Distribution | Wendy Day

Hi guys, thanks for tuning in. Wendy Day here. Today we're going to talk about distribution, and distribution is the way to get your music into stores, streaming services, etc. It is how the end consumer is going to find your music. It's pretty important. So if you're an independent artist, you're going to need to have a source of distribution. If you're putting out your music for free on the mixtape sites like the Datpiffs, the Live Mixtapes, the Spinrillas, um, the mymixtapes.com You're absolutely going to want to put your music into stores and up on the streaming services as well. You want to get it onto Spotify, Google Play, Amazon if you're selling units, etc. Amazon even if you're streaming, but you want to get it into the end user's hands, and the way that you do that is through distribution. You can utilize an independent distribution company. That would be a company like Empire, InGrooves is an independent distribution company, OneRPM. There are quite a few independent distribution companies that you're able to do a deal with. You can also go through— all of the major labels have independent distributors that they own. RED is owned by Sony. ADA is owned by Warner. Capitol and Caroline are owned by Universal. So you can go through one of the major labels' independent distributors, or an independent distributor, or you can go through one of the, um, companies that exist online like a CD Baby for distribution. So you have a lot of choices today to get your product into the hands of your fans, of the end user. Um, a distribution company, their responsibility is twofold. It's getting the music into the stores and streaming services and collecting the money, and that's all that they do. They're not responsible for marketing, they're not responsible for promotion. That's your job., and you also need to have money to market and promote. You could attempt to do this for free, but it's really hard to build a career in music just utilizing the internet. You actually have to go into the real world and, and do some work as well. So when you're looking for distribution, you want to weigh all of your options. You want to take a look at all of the different companies that are available to you, and you want to find the best deal that you can find in distribution. And, um, the best deals in distribution are usually an 80/20 split, meaning they keep 20% for doing what they do, and then they pay 80% to you, the artist. Now, there are a couple of companies out there that will, for a flat fee, they will upload your music to their site, distribute you, and then pay you 100% of the income from your music. Um, that would be like TuneCore does that, DistroKid does that. I'm a big fan of those sites because I would rather see you get 100% of your money rather than 80% of your money. Um, if you need any special services though, um, it's difficult to get any specialized attention through a company that gives you 100% of your income. Um, there are companies that will help you get on the front page of iTunes, for example. Um, some of the distributors will help you get onto playlists. Um, you can't depend on them completely for that. It's something that you should be working on yourself as well, but certainly if you have a good relationship with your distributor, you should be having conversations of where they can help you. But for the most part, their job is to get your music into the stores and collect the money. If you're, if you're an artist or an independent label, and you don't have the proper financing to market and promote, you may need to do a different type of deal. Um, a company like TuneCore or DistroKid is not going to advance money for marketing and promotion. However, a company like Empire might if you've got a decent buzz in the marketplace and they feel that you're a good risk their investment, they may share some dollars with you to help you do what you need to do. And, um, that doesn't mean that they're going to pay for everything. You're going to have to come to the table with something. And remember, the whole point of a distribution deal is to get your music into the marketplace. It's not to help you market and promote. That's what a record label does. So if you're trying to bypass getting a deal with a record label because you feel that you don't want to share the income with a label, then you better bring to the table what a label would bring to the table, but for yourself, right? So you need money to market, you need money to promote. If you've got a radio record, you need to have a radio budget. You need to be able to shoot videos. You need to be able to get the videos, um, up on the different, um, video sites like Revolt, BET, Fuse. Um, if you're in an area that has local video shows, you're going to want to get your video added to the local shows. There's a lot of different areas where you you're gonna need to have money in order to move forward and to succeed. So a distribution deal is not just for anyone. If you don't have the money, you may need to seek an investor and do some sort of a deal with an investor where they will put money up so that you can get, you can get your marketing message out to fans and you can build your fan base. In the music industry, the first money to come into a new artist or a new company is almost always show money. The show money usually comes before, um, any sizable income comes from sales or streaming. So as you're building your fan base, you want to make sure that you've got the opportunity to perform in front of your fans. And then my philosophy is, if you're going to perform in front of people whether it's for free or for, you know, for a fee, you might as well be selling them t-shirts too, right? Merchandising, it's, it's, it's an easy way for you to make money. And if your design is really attractive, even if somebody isn't 100% sure of who you are, they may buy your, your merch because it just looks good. It's got a really cool logo, or it's got a really great design to it, or it says something clever that doesn't necessarily just, um, mean it's one of your lyrics, you know. Um, for Trouble, he's got a line of merchandise that has his lyrics on it, and he's got one, um, quote that