Artist's Guide to Streaming: Digital Music Distribution

As an artist, finding the right distribution method can be tricky, particularly because there are so many online services these days. In terms of royalty payments, each site has its own pros and cons, so knowing the way they work is essential to growing your career and generating revenue. A closer look at five of the biggest distribution methods can help you understand. 

Bandcamp: This site is most often used by smaller bands or labels. Inexpensive and easy to use, the site provides easy downloads and streaming and allows artists to name their own price for a download. Physical releases and merchandise are also up for purchase. Unfortunately, no revenue is generated from album streaming alone, so purchases are needed to making money on the site.

Soundcloud: This service offers free accounts for only two hours of upload time and then an up-front payment is required. Extended accounts or even unlimited ones offer more uploads, analytics and let users highlight five songs at the top of their profiles. It does not pay directly for streams which makes it a better tool for sharing rather than selling. Links to sites that offer your music for purchases, however, can be included on your profile. 

Spotify: Though it is free to put music on this site, it only uploads music from distributors or labels. Merchandise can also be posted for free on profiles and no cut is taken. Royalty payments vary from $.006 and $.0084 per stream.

Pandora: One million plays on this site can result in about $1,370. This money does have to be divided among performers, songwriters and labels, but still makes more money than song plays on terrestrial radio. Music must already be on iTunes or Bandcamp in order to be posted to Pandora.

iTunes: The dominant distribution service for music, iTunes relies on downloads as opposed to streaming. It can be costly to upload songs to the site, especially if an aggregator is required to post the music, but the music is readily accessible for fans since it can easily transfer to laptops, iPods and other devices. 

While certain sites offer more reward for music distribution, others still provide exposure and music for the masses. Whichever services you feel are right for you and can lead fans to discovering and sharing your music, Pro Music Records and Entertainment Media can get you set up for success. PMR can put up a single, EP or entire album on any site so you can start making money today. We can even do promotions on sites like YouTube, another distribution option, so your music can be heard even more often. You own all the music and rights in this non-exclusive deal, Pro Music Records is simply the distributor that gets your secure digital media to retailers. Visit us at http://www.promusicrecords.com to learn more or e-mail info@promusicrecords.com with questions and submissions.

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Using iTunes Pre-Order to Build Buzz: Digital Distribution

When releasing a single or album, it is key to make sure fans know your music is out there so they can find it and purchase! By using an iTunes Pre-Order, you can build fan buzz and sales before your release even goes live. This buzz builds excitement quickly and can easily be spread by word-of-mouth, social media and other promotions.

At Pro Music Records, we handle all the distribution services for you, making it efficient and effortless for your music to be heard and generate revenue. To maximize sales potential, we suggest adding an iTunes pre-order 2-3 weeks prior to your release date. We can set up a pre-order with an iTunes "Buy" link, Instant Gratification tracks and special pre-order pricing. Any pre-order sales count towards iTunes chart positions, which can lead to greater exposure, profit and success. In addition to iTunes, we can set up your single or album on our website and our store, thegoodzonline.com.

Visit promusicrecords.com to learn more or call 818.971.9301 to get a quote on your distribution package today!

How a Professional Music Video can Make an Artist: Creation & Promotion

We’ve all heard of it: the YouTube sensation who landed a huge record label because of a viral video. As ridiculous as it sounds, independent musicians putting up their music videos on YouTube and then becoming big time stars is more and more common in today’s world of digital media. And, with the release of MTV’s VMA nominations, it’s clear that interesting, unusual and well-made videos can do a lot for an artists career.

For example, Iggy Azalea, who is nominated for seven awards this year, released her video for “Fancy” featuring Charli XCX long after the song was released this past February. It took a month and half for the song to be recognized and debut on the Hot 100 chart, but this success can be greatly contributed to her music video, which went viral shortly after it was released on March 4th. The video now has 161.5 million views (and counting) and portrays the theme of the iconic movie “Clueless,”  which almost any listener in Iggy’s target audience can relate to. The Australian rapper is now one of the most talked about artists of the year.

A remarkable music video has the power to get an musician’s name out and be seen by the masses in a short period of time. It shows audiences who the artist is, how they perform, and how they want their craft to be portrayed. In addition to making a top-quality video, it is key to have a team that can promote your video to major labels, television networks, music blogs and potential fans. Without the right targeting, even the most professionally made videos can go unnoticed. That’s where we come in! Pro Music Records can not only write, produce and direct your next customized video, but push it to MTV, BET and VH1 amongst hundreds of broadband video companies and shows worldwide. Leave it to our team of experts to help you create a top-quality video that gets you noticed and recognized as a legitimate artist.

Getting Your Songs Out There: A Pro Music Records Experience

As an independent artist, it can be really hard to get your music out there without some serious help! That's where Pro Music Records comes in! We can guide you through the process of becoming an established musician with our vast array of services.

Here's the Top Eight Things we can do!

