How to sell my music online
How do I get my music on Spotify and other streaming services for free, and start selling my songs online?
We see you – the band that’s just finished your first song, the producer sitting on a hard drive full of tracks. You’re starting to feel that people are going to love your music as much as you do.
What are you waiting for? Time to get your music online.
It used to be the case that musicians, bands and producers needed a record deal to release songs and albums. Those barriers have been blasted aside in the age of streaming. Now anyone making music can sell songs online, without signing away the rights to your music or getting twisted up in record label contracts.
How do you get your music on streaming services?
Artists can’t upload their music to Spotify or other streaming platforms by themselves. Instead, digital music distributors sell your songs online on your behalf.
Because distributors act as a middleman to upload your tracks to download stores and music streaming services, you want to know they’re a service you can trust. You’ve spent hours making your music and when you release it to the world it needs to be in safe hands; not with a company who will take a big slice of the credit, not to mention the profits.
Enter RouteNote. We’re an independent music distributor and since 2007 we’ve been helping unsigned artists and indie record labels sell their music online – for free.
How is RouteNote free?
Remember what I was saying about trust? We’re completely transparent about how our distribution works.
You create your account at RouteNote.com and upload your songs, choosing which streaming platforms and stores you want your music to be released around the world. We cover 95% of the digital market, and our partners are growing all the time, from Deezer to Tencent to Anghami.
Once your songs are online and you start earning royalties from people streaming your music, you keep 85% of revenue. That’s the extent of the small print. No matter how many stores you choose or how many songs you upload, there’s never any extra costs.
You keep all the rights to your music – we don’t own your songs, so at any time you can remove your tracks, switch distributor or change which stores and territories you release music to. You can even use us to upload your music to only a couple of stores that other distributors don’t cover. You’re never locked in and stay in control.
We also get your songs on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok so users can put your music over their Reels and Stories, and protect your music when its used in YouTube videos with YouTube Content ID (more on that here). That’s free too.
RouteNote Premium distribution
For established artists and labels who know they’re going to generate a lot of streams, check out RouteNote Premium. Premium has all the same perks as Free distribution, but you keep 100% of royalties in exchange for the small fees outlined here. You can switch between Free and Premium at any point.