says, "Can't get involved too deeply," and I wear that shirt a lot, and I get so many compliments on that shirt from people that have no idea that it's a Trouble lyric. They just think it's a really cool design and a really cool shirt, and they can relate to what it says, and they show interest in it. And I'm sure he's— he has sold a bunch of t-shirts to people because they just really like that quote. So there are ways for you to make money in this without somebody necessarily having to be a hardcore fan. And that's a great thing. Your goal in this is to monetize it. Your goal is to start making money as quickly as possible. And in today's music business, we give away a lot of music for free because that's how we build awareness in this oversaturated music marketplace. So as you're giving away free music, you also need to be figuring out, you know, how am I going to get paid to do this? How am I going to make money? And again, one of the ways to do that is through distribution, to get your music onto Spotify and get your music onto Apple Music. And don't forget to build accounts with these folks, you know, with both with Spotify and with Apple Music. Apple Music, you can go in and you can build your own artist page, and on that page it's, it's a feed almost like Facebook. On that page, you can talk about, you know, who you are as an artist and what's important to you. And you can post things, you know, daily that, that matter to you. So it's another way to suck in a new fan, you know. If you're talking about something and somebody can relate to it, they may check out your music. And that's the whole point, isn't it? Um, with Spotify, you can set up an account And it's a great idea if you're gonna utilize Spotify's system to be a paid subscriber of Spotify. You know, access it from the user side and understand what the experience is for the user. Because if you understand what your fan is gonna see when they boot up their Spotify account every day, it's gonna give you a better idea of how to reach them, and you reach them through playlists. So why not have your own playlists at Spotify that maybe curates music that you like so that your fans can not only hear your music, but they can hear the music that inspires you or the music that you like? It just gives you another way to reach your marketplace. So As you know, I just told you there's basically two different ways to distribute your music where you pay a flat fee. Um, that's like the TuneCore or the DistroKid type model, and they pay you 100% of your income after you start selling and streaming music. Um, then there's the 80/20 splits that occur from most distributors. That split's going to change if they have to offer you services if they have to help you with marketing and promotion. And I don't recommend that. I think that a better route is for you to find an investor, but a lot of you seem to be intimidated by having to put a plan together and find somebody to invest in your career. So the, the split with the distributor, if they're putting up services or meaning they're going to help you get on playlists, or they're going to get you on the front page of iTunes, um, or if they're putting up any funds to help you market and promote, that split is going to change from 80/20. It might go to 70/30, it might go to 60/40. It just depends on what they're contributing to your project, right? Um, if you go through a another record label to distribute. They may offer you a joint venture, which could be a 50/50 split, it could be a 60/40, it could be a 70/30, but they will help put up services that you need, that you're lacking, in order to help you move forward. So really, the only limitation in the music business is your negotiation. What you're able to negotiate and the deal that you're able to do. And I'm gonna leave you with this very last thought. Understand that this industry has a lot of charlatans. And what I mean by that is there's a lot of people out here that decide that it's a great way to hit a lick to be a middleman. So for example, I could start a company tomorrow and call it Wendy Distribution and I could offer you deals for 60/40 or 70/30, and then I could go do a deal with another distributor, like a real distributor, and get an 80/20 split. And then I can be the middleman and just keep that split in between the deal that I get and the deal that I give you. And there's a lot of people out here that do that, and they don't bring value. They're just a middleman. So you could go directly to the same source they go to and get the deal that they get because they're not bringing anything to the table. They're not bringing any advice, they're not bringing funding, they're not bringing access to iTunes or Spotify playlists. Their value is very limited and there are many, many, many, many people out here hitting that lick. So do a lot of research. Find out who else the company that you want to deal with is distributing. Make sure that they've got some knowledge of the genre of music that you're in. Meaning, if you're a, if you're a rapper and all they deal with is country music, it's a problem. They don't have the right relationships to help you get into the places where rap is streamed or sold or downloaded. So all that to say, distribution is, is very important. It's how you get your product to the marketplace, and just as importantly, it's how you collect your money. Make sure that you sign up for SoundExchange so that you get paid by companies like Pandora. They don't pay directly. They don't pay through your distributor. They pay through SoundExchange. And while you're at it, you might as well sign up for ASCAP or BMI. There is a video here that lists the— I think it's 10 things you need to do before you put out your music, even if you put it out for free. Check out that video because it mentions all the different things that you need to do before you distribute your music. So I hope that was a little bit helpful in terms of distribution. Make sure you do the research, pick a legitimate company, and make sure that you get as much of the profit at the end of the day as you possibly can. Um, you don't get what's fair or what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. Okay guys, take care.