A Free Digital Distribution Chat With WaTunes

Posted on 26 March 2009 by gregrollett

Kevin Rivers from WaTunes

Since we first learned the news of a FREE digital distributor, we knew the game had changed again. WaTunes is the company that is going left (or crazy) and offering free digital distribution to all artists across a bevy of commerce. Now a few weeks into this system, we decided to have a chat with Kevin Rivers, the optimistic CEO of WaTunes. What is transcribed below is not a pitch fest, but the realization that the current model of music to fan consumption is broken and that social channels are becoming the transaction, or buying signal that drives bands today. I hope you enjoy!

GYRS: First, since the news of going free, how have you seen your company grow in terms of artists and labels? What are they saying, asking for?

Kevin: Ever since we’ve made the announcement of providing a free digital distribution service, we’ve experienced huge growth from artists and labels around the world. Each day we get instant questions about how this service is possible and if it is true. I tell them that it’s true and it’s good! The artist and labels are excited to be able to see their contents available on stores like iTunes without paying a fee. To know that they will also receive 100% of their royalties really makes an impact on the lifestyle of each artist and label.

GYRS: TechCrunch is a tough crowd, but I think you and your team handled it with class and had some great responses. One of the major questions was in the event of WaTunes shutting down and artists essentially being left out to dry. In the response, you made some great points on your exit strategy and the way you handle business with artists. How important is the relationship between a distributor and the artist/label?

Kevin: I believe the relationship between a distributor and the artist/label is extremely crucial. A distributor who has a lack of communication to its customers can create strong concerns and doubts from the artist on whether or not the choice they’ve made concerning their music was a sensible one. With WaTunes, we value our communication with our artist and label customers. Creating a personal, yet mutual relationship provides assurance to the artist and label that their music contents are in good hands. I see our customers as people and not a number for our company. With that in mind, we are able to hold Customer Service as one of our very top core values.

GYRS: There have been some exciting and disappointing innovations as far as the way music is sold, transferred, etc from band to fans. While legal download numbers are up, they aren’t exactly screaming for indie bands to hurry up and make a ton of money through iTunes, Amazon, etc. Some are even seeing more success giving away their music or portions of their music, in the hopes of winning them over and selling concert tickets, merch, exclusives, etc. What do you make of the current consumer market for music?

Kevin: I think that the current market is broken. The reason is because there really isn’t a true social interaction in which the artist can engage effectively with their fans. In a world where music is generalized and a crushing economy, it’s very difficult for an artist to drive fans to pick up a CD or buy their music. Fans these days are eager and hungry for social interaction with their favorite artist. To be able to communicate with them on a social level is far greater and is projected to produce greater results. To the artist providing an avenue where their music is made available to a wide array of potential fans and then contracting their fans to keep up to date on their music career will result in a stronger form of a social environment.

GYRS: Do you have any success stories of indie artists using iTunes, Amazon, etc that may be of encouragement or give ideas to artists who are weighing their options for digital distribution?

Kevin: Yes. We’ve have many success stories from our customers. A few examples of successful independent artists are Dice & K9, Drip, Kitty Katt, Chubb Rock, and Shizz Strothers. In weighing in options for digital distribution, it is solely depending on the approach of the artist. If an artist wants to save money and focus entirely on their marketing, I would strongly recommend using our services. However, there are artists out there that would rather pay for the service to help their distributor earn revenue and survive which is commendable in my opinion.

GYRS: How do you feel social media and fan interaction is going to play in the success of artists in the near future?

I believe that social media interaction will play a major role in the change of the industry. This is one of my personal insights that I’ve observed while conducting my research in this sector. This focus will be the central statement of WaTunes 3 which is to bridge the gap between the fan and artist through social interaction.

GYRS: Anything that you want to tell the Next Generation of Rock Stars?

Kevin: To any musician out there who wants to make a difference, I’d say “Continue to pursue your music career and find people that share the same passion of your music. Finally, establish connections with people who care about your music as you will find great success in your future endeavors”.

I’d like to thank Kevin for giving us a few minutes of his time and helping you guys get some solid advice on where digital distribution and fan communication is heading. If you have any questions about WaTunes, digital distribution or want to ask Keving a question, please address it in the comments and we will be sure to get those answered for you.

With that said, I really want to open the floor out to you guys, the future of the industry and see your thougts on the role that major digital distributors are going to play in your career. Does iTunes matter? Will it matter by the time you are ready for it to matter? Is free a better model? And where do relationships come into play? Please feel free to share your opinions with us.

Till next time Rock Stars…

-Greg Rollett

Get on iTunes for Free

Posted on 09 March 2009 by gregrollett

Yea, you heard me right. A new digital distributor is upping the ante and offering you the ability to get your album on iTunes for free. That means no upfront costs, no recurring yearly upkeep fees and no % of songs coming off your profit!

WaTunes free digital distribution

This is all done from WaTunes, a small digital distributor, music marketing site and community. There decision means that they are putting themselves out there against the big boys, TuneCore, Reverbnation, Musicadium, CD Baby and other.

From their official blog:

Me and my board members have discuss great options to provide you the best low cost digital distribution service on the net. We’ve went from being free to be charged, to giving 90% of sales, to giving back all the sales earnings. We’ve finally can say that we have raise the bar even higher by providing you guys an ABSOLUTE digital distribution service. As of now, WaTunes will enable it’s customers to continue to sell unlimited music, earn 100% of the royalties, and more, ALL FOR FREE! There are no fees, cancellations, no gimmicks.

