Looking for tips on releasing my music
I am an amateur musicians who has written some songs that I would like to release in some form. I am not expecting to make money from this and there is no budget, so I am looking for the minimal route to doing this.
I have written my songs over several years and played them at pub sessions as well as putting them on YouTube or Soundcloud. The only real release of an original song I have done was on a Steem compilation album a couple of years back. Now I am finally doing some better recordings of the songs. This is mainly to make an album to share with family and friends, but I figure I may as well put them out into the world and see what happens.
So I am looking for tips on doing this to avoid any pitfalls and to get the most out of it.
I am thinking of issuing the album on Bandcamp. From what I know of them they do not take a huge cut from sales and provide a good service to buyers with options for lossless audio formats. I am just exploring how to set up as an artist there. It looks like I need to upgrade my PayPal to a business account to accept payments, but I am thinking I will offer my music on a 'pay what you like' basis. Money is not the driving force here, but can be a nice bonus.
I am doing all the recording myself and it will not be anything too fancy due to my limited skills in that area. Maybe if things do take off I can look at using a professional studio with people who know their stuff.
I ought to do some basic album artwork. I am no designer, so it may just be a picture with added text. I will probably make some CDs for a few people that will need an insert, but I do not plan to sell CDs.
Junkfeathers on Discord suggested I look at Distrokid who will get your music on various services for a small fee and then you get any royalties. I am not looking to start a career in music, but I may play with this.
Another aspect of this is the legal side. Do I need to do anything about the copyright of my songs or is it enough to declare it on my Bandcamp page? I am in the UK if there are specific rules by region. I have seen others put their music out under some variant of Creative Commons. I would not mind too much if people use my music for fun projects, but would like to at least get some credit for that.
I am trying to keep things simple and so do not want a manager, lawyer or accountant at this point. I will consider paying a small fee for services that make life easier, but then I am not expecting to make much, if anything from this.
I know there are lots of musicians on Hive putting their music out, so I am hoping some can share their experiences with me. Of course I will be voting up useful comments.
Rock on!
https://twitter.com/steevc/status/1335272306264911872
You look awesome in the picture and good luck religious song
Nothing religious about my songs, except maybe in a comedy way :)
My bad . I wanted to say release soon
I am not a music artist selling there, and I haven't bought a lot of music on there (not that I buy a lot anyway, usually in-person at a show), but I like Bandcamp a lot. It's like MySpace Music grew up and started a cool record shop.
I wouldn't put a broad CC license on my own music if I made it. Keep your ownership rights.
It is a bit of a dilemma on how to licence my music. It's just a bit of fun for me and I just want others to hear it. I'll keep asking around for advice.
Sounds like a plan.
Shared on Twitter and tagging some musicians
Cheers for that. Of course I make something from my music by posting on Hive. That may be more than some bands make from things like Spotify.
If you want to retain your royalties and have control of your publishing without costing you a penny, but a bit of time, you should go to bmi.com and register yourself a publishing company. There is no fee. The will ask you for a few different name suggestions. One could be perhaps Steve C's Music Publishing.
After you do that you should then register yourself as an artist at bmi.com. Once that is established you should then head over to a section where you can register your works. You can register the entire album in order song by song. Be sure that you have all of the times of each song available since they will ask for this.
For letting the world have access to your music I would suggest through personal experience that distrokid.com is quite reasonable for the amount of exposure/web music portals your album will be exposed to.
Since you are blogging on an international platform, you might find it interesting where people may be checking out your tunes by looking at some of the stats distrokid has for Spotify and Apple music and if anyone purchases a track or the whole album there's a section where you can see what part of the world it was purchased from.
BMI is a US organisation, so I may need to look at the UK equivalent. I have been reading a 'Dummies' book on songwriting that covers some of this, but it is all about the US industry.
Thanks anyway.
!ENGAGE 50
I wish you the best in your endeavor.
ENGAGEtokens.And I think, it will get serious soon - everything starts like that only.
I am realistic of my chances of success as I know 99% of music never gets far. It is a hobby for me, but I will see what can happen.
Thanks for continuing to make Hive awesome.
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I hope you get some good responses to this. Sadly I can't help you at all. Best of luck my friend!
Bandcamp is a good option if you're looking for a platform to upload singles or albums. I used them in the past when I was in a band.
They don't do any kind of distribution or anything like that though. So, your sales would be from your own promoting.
Another cool feature is they allow you to post up songs or albums for free. And the free option allows people downloading to tip/donate any amount they'd like. I used that option a couple times and made a few bucks from it.
If you're looking to distribute your music on across different music services (itunes, spotify, etc.) take a peek at this review that compares distribution services and their pay models: https://promusicianhub.com/best-distrokid-alternatives/
Thanks for the insight. Anything I reach beyond immediate friends is a bonus really. Bandcamp seems a convenient place to make the music available. I have used Soundcloud, but you have to pay for more storage and I don't think they allow you to accept payments.
!ENGAGE 25
I've personally never been a fan of Soundcloud. I think Bandcamp would suit your needs a lot more personally.
Bandcamp does have some active members and some kind of music discovery features, so you may find a few listeners there. It's just nothing comparable to iTunes or Spotify is all.
But! It's free and the fees are pretty minimal afaik. They have some nice graphs for stats and such too. Im a sucker for a good graph. 🤣
https://bandcamp.com/artists
I think Soundcloud has uses such as releasing odd recordings that you might not put on Bandcamp. I found it years ago when looking for a place to easily post music. I even put some podcasts on there.
ENGAGEtokens.