Has anyone here made any money with iTunes?

[happyrat1]

My question is a simple one. Has anyone here released any tunes on itunes and if so what were your experiences like?

I'm asking because personally I wouldn't mind making a few extra bucks and I'm looking into the possibility of remastering some of my personal catalogue from the past 15 years and releasing them thru an aggregator to itunes, spotify, amazon, etc.

If anyone has experience with the major music aggregators out there I'd appreciate hearing how well you made out with them and whether or not you'd do it again if you were starting over?

From what I've seen on the web, an aggregator seems to be the way to go since dealing with itunes directly seems to require keeping a legal firm on retainer.

Then again, not all aggregators are created equally. I almost signed up with tunecore the other night but after reading halfway thru the TOS contract I started running for the hills

Right now I'm looking at reverbnation and a few others trying to hack my way thru all the legal caveats and exclusions to see which one offers the best return with the least risk.

I guess what I'm really asking is, does anyone actually see any money from these services or are they simply a scam designed to separate delusional musicians from their money

All comments are welcome

Gary

 

[Becky]

A friend of a friend has released music via iTunes and I think they're on things like Deezer too. From what I've heard they are doing well, but I don't know too much about how they found the process. Incidentally, the band name is GoGo Penguin.

You'll have to let us know how you get on if you decide to go ahead with it!

 

[happyrat1]

Thanks for the input Becky. It sounds encouraging. If at all possible could you ask your friend if they went thru an aggregator or if they already had a label before they signed up or whether or not they used brute force and released to iTunes directly?

Ultimately it would be nice if all my sonic toys at least paid for themselves

Gary

 

[happyrat1]

I posted the same question over on casiomusicforums.com and someone asked me how one would go about it.

I replied with what I'd learned so far.

Here's my post.

quote---------------------------------------------------------------

From what I've learned so far there's three ways you can do it.

1) Open an iTunes account yourself. Then you have to submit UPC codes and some other sort of registration info yourself. After all that you agree to their terms of service and upload and promote yourself for additional fee.

2) Go thru an existing record label you have an established relationship with and let them do the middleman work for a fee and a percentage.

3) From what I can see, the simplest and easiest way to do it as a small entity is to go thru an aggregator service like tunecore or cdbaby or reverbnation. When you sign up with them and click on accept you are entering a contract whereby they will handle the relationship with iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and all the rest for you, supply the UPC and registration codes and uploads for you, usually for a small upfront fee, as well as sometimes a percentage of royalties plus an annual maintenance fee to keep your title listed.

Each has a slightly different listing of services they will upload to. Likewise each has differing levels of promotional support from slim to none depending on fees paid.

Then they will set up a US account for you to draw from as royalties are deposited.

Pretty much all of them allow you to keep full ownership of your rights (AND YOUR LIABILITIES) and they are acting as agents on your behalf.

Before you sign up with any of them though, do your homework. Read the TOS contract carefully as there are all sorts of hidden boilerplate landmines about things like IP disputes which could end up with your account being frozen and you losing all your royalties. That was the paragraph that sent me running away from Tunecore before I clicked "Accept."

I could see all sorts of troubles with any sampled bits in there. Even a harmless bit of clipart copied from the web could be grounds for a dispute.

Here's a good blogpost outlining the 6 or 7 major aggregators out there and some simple differences between them.

http://musformation....tunesamazonetc/

I think for an individual or an unlabeled band option 3 is the only real way to go.

However, keep in mind that once you submit an album or a song it has to be production perfect in every detail down to the artwork because any attempt at modification after the fact results in having to submit it again from scratch.

In some ways the internet has made breaking into the music business a hell of a lot simpler and easier, but we can all thank the lawyers out there for sticking us with archaic IP laws that seem to be a necessary evil.

Gary

endquote------------------------------------------------------------

 

[happyrat1]

BTW, if anyone here feels shy about posting their experiences because "it would be helping the competition" it would help to bear in mind that iTunes alone has a catalogue of over 26 Million songs with over 25 Billion Downloads to date and your main competition is the big labels promoting Britney and Miley and Beyonce

Gary

 

[CowboyNQ]

Mate I wish you the best with this venture. No competitive jealousy here, just absolutely zero knowledge!

 

[happyrat1]

Thanks Cowboy

Gary

 

[Becky]

Thanks for the input Becky. It sounds encouraging. If at all possible could you ask your friend if they went thru an aggregator or if they already had a label before they signed up or whether or not they used brute force and released to iTunes directly?

Ultimately it would be nice if all my sonic toys at least paid for themselves

Gary

Seeing my friend tomorrow so I'll ask her then

 

[happyrat1]

A lot of interesting links on what artists are ACTUALLY getting paid on these services.

According to one, an artist has to sell between a thousand and four thousand albums a month to earn the average US Minimum Wage.

The numbers get much worse with streaming services like spotify.

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011...atform-uniform-notion-shares-the-numbers.html

https://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/a-deeper-look-at-how-much-musicians-make-online/

But some artists actually do earn a decent living by self publishing. I suppose it boils down to quality of product as well as an astounding ability to self-promote.

http://www.mcelhearn.com/what-indie-artists-make-from-digital-music-sales-and-streaming/

Then again, if you go thru an aggregator, you'll learn that the biggest mystery is what share do they keep and what share do you get? Check out the infographic at the Guardian Link for a real eye opener. The second you engage a middle man you cut your share by two thirds or more.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/03/how-much-musicians-make-spotify-itunes-youtube

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/201...of-streaming-royalties-back-to-indie-artists/

If it were only downloads it wouldn't be a problem, but the streaming rates for these services are microscopic fractions of a penny per song.

Anyway, I still plan to release an album, if only for sh*ts and giggles and for the experience and to enshrine my one small monument to immortality.

However, any hint of a dream to earn a living from it has rocketed out the door, nevermore to be seen in this lifetime

It's a fun exercise, but if you plan on becoming a DOT COM Billionaire only an utter masochist would choose this route

Gary