The music industry is changing whether we like it or not, and we as musicians and producers need to change to maintain our quality of life. The world of selling cd’s is over and we are in a streaming and selling digital downloads era. This means we need ways to monetize the different platforms and distrokid is my absolute favorite option. Let’s get into how to upload music using distrokids platform.
1.) Login to Distrokid
Navigate to distrokid through the website listed in the resource box. Login and you will be redirected to the dashboard after sign up. Arriving at the dashboard, you will see your catalog consisting of singles and albums. If there is a green box, then the track is live, if it is yellow then it is pending, and if the box is red then there is a problem. If you have nothing in your list, then this is your first time uploading and continue to step 2.
2.) Click Upload
Click on upload in the top left navigation bar and this will take you to the upload page. Uploading is simple and the only things you need are an unique album cover and your song file. Do not skimp on the album cover as it must be unique, you cannot have multiple songs with the same cover as it confuses the streaming distributors and you will run the risk of losing your placements.
3.) Profit
Now you need to market your music to get money for people purchasing your track and also streams. If your songs have streams, then you are owed royalties and make sure you get them. All money is routed to your bank in distrokid and there are reports that breakdown where each cent came from.
One of the greatest features in distrokid is on the top menu bar and is the teams feature. The team feature allows the artist to split tracks based off of percentage with any artist that is involved in the song writing process. This is huge if you are an artist and want to control the splits of features or collaborators.
This platform is setup for independent artists to operate as a label by giving them the functionality of teams. There are different tiers and if you think outside the box you could make a hefty living with streams or collaborations. Overall distrokid is my favorite platform to distribute music and is sure to be around for many years.