforts stays available for purchase. I mean, it's a service that costs <$20/year. How many other services do you employ that cost that little? Certainly not cable TV, Internet, cell phone, landlines, or anything else I can think of. It costs more than that to send 5 CDs Priority Mail, or to buy 4 pints of Sierra Nevada, or to buy 2 umbrella drinks for your favorite significant other.

There are plenty of good reasons IMO to go with CDBaby. One of them is the one-stop shopping aspect: you send a CD, pay the fees, and they do everything else. That's cool, and it's a why a buddy of mine is going with them. But the idea that TuneCore's charging $1.66/mo is some kind of hardship that constitutes a significant disadvantage to the musician just doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

[Deeprig9]

I guess there are good reasons why both TuneCore and CDBaby exist. Different things appeal to different people.

But speaking purely from the standpoint of my personal opinion, which is no better or worse than anyone else's, I cannot for the life of me understand why $1.66 a month for a maintenance service plus a 0% percent cut of sales is such a big deal. If I'd ever been offered a deal half as good as this by a label when my band had an indie deal, I'd have thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

How many songs would I have to sell to make back that $1.66/mo? Maybe 3 albums, or 30 songs, over an entire year? If I'm really worried that I can't do that, why would I even bother to put my songs up? What would be the point? Why don't I just give them away? (And I'm not saying that would necessarily be a bad or good thing, so please don't take it that way.) If I don't think I can sell even so few downloads, I'm essentially declaring it a vanity project, and $1.66/mo is VERY little to pay for a vanity project, especially considering how much effort and time and probably money went into recording it in the first place. How much did I spend on gear? on CDs? Rehearsal space? How many hours practicing and recording? Another way of looking at it is to say that if I really can't sell anything at all online, $1.66/mo is a pretty cheap way of finding that out, and I always have the option of discontinuing the service.

I apologize if I'm coming off like I'm telling people what to do. That's not my intent at all. But I'm having a hard time understanding the reasoning of the negative reactions here, truly--why anyone who would essentially gamble all the time, money, and trouble it takes to make a good recording would draw the line at spending a meager $1.66/mo to make sure the product of their efforts stays available for purchase. I mean, it's a service that costs <$20/year. How many other services do you employ that cost that little? Certainly not cable TV, Internet, cell phone, landlines, or anything else I can think of. It costs more than that to send 5 CDs Priority Mail, or to buy 4 pints of Sierra Nevada, or to buy 2 umbrella drinks for your favorite significant other.

There are plenty of good reasons IMO to go with CDBaby. One of them is the one-stop shopping aspect: you send a CD, pay the fees, and they do everything else. That's cool, and it's a why a buddy of mine is going with them. But the idea that TuneCore's charging $1.66/mo is some kind of hardship that constitutes a significant disadvantage to the musician just doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

You are absolutely right. There are people that expect something for nothing. If you want free distribution online, go to indistr.com and have yourself a grand old time (minus the commission). If you want big-box online sales, you are going to have to compensate someone for getting you there. Tunecore is fee based, CDbaby is commission based. It's that simple. If you want something you pay for it, one way or another. Pick your prick, and bend over, unless you want to start up your own company and re-revolutionize the industry. But that's going to cost you a hell of alot more than $1.66 a month. Good luck!

[strathound]

It's your business. I respect your right to run it as you wish. You claim that we "shouldn't be working for TuneCore." That's admirable, but it is misleading at best. If I choose to use your service, I will have to send a payment to TuneCore every year to make sure our music stays out there for our fans on iTunes. Your model ensures that you get paid even if we DON'T get paid. That doesn't sound like it's in my best interest.

I disagree with you. You do not need to pay us each year, you can simply choose not to.

You missed the conditional in my statement above. If I want to keep my music on iTunes, I have to pay you every year. I stand by that statement.


But this raises a larger point - you must feel the same way about CD manufacturing plants, vinyl manufactruing plants, your cell phone carrier, your cable tv provider, your broadband provider, the post office and on and on. That is, you pay them a fee for a service. Some are flat rate some are re-occurring. The fee you pay them is not based on how much music you sell with no limit to what you pay them, its a flat rate. We are a fee for a service.


Yes. I agree. I like the 9% model better, as I said. The cable company is a great example. I would pay MORE if a competitor offered me a service where I could pay simply based on usage. But that's not in their best interest. That's why they don't offer that as an option. But then again, the cable company doesn't have the best reputation for looking out for the best interest of it's customers.


You know up front exactly how much you are going to pay us each year - $1.66 a month.


I hate recurring charges ... with a passion.


Here's a question. Does iTunes charge YOU an annual fee?

No, but our server company does for storing music, graphics and accounting information so you can click to add more stores, withdraw money, run reports, change artwork, add/remove songs, delete albums from stores etc. And as the customer base grow it costs us more money to run the accounting reports and provide you even more services.


That makes sense. Even though the music is hosted on iTunes, I'm sure you retain a copy. And although disk space is cheap, data centers are not. Touche.


No, i refuse to take money from the sale of your music. The back-end model is wrong and its why I chose to start TuneCore. These same back-end companies attempted to get my label spinART Records to do a deal with them, and when the music sold, they wanted a %. Why should we have given it to them? All they did was deliver a digital file to a sever. We and the bands were the ones that worked our fingers to the bone, spent the money, took the risk, believed in ourselves and made it happen.


The difference there is that they didn't give you a choice. I'm offering you 9% + setup fees. You say you won't take it. I guess that means we aren't doing business.


I'm not stupid. I realize that having a predictable income stream is critical for making revenue predictions to your investors.