• We know what the music reviewers are looking for!!
  • Nothing slow burns a radio host, music editor, label owner, or blogger like getting bombarded with music that is totally unrelated to the style they promote. It displays a total disrespect. Your songs, of course, are trashed immediately.Our Promotions department knows how to get you air play.  
• Let's Make Contact:  We have contacts, so you can get your foot in the door.
  • Most music services ask that you contact them before sending in your music, just to make sure your music is a good fit. It’s for this reason that many services do not post their physical address online. There are a lot of local music resources. Local can mean several things; it may be a particular city and its surrounding suburbs; it may be an entire state or province. Local could also include several states, or even a specific section of a state and still yet local can be a whole country. Our SEO Local Marketing  services can help you make those first contacts with your region!
• Reaching the blogosphere. 
  • Many bloggers don’t post any contact information at all. In order to get in touch you have to post a comment on their blog. Pro Music Records can find relevant music blogs and contact them on your behalf!
• Get Formatted. 
  • Music services usually post their format of preference. Often it’s a combination of several formats. They may also welcome videos. Or they may be old school and will ask for physical submissions only. No matter what format their asking for, our Mastering department can work with you to get you single ready.
• College radio. 
  • Some college radio stations allow you to send your music directly to a show’s host, but many insist that all music must be sent to the Music Director. The Music Director then passes on the music to the various shows, according to the genre. Make sure you’re clear on whom to address your music to.
• Time sensitive material. 
  • There are a number of music blogs, radio shows, promoters and review sites that will only deal with music that has been released recently. The cutoff date varies, but the allowable time of release is usually six months or less. Work with our Music Production department to get your relevant work ready and out in a timely manner!
• Which reviewer accepts my style of music?
  • There are a large number of music blog and review websites that have a stable of reviewers. Each reviewer accepts one or more particular styles of music. So, even though the overall website may welcome many styles, the responsibility is on you to find out which of the reviews/bloggers deals with your particular style of music. Our Promotions department knows who should be listening to your music and can put it in their hands!
• Sending a press kit. 
  • Another important consideration when sending your music is the accompanying bio information about you or your band. Submission guidelines are usually specific about what sort of information they would like to have included. Our Publicity Services will put your press kit together and make it shine.

At Pro Music Records, a distribution and marketing program for our clients has been implemented to generate revenue from the growing digital download and entertainment industry market.  We do everything we can to bring success to you!

Pro Music Records & Entertainment Media 5th Year Anniversary (2007-2012)

We are proud to announce the month of March marks the 5th year anniversary of Pro Music Records, Inc. On March 8th, 2007, Pro Music Records. Inc was officially incorporated. When we launched www.promusicrecords.com on our initial launch date December 1st, 2007, we never imagined the difficulties we would face, or the amount of time it would require. Like many others, we simply thought that when we launched, it would be an instant success. We aimed our focus at social media websites and asked participants to visit us. However, many who noted that our site didn’t even appear in a Google search quickly dismissed us.

Since then, our development efforts during the past five years were aimed at learning to utilize and incorporate (SEM) search engine marketing techniques and applying Google Analytics to our websites. We advertised a bit and remained focused on building a comprehensive set of analytical tools, proprietary software systems, and a vast directory database to help service the general music and entertainment population.

Now, five years later, we can proudly claim of ranking in the Top 20 Music-Records Sites published on top20sites.com. Top20Sites.com is the leading directory of the web's most popular sites. By visiting this website you can find the top websites, as ranked by our vast community, in over 85,000 pristine directories.

Pro Music Records and Entertainment Media Recent Google Rankings:

• Ranks #3 of about 445,000,000 results for entertainment media los angeles
• Ranks #2 of about 58,700,000 results for music promotion los angeles
• Ranks #2 of about 4,250,000 results for r&b indie artist los angeles
• Ranks #3 of about 4,410,000 results for music distribution los angeles
• Ranks #15 of about 13,000,000 results for dvd distribution los angeles
• Ranks #15 of about 15,300,000 results for independent record label los angeles

The US ISRC Agency appointed Pro Music Records & Entertainment Media as an "IRSC Manager" in January 2012. Pro Music Records Inc. is approved to assign ISRCs on behalf of the owner of a music or video recording. Pro Music Records and Entertainment Media Services now include submissions to radio stations that welcome independent music, music reviewers, music blogs, podcasts, Internet Radio, Distributors (physical and digital), Radio Promoters, Promotional Services, PR Services, Publicists, Project Management Services, Digital Download websites, Film/TV Music Supervisors and more!

Right now our affiliated partner database contains over 3,000 companies and 8,000 contacts, nearly every A&R rep, CEO, film and TV contact, publisher, music attorney, artist manager, and almost every other music industry position. We are proud to service independent artists, labels, and entertainment company's music and entertainment products to over 850 record labels who are accepting demos, 500 music and video distributors, 1000 Music Reviewers, and 5500 radio stations that welcome independent music and entertainment media.

We wish to thank all of you who have written to us during the past 5 years and have: informed us of problems, and requested customer service.

And most importantly, we wish to thank all of you for being loyal followers of our site and referencing our information daily. We will continue to improve our content for our visitors and strive to bring our clients more success in their music and entertainment careers!