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A Digital Distributor is like a husband or wife – think long term relationship. Typically they are easy to get into, and sometimes hard or slow to get out of. There are quite a few options available to choose from including TuneCore, CDbaby, ioda, Ingrooves, The Orchard, and a slew of smaller guys.

I’ve worked with The Orchard, Ingrooves, CDbaby and TuneCore in the past. To my knowledge, only one of these offers a flat fee, taking zero percent of your sales. All the others take a percentage of the artists sales.

This is a double-edged sword. If you are an artist that will upload your CD and let it sit, snagging an occasional sale, then a distributor that takes a percentage will probably be more cost effective for you. However if you are planning an all out assault with your music, with the goal being a sustainable career in the online music industry, it makes sense to choose a distributor that will be cost effective for the long term.

For example, if you choose a distributor that takes 10% of your sales, and make $100,000 in downloads, you’ll play the distributor $10,000 of that. If you choose a distributor like Tunecore, and make $100,000 in downloads, you’ll still pay roughly $50 per year. Bottom line, if you’re thinking big, go with Tunecore, if you’re thinking small (which is fine too by the way) go with anyone else, after careful research. Here’s a quick best to worst rundown of services I have actually used (this may be a bit arbitrary because I don’t want to go into the why’s and how’s right now) Best at the top, worst at bottom:

• TuneCore
• INgrooves
• Cdbaby
• The Orchard

So having chosen TuneCore, let’s blast out Caleb Brumbelow’s music and get ‘er live, preferably well before the upcoming Holiday season (typically iTunes sales peak just after the holidays – people need to fill up their shiny new iPods they just got for Christmas)