As an indie artist there are lots of options out there for releasing your music. I personally have just gone through releasing my own record and took my sweet ass time to do it… 3 years!!! Many times I’ve heard people say “you only get one shot” (to make an impression) so I made sure to get as many professionals as possible to listen to my tracks, review the artwork and point me in the right direction.
Believe me, you don’t want to be the indie that didn’t know… sure you can make your own cds and sell them for cash, if your goal is to pay the bills and put food on the table then this check-list may not be for you. My goal with this release was to get noticed, perhaps apply for a grant after 2,000 units are sold or even win a Juno!
Last night I was at an open mic and met a terrific band called “Down by Riverside” here in Toronto. They too had just put out their first EP and had produced it all themselves. At a glance, it was a great product; beautiful artwork, great songs, high quality production and only $5 to boot.
Upon a closer look, I see that they are missing a few things I was fortunate enough to discover before I went to the press with it.
Here is a list of things I did before selling the first copy;
1) THE MAPL SYSTEM
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/info_sht/r1.htm
The Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) has developed the MAPL System to help highlight Canadian artists. It’s a little logo that goes on the CD artwork (on the disc & back cover).
MAPL stands for Music, Artist, Production and Lyrics. The logo is a circle cut into those 4 parts and you are suppose to use the black background with white text for each part that is Canadian otherwise you keep to the white background with black text.
The CRTC mandates that a certain percentage of a station’s playlist is approved as Canadian content, i.e. Canadian Artists. In my opinion and I’m sure many will agree, Canada has world wide recognition as the source to the larger half of the world class artists. So in other words, broadcasters around the world are looking for this logo!!
2) Gracenote CompactDisc DataBase (CDDB)
Unless you submit your CD playlist to the official Gracenote CDDB, your disc will come up as untitled when read by players like iTunes, WinAmp or Windows Media Player. You can use any of the latter to make your submission and within a few days you should see your album/playlist identified when loaded to a media player connected to the internet.
3) International Sound Recording Code (ISRC)
http://www.avla.ca/isrc.aspx
If you want to get any royalties off the digital broadcasting of your CD, you better encode some ISRC codes into each track of the album. An ISRC code is essentially a digital fingerprint that is used to track your plays. The ISRC consists of twelve characters representing country (2 characters), registrant (3 characters), year of reference (2 digits) and designation (5 digits). Visit AVLA to register your numbers and use a high-end CD writer like Nero to burn them into the finished master disc.
4) Universal Product Code (UPC)
http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/generator/
I was unsure as to whether or not I should bother with a UPC barcode on the album artwork because my plan was to sell CDs at shows only. Nonetheless, I feel a barcode makes the product look more professional and here’s the nice part….
If you perform at a retail store like a skateboarding shop, a clothing store, etc. you can leave CDs behind and let the store sell them even though it’s not a record store! Well duh, it’s a UNIVERSAL PRODUCT CODE so you can recruit small stores that have that same little UPC scanner and Nielsen Soundscan will track the sale. Think about it, have you not seen CDs at the LCBO? The Coffee Shop? Wow!
5) Nielsen Soundscan
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/links/Soundscan-BDS.html
Nielsen Soundscan tracks all sales of your songs/album. You can register your UPC and ISRC codes with them online. The last piece of the release is tracking your off-stage sales.
This is where a company like Indie Pool comes in handy. The process involves bringing a “venue settlement sheet” to all of your shows and getting the promoter to sign off on X CDs sold at X dollars.
That sheet then gets sent to your record label or in my case, Indie Pool… and then they fax it into Nielsen Soundscan for tracking. Unfortunately Nielsen will not deal directly with artists for there are just too many. Remember, your off-stage sales can add up and potentially be the difference between getting a grant and not even qualifying for one. The same goes for certain awards, the charts, the press, etc.
