You’ve just finished recordings of a new song/album and now you’re wondering what to do with your new masterpiece. You could send it to a dozen of record companies without ever getting a reply. You could also make 100 copies of it and give it to your family and friends, who smile forcefully and say “It sounds very nice dear…”. Or what if you just skip all the hassle of signing a record deal, spare your relatives and become DIY music manager.

The “magic” that a record company in practice does is marketing and distributing your recording with the help of their vast marketing and distribution networks. Getting your potential fans listen to your music is a really big dilemma for many DIY artists, but thanks to the Internet there are some really efficient online services to help you with this big task.

PROMOTIONAL SERVICES

1. MySpace (go to website)

MySpace is probably the most important promotion tool for your music, because of the sheer amount of users. If you create your space with care and do promotional work by friending with other artists (similar to your music) and their fans, the chances are that you’ll get more listeners than with any other free online service. There’s also a possibility to sell your music through MySpace with the help of Snocap. However, Snocap charges $30 per year (first year free). In my opinion MySpace with Snocap is a killer combination, if you already have a fan base. For the demo artists that are still establishing themselves I recommend first giving your music for free and later moving on to selling it.

2. Imeem (go to website)

Imeem is an online community where artists, fans & friends can promote their content, share their tastes, and discover new blogs, photos, music and video. It’s basically like MySpace, but packed with more features and more attractive visual design. You can also sell your songs through iTunes and Amazon. The big downside, however, is that nobody can view your Imeem site unless they sign up for the service. This turns a lot of people away.

3. Jamendo (go to website)

Jamendo is a free music distribution platform and it offers a web space for your music, with two good promotion tools: an embeddable audio player and buzz team, which will spread your music to other likeminded people. As for the revenue model Jamendo shares (optionally) advertisement revenue with you and provides your fans a chance to donate money to you. Most likely you won’t make a lot of money with Jamendo, but you will probably get a lot of visibility and possibly new fans. And the fans are the ones, who come to see your gigs, where the real money is made. When you upload your music to Jamendo you have to choose one of Creative Commons licenses, which means that people can copy, distribute and transmit your music freely. You should really consider if you want to license your music with a Creative Commons license, because you lose valuable rights with it. However, giving some of your rights away can also be a good promotional aspect. I personally found Jamendo a great platform with a lot of potential to promote your music, but it’s lacking a decent revenue model.

4. Reverb Nation (go to website)

Reverb Nation is a social network focused just on the music. They offer you the same kind of tools as Myspace, but in a much more organized and visually attractive package. As for added value they also offer you street team area and widgets to embed in other sites. These widgets include music player and show schedule, which I found very handy. You also have the option to sell your music through Reverb Nation, which makes the service even more appealing. The main reason I really recommend using Reverb Nation is the widgets, and especially the Tunewidget. They call it modestly “the mother of all widgets” and so far it is the best widget around for indie artists.

5. Fuzz (go to website)

Just like Reverb Nation, Fuzz is a new mashup music service, which connects artists and fans. The promotional tools you get in Fuzz are not so revolutionary, but the clean and functional interface won my vote for Fuzz. The layout is clear and the screen isn’t overloaded with graphics, which is a problem with Reverb Nation. When you enter the artits profile, the first thing you get is the music. You can listen to it for free by streaming and if you like it you can buy it. Fuzz actually has its own music label for selling your music, but I couldn’t find out information about the details. Future plans include enabling artists to sell merchandise and concert tickets.

6. PureVolume (go to website)

Purevolume is a music promotion platform that resembles Fuzz a lot and the main difference between the two services is that through Fuzz you can sell your songs. Both services offer a blog, a music player and a list of upcoming shows, so they are pretty much the same service with just different layout and design. The amount of users on Fuzz is much greater than on PureVolume, so in that sense I recommend concentrating more on Fuzz.

7. Prefueled (go to website)

Prefueled is the first nordic online music store and they have a very interesting concept for unsigned artists. As an unsigned artist you can upload your music to Prefueled and your music is then sold or distributed free on Prefueled online music store. The thing that sets Prefueled apart from other online music stores is their Fuel Tank entertainment hub. Basically it is a physical stand with a touchscreen display that is conneced to Prefueled online music store and allows you to transfer music to your portable music player using USB, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection. These hubs are placed in key destinations and they are a very innovative way to reach those music consumers, who are not yet familiar with online music stores. Go here to sign up for Prefueled Unsigned.

8. Last.fm (go to website)

On-demand Internet radios are a great way to discover new music and many music lovers have also realized this. Last.fm and Pandora are leading the way, but for promotional purposes Last.fm is a better choice since it is available globally, unlike Pandora, and it is also more popular according to Alexa ranking. Submitting your music to Last.fm is a fairly simple process, just go here and follow the instructions.

9. YouTube (go to website)

If you have music videos, interviews or any other video material that you think might be helpful in promoting your music and image, put it on YouTube. It is the most active and largest social video sharing website and it will most likely get you at least some exposure.

DISTRIBUTION SERVICES

1. CD Baby (go to website)

If you already don’t know CD Baby you should check them out. They are the pioneers of selling indie music online. CD Baby sells your CDs and also covers digital distribution with a 9% cut of all the digital distribution income your music generates. In the case of CDs they keep $4 for each sold CD. The strong point of CD Baby is its popularity.

2. Magnatune (go to website)

Magnatune distributes and markets your music (CD’s and digital music) through various channels and gives you 50% of all gross income they make with your music. When you make a deal with Magnatune your music is licensed with a predefined Creative Commons license. The deal is non-exclusive, which means that you retain the right to use your songs for other purposes. A good incentive from Magnatune is that they also try to license your music to games, movies and commercials.

3. Tunecore (go to website) & Emubands (go to website)

Tunecore and Emubands are both digital music distribution services that distribute your music to the biggest online digital music stores (iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster etc.). Emubands charges a one-off payment (£24.95 to £49.95) per release depending on the amount of tracks. Tunecore charges $0.99 per song (one time charge), $0.99 per store per album (one time charge) and $9.98 per album maintenance and storage (per year). Both of the services passes on to you 100% of the royalties generated by sales of your recordings. If you think you can market your music through other channels, then go for Tunecore or Emubands for the distribution since they don’t take a cut from the revenue.

LICENSING SERVICES

1. Pump Audio (go to website)

Pump Audio licenses independent music to television, advertising, and film. They basically work as your publisher, but unlike most publishing agencies Pump Audio deal is non-exclusive. You get 50% of the revenue your music generates, there is no submission fee and you retain full ownership to your songs. To me Pump Audio looks very attractive, because they work with many high profile ad agencies, TV networks and production companies from all over the world such as Nike, IBM ad MTV. However, once you make the deal with Pump Audio, you allow them to license your music to any client who is willing to pay enough money for its use. So you can’t approve where and when your song is used.

2. YouLicense (go to website)

YouLicense describes itself as “an online music licensing marketplace”. They are not a music publishing company, but they connect your music with people, who might be willing to pay for using it in films, television, commercials, websites etc. The service is absolutely free until the point that your music is licensed. YouLicense takes 9% comission from each licensing deal, which is much lower comission than with Pump Audio and therefore I definitely recommend supporting YouLicense. However, the service is still in beta stage and it is not even close to as established as Pump Audio, which might mean lower paid licensing deals. There aren’t so many online licensing services out there yet, so in the end YouLicense might be a very good and profitable alternative.