CD Baby vs. Tunecore vs. The Orchard etc...

[filmbunny]

I am using Tunecore too for some of my albums and ringtones and I am using Record Union for my other albums which are not selling in big numbers. I was nervous too at begining but than when my royalties started to roll in I realise that this really is not bad decision that I made. They are really profesional, resolve all my ishues and most importand I am getting my money. At the bigining it take about 3 months to start geting money from stores, after this 3 months you are payed at the start (usually 1-5 day in month) every month. I really am happy with them, especially coz for some albums I don't need to pay anual fee to renew (some of them make me 50, 40...100 USD per year so this way I would pay much more with Tunecore than with RU).

[philter1]

Is this a non-profit company that distributes your stuff or what? What's the catch? Is it an introductory offer? Maybe once they get enough people signed up they'll start charging more?

The standard of English on that site is abysmal, I'd be very wary people...............

[filmbunny]

well...I am making cca 3000 USD per month with Record Union, I am getting my royalties every month so I will take this previous reply as inrrelevant.

[Kevin at CD Baby]

This is always an interesting debate. In full disclosure, I do work for CD Baby, but with that being said, I think that our pricing structure works out better for most independent artists. Especially as you consider the long tail of music. Tunecore just raised their annual fee to $50 per album, so at some point, you'll have to decide if it's still worth it to keep selling older albums that don't sell enough to make the $50 fee worth it. If you have an average catalog of about 5 releases, that's $250 a year just to keep your music live. At CD Baby, there is no annual fee, so that won't happen. You only pay 9% if it's selling. If it doesn't sell, we won't force you to take it down. We created a page that shows a price comparison of CD Baby vs TuneCore that you can find here. We tried to be as fair and accurate as possible as there is plenty of bad info floating around there. If you're interested in moving your catalog over to CD Baby, this link will get you 50% the submission fee - Switch From Tunecore or Reverb Nation to CD Baby and Get 50% Off Your Submission - No yearly fees! | CD Baby

On another note, CD Baby will allow you to sell CDs worldwide and sell music directly from your own website with our new Music Store Widget, so at the end of the day, we think we're the best all-around service for the independent musician.

For more specific info about using CD Baby to sell on iTunes click HERE.

Kevin at CD Baby
Sell on iTunes, Amazon and Facebook - Sell Music Worldwide with CD Baby

[ChrisBolton]

I am looking into online digital distribution and I was wondering if anyone could explain the pros, cons, horror stories, etc. to CD Baby, Tunecore, The Orchard or any others that I left out.

Thanks!

There's a pretty good CD Baby VS Tunecore comparison here:

Tunecore charges 59 dollars per album, per year.

CD Baby charges a one-time 39 dollar fee (Plus 20 dollar barcode if you don't have one)

CD Baby also offers a way to sell music on Facebook which is free for CD Baby members and they offer a free widget to sell music on your website.

Chris

[bigtree]

Kevin and Chris are the same people or sharing the same computer. Please do not use the forum to spam or troll here.

[Dr_Willie_OBGYN]

I am looking into online digital distribution and I was wondering if anyone could explain the pros, cons, horror stories, etc. to CD Baby, Tunecore, The Orchard or any others that I left out.

I have been using Tunecore for years for digital distribution. Very happy. Currently it's $50 a year per digital album and you get to keep ALL of your royalties! If you sell a lot of units then Tunecore can REALLY save you a lot of $$. I exited Catapult because they pocket 10% of sales.

I don't work for any of these companies.

[ChrisBolton]

Kevin and Chris are the same people or sharing the same computer. Please do not use the forum to spam or troll here.

Sorry, I didn't realize Kevin already posted. I am a real person who works for CD Baby. I was just adding some additional resources, because I happened upon the forum. Feel free to delete if you are the moderator. No harm meant.

Chris B

[SoccerFan]

It seems that everyone here is exposing great options, but forgetting the whole core, or the reason of these services:
If the music is not good (good songwriting, compositions, production, lyrics, etc...), it doesn't matter in which website is at. It just won't sell.
Now, taking that into consideration, I'm arriving to the conclusion that the best musical distribution website is the one that's more convenient to the buyers, and not the artist.
iTunes sucks, they are crooks. - No wonder Prince will not put his last album there - But, it's practical. People wanna buy your record right away, they can just click a button in their iPhones and boom...it's there.
Then on other services, that might be the case, not because the service is good or bad, just because people (buyers) are not into it.
Someone gave a 'dropcard' the other day. I thought it looked cool, checked out the page, but didn't feel like downloading their music...
So my question is: Do you guys think that maybe it could be worth to only use iTunes and dropcard?

Thanks,
SoccerFan

[Dr_Willie_OBGYN]

Designers of most virtual synths don't sell their products at all of the usual retails sites. I would hope that one day music is that way too. It would help bring down prices.