In the days before the Web, hopeful musicians had two basic career choices: sign with a major record label, or go broke trying. These days, though, anyone with a microphone, a PC, and a modicum of musical talent has a shot at selling songs through a slew of online music stores and distributors that cater to independent artists."Everything is digital now," says David Otero, an independent Reggaeton musician from Miami. "Nobody's selling just CDs."
Among the most popular and user-friendly stores and distributors is CD Baby. When a musician sends five self-produced CDs and a $35 starter fee to the CD Baby, the company digitizes the CD, creates a Web page dedicated to that musician's music, encodes the music digitally, and distributes it to popular music download sites such as Apple iTunes and Rhapsody. Musicians set their own prices for songs and CDs. CD Baby keeps $4 of each CD sold and a mere 9 percent from the sale of each digital song download.
Indy artists also favor a service from Snocap Inc., which allows musicians to sell songs directly from their Myspace pages; Myspace.com is the most popular social networking site among musicians. Setting up a store is free for unsigned artists, who can post up to one thousand songs to sell. Snocap keeps 39 cents of every download; musicians generally charge 99 cents per song.
