This week the music discovery site and online radio sensation Pandora released their new way to get music into their service. Some people are getting really hot and heated over the new submission requirements and indie bands are making an even bigger stink. First let’s get into the details:

• Pandora is an Alexa top 500 website
• Their iPhone app is constantly in the top 50 free apps in the iTunes App store (currently at #17)
• Compete.com shows unique visitors at over 4 million
• In December of ’08 Pandora had over 20 million registered users
• They are a long tail music service, allowing their users to select the direction of the songs they play

With that said, here is direct from Pandora’s site, the new requirements for indie bands to submit their music to Pandora:

We’re very excited to announce a brand-new process to submit your music (or your band’s music) to Pandora.

You’ll need:
* a CD of your music
* a unique UPC code for that CD
* your CD to be available through Amazon (must be a physical CD, not just MP3s for download)
* the legal rights to your music
* MP3 files for two of the songs from your CD
* a free Pandora account, based on a valid email address, which can be associated with your music

Once you have all of these items ready to go, you can submit your music to Pandora here:
http://submitmusic.pandora.com/

To obtain your own UPC code at a low cost, click here. If you already have a UPC code through your record label, just use that one.

To make your CD available on Amazon (after you have a UPC code), you can sign up for the low-cost Amazon Advantage program (click here).

NOTE: We cannot accept music available only as downloads through the Amazon MP3 store; you must have a physical CD for sale.

NOTE: We display album art directly from Amazon, so be sure your album art and other information are correct on Amazon before submitting your music to Pandora! Even so, album art may not appear on Pandora until a few weeks after your music goes live. If you need assistance correcting your album art or information on Amazon, click here.

The Pandora Indie Submission process starts when we verify the UPC code for your CD through Amazon. Then you will upload your MP3 tracks, and we will review the music you’ve submitted for possible inclusion. After we’ve reviewed your music, you’ll be notified of the outcome either way. If your music is included in Pandora’s Music Genome Project, then we’ll ask you to send the CD to us, along with a form legally authorizing Pandora to play the music on your CD.

Please don’t write to check up on your submission, as that will just take away time we could be using to work on listening to submissions. You’ll definitely hear from us after we listen to your submission!

We hope the new process will be faster, easier and much more transparent for submitting musicians, with a definite outcome for each submission.

Thanks again for your interest in having your music on Pandora!

At the surface this look like a good amount of work to get on the service. What is driving many musicians and music industry people a little crazy is quoted from Bruce over at Hypebot:

In addition to art and packaging costs, Pandora explains that to comply with the new “available through Amazon” rule, indie artists should join the Amazon Advantage Program. Membership costs $29.95 each year plus Amazon takes 55% of the list price of every CD sold.

Established artists and labels already comply with Pandora’s new rules. But for an indie artist trying to win new fans with a little help from Pandora and to keep his hard earned cash by selling direct, the new threshold may shut off an important avenue for exposure.

Is $30 Really Stopping You From Submitting to Pandora?

If so, get out of the music business right now! You are more than willing to drop a few hundred on new recording software, effects pedals, recording, mastering and even manufacturing, but you refuse to put money into getting people to listen to your music? Are you kidding me?

Ok so Amazon takes 55% of any physical CD sales that are purchased from the WORLD’s largest eCommerce platform. What’s more, if you are smart and tag your album accordingly, your CD can be bundled in recommended products and with a few “internal family” purchases can be put into the “recent customers who bought this popular CD also bought this indie band’s crappy CD.” Not to mention all the SEO powers that come from being on the site, the recognition and the fact that you can have an affiliate link on your site to your Amazon CD to make back 3-5% through an affiliate commission that puts your take home in upwards of 60%. Try and get that from a major label.

Many major labels see 45-55% from a retailer like Amazon. If the artist is lucky and has a 50/50 split they are then entitled to 22-27% of a sale. Indie artists wins again. But you were pissed about shelling out $30 a year to be a part of that service…

Indie Bands Still Don’t Get Marketing

Many indie bands that we talk to and even work with are still not up to par with marketing and creating a marketing budget. And yes, radio is a part of your marketing budget. Getting spins on Pandora is marketing. When you song plays on Pandora the following things can happen:

• A Thumbs Up – Fans that like the song give it a thumbs up and your songs will rotate into their mix more frequently
• A Thumbs Down – No hard feelings, your music won’t be on a station of someone that has no interest in your music
• Click on band name – Opens a new window and delivers your bio, a way to create a station for you with one click, view other fans that are listening to a station created with your band, comments for the band and similar artists.



• Click on song name – Opens a new window that delivers lyrics, features and qualities of the song, related songs, instant station creation and links to buy your stuff on Amazon or iTunes.



• Click on menu (in between thumbs up and thumbs down) – Fan can buy the track, bookmark it, see why it was played, move to another playlist (increasing your exposure) and don’t play this song for a month (ouch).

  

Marketing in NOT Always About Free

Most indie bands rely on free services and viral promotions to do the bulk of their marketing. Some get by just fine using Myspaces, Facebooks, Twitter, YouTube and ReverbNation. The ones that are truly successful use a combination of FREE and premium, including the above mentioned services coupled with an email provider, hosted WordPress, shopping carts, subscription services, paid video sites for extra privacy and exclusives, advertising on sites like Jango, Facebook, Grooveshark or StumbleUpon along with paid radio inclusions on sites like Pandora and Last.FM.

You are in the music business – start treating it like a business. The more exposure for your music, the more potential reach, the more fans in the funnel, the more people you can sell music to, merch to and tickets to.

Before you draw a conclusion about paying for services and changes remember that something is usually free for a reason. There are limitations that come with free. There are also people that have mouths to feed and rent to pay and thus have created an amazing service so that people will exchange currency to use it. That’s the real world and if you want to succeed you’ll get in.

Till next time Rock Stars!

-Greg Rollett