Introduction
It is less than a decade ago, in 2011/2012, that I tried the first time publishing my music on the online platforms - no platform (singular!) - since only iTunes was released at that time! TuneCore was offering access to the iTunes platform these days and you had to pay for this service in advance, without knowing what happens then to your track and having no clue how to promote it. But in these times it was cool to be able to publish without having a business contract and find your music on the online platform! Streaming was no issue in these days, since not established at all. Selling of songs was still the goal. Having my first two songs published I didn't take too much care finding them again on the iTunes store nearly a decade later - only a couple of buyer's noticed these songs since no promotion followed the publishing excercise. And this is still what's all about!!
Now, a decade later, the world changed quite significantly as you all know. Selling music is not in focus anymore, streaming is the new business model. A whole lot of music platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Titan, YouTube, Amazon, Google Play Music and many many more) are now available. Aggregators like AMUSE, CD Baby and many other build the bridge between the musicians and the online stores flooding the music market with throusands of new songs. The accessibility to the online music stores is certainly a big step forward - this was the biggest hurdle to take a decade or more ago. Today, one can publish own music within a couple of days - baaam!
However, the biggest hurdle shifted towards promotion. And that's a completely different business for musicians than having the skills to write, record and publish music. Even the recording and mastering processes evolved significantly and all this is now available to an affordable price. A laptop, instrument/s, a high-definition interface, a good mic, a DAW, some plug-ins - that's nearly all besides some know-how and you can start off. Even Mastering became digitalized employing AI (artificial intelligence) algorithsms - upload a track and get back a mastered version within minutes!
The industry is telling us that promotion is also possible over the internet. No problem! Null problemo! A Facebook / Instagram account is for most people anyway established on their mobile phones. It's definitely not that easy!
This series of articles will be dealing of an experience of a musician like me stepping into the direction of publishing and self-promoting new song material. It's real - no virtual reality or story telling. And sharing these experiences with other musicians probably help looking at these efforts more realistically and find ways that work better than others. But for me it's still a way to go - that's guaranteed!
This Blog will be released in several episodes and continued. The next episode in this series is about experiences with Streaming Promotion Services.
So, stay tuned, keep reading this blog, enjoy listening to my music and take care!
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