All of their current paying artists will be relieved of their monthly payments immediately and put on their freemium services. WaTunes is attempting to monetize their business through ad revenue from their network and a new player/sales widget WaTunes3. Their current digital distribution package includes iTunes, Napster and eMusic.

In a day and age where ad revenues hardly supprt the big boys, it will be interesting to see how long they can afford to stay on this model before they go back to at least an initial upfront account fee.

If enough artists support the platform, they should have the strength to get some pretty good CPM rates – the goal is to get enough of those WaTunes3 players embedded on outside profiles to get the viral traction they need to serve up those impressions.

Will be watching this one for sure!

Till next time Rock Stars!

Digital Sales Talk with Musicadium

Posted on 27 February 2009 by gregrollett

I first heard of Musicadium when they posted a link to our Gen-Y Rock Stars Tool Kit last week. Once I looked into what they do I wanted to chat with them and see what they were all about and help to educate you guys on Digital Sales, one of the most vital aspects to your music marketing efforts.

What this lead to was a brief interview to learn more about their services, what contributes to successful sales and differences in global sales and sites.

First a quick intro on what Musicadium does:

Musicadium is a digital distributor located in Brisbane, Australia – yup all the way across the globe. What they do is place your music on top digital download stores like iTunes, Amazon and eMusic.

The services cost:

  • Distribution fee to one store – $39 (AUD)
  • Distribution to 2 stores – $69 (AUD)
  • Distribution to 3 stores – $79 (AUD)
  • Annual renewel fee – $20 (AUD)

Here is the chat I had with Tim Price, the Promotions and Development Manager at Musicadium.

GYRS: So, we are an American based company and the majority of action happening here in regards to Digital Downloads is still iTunes. Can you talk about some of the differences or similarities to consumer habits in Australia and other parts of the world through Digital Distribution services?

Tim: iTunes is the big one around the world really (except I see, in the UK, where Amazon has caught up and passed iTunes in the short time it’s been there). Australia isn’t an exception, people love iTunes here. We have a few online stores that aren’t anywhere else in the world, like Optus Zoo and Bigpond Music, which are attached to major telcos here in Australia. Nokia Music is establishing a presence. Legal Music Downloading is beginning to really take hold here in Australia and CD sales are down.

GYRS: What kind of success stories are you hearing from bands that are using your service and how did they achieve those successes?

Tim: We hear a lot of success stories from bands who use their online tools well to drive sales of the music digitally.

First and foremost, it is assumed you are writing the best music you can possibly be writing, you have identified the market that you are going for and you are marketing yourself appropriately and playing shows to the right crowd. We are proud to have been associated with bands such as Ellington, Hungry Kids of Hungary and Here Come the Birds, both who have leveraged great digital sales from playing amazing live shows and using their fan connection tools well i.e. MySpace, Facebook, email lists and instant messaging.

GYRS: Can you chat about any averages? Indie bands all too often get lost in the crowd on services like iTunes and we see bands that sell 20 songs a year. What does a typical Musicadium user see in terms of average sales?

Tim: While we can’t release exact numbers, it is important to note that the averages for our bands are going up and up. We are beginning to see artists who are starting to sell a really decent amount of albums and tracks. Indie bands can’t get lost in the crowd if they are driving fans directly to their part of the iTunes store or whatever outlets they are on. If they are making genuine fans by playing great live shows or connecting one-on-one with their fans online through e-mail marketing or proper use of social media, then chances are people will WANT to go looking for you.

GYRS: How important is it to keep full control of your music in this Internet heavy industry? One of your major selling points is that there is an upfront fee, but after that, the artist makes 100%. Why is this important to an indie musician?

Tim: I would say that control isn’t the word. Management is more what I think of when I think of what artists need to do with their music on the internet.

They need to manage exactly who they are sending their music to.

In terms of their copyright entitlements, they need to ensure that they own all the rights to the music that they put up through Musicadium. It’s in our distribution agreement.

In terms of our business model of an upfront fee to get started with us and then returning 100% royalties, we believe that it is the most artist friendly method. For an artist, as little as $39 AUD (even better with the current exchange rate for American and UK people!!) is not a great deal to recoup, rather than the thousands of dollars on physical product. It is approximately 40 singles or about 6 albums sold to be at break-even point. After that, it’s pure profit that doesn’t need to be re-pressed and another run done. Another point to our business model is that there is no term-based contract. We do not lock an artist into a period of time or amount of albums. This low-cost alternative is all-important to an indie artist. We do not lock artists in to an exclusive deal either. So, if they gain enough exposure to get a deal with a label or publisher, we only require 30 days notice via email to be released from our contract. We believe we are an extremely artist-friendly distributor.

GYRS: For an artist that is looking for a specific release date, how do you mange that through all of your partner sites – is that even possible? Is there a solution for this?

Tim: Yes, Artists are able to specify a street date for release. This is easy to manage – there is a maximum of 6 weeks turnaround to get onto the various outlets, so we encourage artists to ensure that they get their albums to us in plenty of time for release dates to be met. We can rush things through sometimes, but it is entirely in the hands of the outlet, so we can’t promise anything. It really does depend on the preparedness of the artist, as to whether they have a set goal to have their music available and work towards it. If a band has got it together and they are on the ball, physical and digital product will hit the streets on the same day, no problems at all.

I want to thank Tim for taking some time out of his day to enlighten us on some of the things they are up to. He brings up some good points with the exchange rates and also opens the door to international sales. Let’s not forget that the world is bigger than the states and some regions have more pocket money than us right now.

To learn more about Musicadium visit them online or start a chat with them on Twitter.

-Greg Rollett