Selling My Music Online

Okay, so heres the deal.
Some of you may know that I travel a lot, am currently in South America, doing a social work, missionary work and helping the people here in Colombia.
The probably being is that we are not supported by any group or anyone whatsoever. So, we now gotta go back to the States to make money and hopefully return.
So I figure why not try to sell some of my (and my dads) music.
It seems to me that CD Baby is the best place to sell it. Is that correct? I also know that soundclick.com is very popular but that seems so Social site orientated.
Do I have to worry about any legal side of selling it, if all the tracks are totally original with nothing borderline? Meaning, what about Taxes and everything like that.
And finally, do any of you guys think some of my tracks are actually sellable?
thanks a ton Loopers! :)
cheers!

Elfo

Not sure about CD baby. IMHO I think your music is definitely sellable, just not in "CD" market, if ya get what I'm saying. Just glancing over your music, it seems that most of your music is for TV or movies..that's just opinion though. Definitely copyright (officially) beforehand. I would imagine if you start making serious money, you would have to pay taxes on your income.

Cool mate appreciate it your response.
Any idea how on earth I'd market it to the TV/Movie people? Yeah of course I'd have to copyright it...which is a pain.

I agree. The question is, what qualifies as 'serious money'.
thanks dude

Elfo

http://www.smashsongs.com

you can put your tracks up on here for licence or use in other things its free to join they only take a fee when you sell your music and you choose between 3 contracts once you have uploaded

1. exclusive contract
2. non exclusive

check the site out its cool

Indaba will do it too, and plus there's some EPIC remix comps there.

I really don't dig them asking me to pay. I s'pose it would be pretty legit if I could sell enough songs to pay for the fee.

5 dollars, and then you can sell your stuff on itunes, and remix dudes like Daft Punk, Underoath, Linkin Park, etc etc etc....

http://www.indabamusic.com/

I didn't really dig the community right off... LOTSA ego.

I like the gentle people here A LOT more. It's more "real" here.
But yea, test your options fer sure! Try everything.

@rollagee I tried signing up to the smashsongs site but kept getting a message saying the session had timed out and try later. That was kind of off putting for a first encounter with the site and makes me wonder how it runs the rest of the time. A pity I liked the idea behind it.

There are lots of sites out there that offer the option for selling music. If you belong to reverbnation they have an offer that means you're on quite a few download sites.

oh, and 5 dollars is serious money for me.

Are you with BMI ?
http://www.bmi.com/

or ASCAP?
http://www.ascap.com/

Dunno about this too much... I may consult a lawyer... But I am making my thang a business. Have been... VERY slowly, but I am starting to do more lessons for guitar and computer stuff.

Gonna write off my telephone, gas, and my little recording studio while there's still that "small business" tax refund deal.

Take this into account, GE has almost 1,000 lawyers, and made 14 BILLION dollars in profit, and isn't getting taxed a penny for keeping their "business".

I think it's something you should consider as you turn music from your pre--occupation to your occupation.

Unfortunately, there is no free way that I know of to market to TV/Movie. I don't wanna lay 'em out here. If you message me I'll get them to you. One is more expensive but you get more than 1200 opportunities a year to market your music. The other is less expensive with less opportunities (obviously). Both of these options let you market to MTV, CBS, Fox, ABC, NBC, movies, commercials....the list goes on. Just make sure join a performing rights society ..BMI...ASCAP, SESAC. I joined BMI (it was free). Many people looking to place music these days already want your music copyrighted and ready to go. If you have already copyrighted your music and registered it with one of these agencies, you can start receiving royalties if they select and use your music. Of course I'm still learning the ropes myself but the info I'm giving u comes from reputable sources.

Oh and I consider "serious" money anything you can live comfortably on without any supplemental income. You will have to fill out tax forms when you make deals with these agencies anyway. So the IRS will know what your making and will tax appropriately if it is required....

Oh, I think you have solid tracks here, us just need to get them to the right people.

word, e-mailing you.

I understand how you can market music, it's all about WHO you know. And someone should always be careful with guarding sources.

