The New Trend: Record-Master-Duplicate-Go Online & Sell
The ever evolving and massive trend setting beast, MySpace, with over 105 million users and rapidly growing, has musicians (especially indie bands) following a new trend in releasing their albums. I would first like to share a tidbit of information that will make your really think about this particular approach. The marketing and advertising industry estimates overall sales, by next year, for online purchases, will surpass that of all catalog sales. With this information, it is no wonder that indie bands and even a few major record labels are leading towards selling their music to online buyers.
Once indie bands or any band for that matter, finishes recording in the studio, the next step should be to find an audio mastering engineer to have their CD professionally mastered. Most mastering companies will also offer other services like graphic art and design (for the CD, cover, & insert), various packaging options, and duplication or cd replication services.
After all the decisions have been made and the CD project is complete, most indie bands will more than likely host a local release party. This is where those nice, newly mastered, professionally designed and packaged CD's come into play. A majority of these CD's will be passed out to all the bands friends, family members, supporters, and new and old fans alike. Traditionally any new band will send out a large number of CD's to radio stations and if they are truly lucky they might just get some air play time.
So where can bands get quick exposure and get their music out to the public the fastest? Why of course, the internet! Now, even though this concept isn't all that new, various web sites, especially MySpace, are helping this to happen much more quickly than the old traditional methods of contacting radio stations or getting 'discovered' by playing local venues.
It is as simple as going to any search engine and typing in the words 'music blogs' and you can be on your way. One particular website you may want to check out is www.allrecords.com which offers a free blog/weblog. Or simply sign up for a MySpace account and start accumulating friends and start networking on the music groups section. Offer a few sample songs and then add a link to www.cdbaby.com so the whole CD can be purchased.
I truly believe this is the path that the music industry is heading down. Regardless of any on going lawsuits similar to those in the Napster days or current issues with DRM (digital rights management), the customers, the online buyers, are the ones who want to purchase music digitally. Bands will begin to see this trend take off if they haven't already and more and more will jump on the band wagon.