At first I had signed up to Spinnup, since they offered free for the first 2 tracks. I submitted my tracks along with cover art under the artist name ‘Namayewa’. It took spinnup about 4 or 5 days for staff approval. I got email saying my tracks needed some tweaking, in this case one of the track needed fading in the end. After resubmitting again for approval, in about 5 days, they sent me an email saying I had to change the genre as it was in wrong genre. I again submitted for the third time. And finally they decided not to accept my tracks. I thought this is ridiculous. I began to look another distributor.
Found Distrokid
After quick Google, I found the Distrokid. Turns out it is quite popular. They say they will pay 100% of the earnings. So I did some quick research on youtube. Timing could not be better. I found one video about Brazilian artist claiming that Distrokid keeping 30% of the earnings (allegedly for tax purposes). Long story short, he exchanges lots of convo with Distrokid and got his 30% of his earnings.
And this was a red flag for me. So I decided to look for alternative.
Amuse. A free distributor
Amuse offers a free distribution service. They also have a paid service at $5 per month. I signed up to free service of course. I submitted one track (different from the one I submitted to Spinnup) to Amuse. On the Amuse user dashboard that it showed it would take 28 days to be live on the streaming stores. One month! that’s a lot to wait.
Back to Distrokid
Reluctantly, I gave Distrokid a try anyway. I signed up with a discount link which it gave a 7% discount on $19.99 Musician plan. But did not purchase right away. I hesitated for some reason. After a few days, they sent me a follow up email. In it, they offered me 35% off any plans, should I purchase with in 48 hours. It was a very tempting offer. The following day, I puchased the Musician plan for only $12.99/yr after the 35% discount. Not a bad deal if I can upload unlimited songs on that price.
Super fast submission
I submitted my first track to Distrokid under new name ‘Kiminonawa’. The name was inspired by a J-anime movie called Kiminonawa which translates to your name.
It begins with selecting genre, track title, cover art, questionnaire. And next day it was live on all major streaming stores. I was amazed by this. They also give a link called Hyperfollow (actual link to track)
Hiatus for 2 years
Back in early 2018, I tried making music for months. I would come home from work and open FL Studio daw (Digital Audio Workstation). I wanted to make some tropical chill tracks then. But did not even finish one.
And then I decided to take a break thereafter.
Restart 1.2
I started again this year 2020. By no means I am a good producer. I still consider myself as a noob. I am focusing on lofi genre, chill ambient, synthwave (at the time of writing) as it does not need to be complicated to make one.
Lofi genre music have recently been popular on streaming stores. This is partly because of the pandemic. When lockdown happened, people (mostly school and college students) stayed home. And their preferred music when studying are mostly lofi chill type.
How much can a song make?
Pay depends on different factors. Independent Artists with NO RECORD LABEL and that own all production and copyrights for the song will get ALL the money and vice versa.
Spotify Average pay as per below.
- 100k streams = $400
- 1 million streams = $4,000
Source: Quora
Example
Taking from above average pay. Below artist earns roughly $4,600/month on 1.14 million plays/month. Not bad eh!
Of course I would be delighted even if I get 100k plays. My plan is to keep making as many as possible and release it. lol
Feature Photo by James Owen on Unsplash