Knowing how much YOU are going to pay out per year is not a good idea? Do you really do not want to know how much money you are going to give to someone else? You want to just think:

"well, I have no idea what I am going to spend this year, but it could be hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of dollars"

as opposed to:

"this year to warehouse my music, have access to all my accounting data, have someone do my accounting for me, be able to add new stores for $0.99, have access to free marketing and promotion and all the other services will be $1.66 a month".


It's all a matter of perspective. If I go the CD Baby route, I KNOW that I'm never losing money. I pay a one time fee, then it's out there. Forever. Done. Simple. I only "lose money" if I sell too many records and pay them more than I would have paid you. But since I don't currently have that problem, it's a complete non-issue. 9% is a completely fair fee to pay someone to host your music. The fact that you pay very little in the beginning and pay more later on doesn't bother me at all because all the money comes out of sales. It would be one thing if they charged 50% like IndieNetTunes does. But they don't.

The more I think about this the more I'm motivated to burn the stinkin' CD and send it to them. It's a no-brainer at this point. You've made it obvious that you don't want to do this kind of business.


I don't know your music but I have to really doubt you are going to fail. Anyone that takes this much time to post at HC must be driven. So why are you gambling that you will.


I'm not falling for this rhetoric. Sorry.



The 9% model is unpredictable and possibly a losing proposition since many of the bands will totally suck and never sell a dime. There is a reason why nobody is doing this. But you have a model that could convert your percentage based customers to annual fee based customers. And in fact, the more you help them sell, the more eager they will be to convert. It's a win-win-win-win situation. You get rich. We get heard. How frackin' hard can this be?

Well that's just plain rude. I would guess the majority of the bands working with any of these companies do not thing they "suck" and they believe in themselves and their music.


I was trying to suggest that a lot of up and coming bands would jump on your service and initially they wouldn't sell many records. That might have been the more politically correct way to say what I was saying.


And frankly I believe providing someone the ability to be their own record label for a simple flat rate is a good deal. You don't, so don't do it. Sell a lot of music and give thousands up thousands of dollars to someone else. But to suggest we are up to something by allowing all musicians a simple flat rate that does not exploit them, does not make money off their success but provides them the tools and means to succeed is way off base.


I never said you were exploiting anyone. I simply said that it might not be in your best interest to do the 9% deal. But don't tell me it's not in my best interest. I'll be the judge of that.

Good luck with your endeavor. I hope you have a change of heart.

Michael

[rlindsey0]

You missed the conditional in my statement above. If I want to keep my music on iTunes, I have to pay you every year. I stand by that statement.

I'm not telling you or anyone what to do. But consider this--that sentence could be parsed as follows: If I want to continue receiving a service, I have to continue paying for it. Put that way, does it sound so odd?

It's all a matter of perspective. If I go the CD Baby route, I KNOW that I'm never losing money. I pay a one time fee, then it's out there. Forever. Done. Simple.

Well, another perspective is that as soon as you pay CDBaby, you've already lost money. And if you sell fewer than the few downloads you'd need to break even, you'll still be losing money. That is, you're in the hole because of the upfront fee, and you don't get out of the hole until you sell X number of downloads. The same is true of TuneCore, but your money adds up faster because you get 100% instead of 91%. The only difference AFAICS is that with TuneCore, you need to do it again next year. You only have to sell, literally, a handful of albums or a couple dozen downloads per year for TuneCore to be a better deal for you financially. Put another way, for any band/artist who sells more than a pittance of downloads a year, TuneCore would actually make more money if they took the 9%. IOW, it would be in their interest to do so if income were their only interest.

But in the end, either CDBaby or TuneCore is vastly fairer to the artist than probably any record label contract that has ever existed. So in a way, it's all good.

[strathound]

I'm not telling you or anyone what to do. But consider this--that sentence could be parsed as follows: If I want to continue receiving a service, I have to continue paying for it. Put that way, does it sound so odd?

Well, another perspective is that as soon as you pay CDBaby, you've already lost money. And if you sell fewer than the few downloads you'd need to break even, you'll still be losing money. That is, you're in the hole because of the upfront fee, and you don't get out of the hole until you sell X number of downloads. The same is true of TuneCore, but your money adds up faster because you get 100% instead of 91%. The only difference AFAICS is that with TuneCore, you need to do it again next year. You only have to sell, literally, a handful of albums or a couple dozen downloads per year for TuneCore to be a better deal for you financially. Put another way, for any band/artist who sells more than a pittance of downloads a year, TuneCore would actually make more money if they took the 9%. IOW, it would be in their interest to do so if income were their only interest.

But in the end, either CDBaby or TuneCore is vastly fairer to the artist than probably any record label contract that has ever existed. So in a way, it's all good.

Here's my break-even math that compares the fees for CDBaby and Tunecore::

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showpost.php?p=26334604&postcount=39

The short version is that you have to sell AT LEAST 20 or so albums a year until you break even with CD Baby. So if you sell more than 20 CDs a year, TuneCore is for you. If you sell less than 20 CDs a year, CDBaby makes more sense.

That's just thinking short term. Long term, the numbers are worse because CDBaby NEVER takes your tracks down from the distribution sites. Never. So, if I want people to be able to hear my tunes 40 years from now and I'm a TuneCore user, I would have to sell 800 CDs in my lifetime. That doesn't sound like that much given it IS 40 years. But consider this. The average band lasts less then two years. You still have to pay those annual fees after the band is gone or else your music goes bye bye.

I'm not trying to convince people to go one way or another. I was just hoping to convince the TuneCore guys to offer this as an option. I'd be all over that. Once you eliminate the barrier to entry of having to create a CD, the flood gates open up.