How To Sell Your Music On iTunes

Most artists want to sell their music on iTunes but not many know exactly how to do it. On this episode of Weekly Injection, we explain How To Sell Your Music On iTunes

So you have prepared and masted your music, and now you are ready to put it up on iTunes. However, you can’t directly upload it because iTunes can’t be (rightfully) bothered registering a single account for somebody who only releases a few songs a year. iTunes relies on distributors or aggregators instead, who do the hard job of formatting the music in the right way and feed the platform lots of music.

Nowadays it is very easy to get an account with an aggregator. There’re so many of them on internet: Tunecore, Ditto, CD Baby. All aggregators are slightly different, with different pricing schemes and interfaces, but they all pretty much do the same thing: ingest your music, format it and deliver it to iTunes. Google them and see which one is best for you.

You may also want to get ISRC codes. ISRC codes are used to identify each master and are used by distributors to make sure that your tune IS your tune. They are usually issued by a local authority: here in the UK it’s PPL and each country has their own equivalent. You can do without ISRC codes but if you intend to release more music in the future, then using them is a great way to keep your music catalogue tidy.

You may also need to have a label Catalog Number. If you run your own label you can choose the number to be whatever you want. Although it might be a good idea to consult with your distributor about it. A catalogue number identifies the release.

You may also need to have barcodes. A barcode (EAN-UPC) identifies a product, just like for anything you’d buy on Amazon or a high street shop. The distributor may issue a barcode for you. You don’t need to have a barcode, but if you intend to release more than once a year then it might be a good idea for you to sort that out.

Now you need some kind of artwork. iTunes prefers a square format. Unless you are able to come up with your own thing on Photoshop or Illustrator, then you can just go to FIVERR and find lots of artists that can provide good artwork for cheap.

Finally, write notes to describe your release, upload your material to the distributor’s portal and… off you go!

Remember that if you want Doctor Mix to optimise your master for iTunes, you can select Mastered For iTunes options on all of our Mixing & Mastering, Mastering and Production services:

Related Article:Mastered For iTunes explained

Have you tried our “The Official Guide To Mixing”