So, I primarily use cdbaby for my distribution. The negative: it costs a fair amount of money. I usually wait until there is a sale to pay for licensing and distribution. The positive: They make my music available on so many platforms (youtube, amazon, Spotify, iTunes, etc). This is great in terms of reaching an audience, but I’ve recently been directed to look into sites like bandcamp and soudcloud. It seems both have their advantages and were even created for slightly different purposes.
From what I can tell, if I want to distribute music on my own, and get it to the listener in a format that allows me to sell it, bandcamp is the way to go. Selling it is nice. I also understand the dilemmas of poor distribution for smaller artists with substandard reimbursement from Spotify and the like… That being said, I just want to reach as many people as possible. I am not doing this for a living. Some people are. I am torn. If someone creates art and people consume it, the artist should be reimbursed. I pay for a Spotify membership for that reason (unfortunately, it seems the money doesn’t find its way to the artists).
So, in an effort to better understand this issue and see what it means, I’ve created https://davidnash.bandcamp.com
I don’t have anything up yet, but I’m thinking my next release will, at least initially, be on bandcamp.
So here is to being fair. Here is to supporting music. Here is to trying something new!
David Nash 