My only other point is this, "DON'T STOP HAVING FUN WITH MUSIC."

I think a lot of people get very frustrated with music.
But if you know people, I know people man.
And if you make some money.
Cool.

This is a interesting topic : ) must learn from you guys.

@bmw2000uk, these resources apply to the US...not sure about the UK or anywhere else? You might have to do your own research.

@ resistanceisfutile

there is nothing wrong with smashsongs if the session timed out it means its something to do with your internet i have many friends joined up with them inc me i recommend this site to anyone there are no upload limits on this site and every tune you upload you apply a contract to it so when someone buys your track they must agree to the contract you set

oh yeah its all free to do so and when your tracks sell they will take a small percentage

Elfo-
you need to look at Production Music Libraries like 5Alarm music, and Back Door music. Get their info and contact them and ask them who you could send your cd to. Make it look as Pro as possible, and try to change the music up so each part has something new but all fits in easily. Try to make it as "edit friendly" as possible.... oh and be prepared to give up the copyright on it and let it go. You'll get 100% writers royalties and they'll get 100% publishers royalties....standard for the industry... anything less is a red flag... not availabe in Rhode Island...blah blah blah. =7)

wow thanks a ton guys to all the feed back!
Defo gonna check out those links and reread this thread a bunch!
All you alls input is greatly appreciated! :)

But, say without selling to TV/Movie, and I wanted to upload 11 tracks to CD Baby or such, how do they deal with taxes?
I guess I should probably contact them right?

thanks again fellas! :)

Elfo

I've resurrected this thread, because I've had a lot of emails lately from people like Songcastmusic and tunecore asking me if I want to sell my music online.

I guess things have changed big time since this thread was last posted, so what is your experience with selling your music online?

Kenny! Make sure you read the fine print. It has language that always favors them. Once again Kenny you are very talented, nuff said, but you know that and so do they.

Sometimes when we get something that remotely sounds like a contract we just might leap Kenny. I don't think any of the companies you named are bad or corrupt. It's just you should read carefully what they are saying.

On a lesser known music outfit company which I will not call out, they wanted people to surrender all rights to their intellectual or stage name, their avatars and all rights to their songs they submitted and royalties to their songs they submitted if things went sour. Fortunately it's not any of the ones you named Kenny.

Just don't rush into something Kenny. For me, I am in a similar exploratory mission.

Hiya Joe

Thanks for that man. I'm not in any hurry at all as I did it once before and got shafted. I sold a song last week, well just the lyrics really, so it gave me the confidence to maybe dip my toes in the water again. If it doesn't work out, so be it, I'm having such a blast putting this stuff together.

Appreciate your comments man. Thank you

You might want to check youylicense.com They will list your music free and you can sibmit one track a month to particular (advertized) opportunities with their free account....unlimited if you upgrade...most of the opportunitiues appear pretty mickey mouse though.....also check pumpaudio.com (they are owned by Getty`s mages in NY)..you can submit tracks for consideration & they will contract with you for any that succeed......I haven`t used CDBaby personally but 3 local artists I have recorded/produced for have used it and were happy with the results.....Definitely copyright and check off yourself as both composer and performer...composers call the shots for licensing deals.....Hope this helps....Ed

Thanx for that Ed, that's sound advice.

Hi
There was some sites posted here that are new for my.
I have 2 sites that I like very much. easy to use, very widgets and you can sell your work. its Reverbnation and Official FM.
http://www.reverbnation.com/xmafax
http://official.fm

I hope it helps
Paulo

Hey Paulo

Thanx for that info man. I've got a reverbnation account, but not looked into selling anything with them. I'll check this out. I hit you up on Twitter too.

Thanx again.

I use Bandcamp :)

I use http://routenote.com/ most because they don't require you to pay to get in and they put up your music on Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, Rdio and so on. As I don't care much about the money and is mostly interested in getting the music out there it's a good deal.

I own an unsigned music portal that releases music through 350 stores on two record labels. We do a non exclusive deal and we promote our artists as well as distributing them. We are called Xarnia.com and we could definitely help if you're trying to sell your music online.