Sell Your Music – How to Go World-Wide With Your Own CD

In a previous article called “How To Put Out Your Own CD” I told you how to sell your music by recording and putting out your own CD. The example used music, but it is the same process for spoken-word or any other audio you think people will want to buy. We will use the internet and the post office to now take it world-wide!
Once you have several copies of your CD packaged up, you need two more things: demand and distribution. Distribution is the ability to quickly get your CDs to people who want them, and demand is….well…people actually WANTING your CD. That last part is the hard part these days. So why don’t we start with distribution.

Distribution–Getting Them Out There

You want your songs to be on iTunes? The first place on the web to visit is Reverb Nation.  Sign up for an account there, upload your music, and take advantage of the many tools of promotion and distribution they have available for free, including getting your songs submitted to iTunes and other music download sites. Before you commit to that though, I highly, highly, highly (get the idea?) recommend visiting CD Baby. For just a 1-time 35-dollar set up fee, they will distribute your songs to all those internet music sites, and….get this….sell your CDs for you! After getting your account set up, you send them 5 CDs. They handle the shopping cart, the mailing of the CDs, etc. They take a $4.00 cut per CD they sell, but trust me when I say that it is worth every penny. I still recommend using Reverb Nation for just about everything else, like hosting your songs and videos, setting up a store of your own, promoting your music, feeding social network update sites, etc. That’s one of the best deals on the web today.

Demand–Making Them Want Your CD

Now you just need to get some fans and you’re on your way. I recommend starting your own website, with a blogging platform like WordPress, that you can use as a hub for your web presence. Then start a fan page (or whatever they’re calling them now…”Like Pages”?) on Facebook. Set up an account at MySpace and Twitter, and sync them all together through Reverb Nation so that when you update your RN status, it will update all the others. Put news and song samples on your website. Put player widgets from Reverb Nation on your site. Put banner links from CD Baby on your site to take fans directly there to listen to mp3s and buy CDs (or downloads….did I mention CD Baby also sells downloads directly?).
If you do all that and just keep building your fan base through social media, web updates, and of course, gigging. Your music will soon be available in just about every country in the world. You don’t get much more “global” than that. The vital part about your music not sucking is totally on you;).
Record your CD from your home studio.  Learn how with Home Brew Audio tutorials.  Good luck!