May162008
What Every Musician Should Know About Digital Distribution »
From Tunecore:
Part I: Distribution and Doing It Yourself
You can sell your music yourself right to your fans, on CDs you mail out of your home, from the trunk of your car, from a knapsack or on a collapsible table at your concerts or on a street corner. Direct selling has some real advantages—piracy is practically impossible, and as long as you track your inventory well, theft and even damage can be kept to a minimum. You keep all the money, other than your expenses. You can even decide who gets to be your customer.
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A word about doing it yourself
Right now, millions of people are their own digital vendors, selling their music off their Websites, using PayPal or accepting checks in the mail and using file transfers to get the music to their fans case-by-case. That works if you have a few fans, but if you have hundreds, thousands or more, it gets expensive: your Website might not be able to handle the traffic, downloading and bandwidth costs could wipe out profits, as might the costs of credit card processing, etc.