How to Sell Your Music Online Independently

Two aspects that have developed recently have created a dramatic shift in the way music is distributed: the first is the falling costs of music production equipment and software, allowing many more individuals to become involved with making music, and the second is the increasing ability and range of the internet.

These simultaneous changes have virtually destroyed the old plan where you had to be on a major record label to have your music distributed or even recorded. Now many people are producing their own professional music independently, and this article will talk about how those same people should be able to distribute it on their own as well.

Thanks to the demand caused by the rising number of independent music artists and their desire to sell music online, several websites have risen to support this market, but before you consider any of them, there is one thing you need to think about first.

Any music you sell online independently must be copyrighted to ensure that you have legal ownership of it. You can copyright your music online with the federal US government by filling out a form and sending them a sample of your music. It will cost a small fee, but you will then have full legal control of your music and this will help you if someone tries to use it or sell it without your permission.

Now that your music is ready to be sold online without worry of legal issues, you can start looking at the different sites to see which one would fit you best. For most cases, the best first place to look will be CD Baby.

This site allows users to sell hardcopy albums or digital downloads of their music, and can even get your music listed on itunes. It will cost some money to get this all set up, but it is a reasonable fee and with some good online music promotion, you should have no trouble making a profit. Many well known artists sell their music on CD Baby so it has a very well established reputation.

Another option besides selling you music on some other site is to sell it from your own website. This will benefit you in that you will keep all of the profits and not have to pay a setup fee, but it will require much more work out of you to get an online store operating on your site. If the store breaks down for some reason it will also be you that has to spend time fixing it.

Another disadvantage to this is that your site will not get the added traffic that CD Baby receives through search engines and other artists. This means that you will have to be even more adept at online music marketing and promotion. However, for certain individuals, it makes sense to use your own site if you know how to set up an online store and you want the satisfaction of doing it all on your own.

These are just a few of the ways you can sell your music online. Make sure that before you commit to anything you research everything in depth and find out what works best for you. With some great music, and a little bit of promotion and marketing, every musician should be able to make a profit with their work online.