For those who want a digital-ONLY release
Some artists want to skip CDs completely, and sell only digital downloads.
Before I tell you how to do this, I need to tell a couple things:
- Although digital music sales increase every year, there is still a huge percentage of music buyers who prefer the tangible, physical product. We're absolutely thrilled to help you sell your music however you think best. But please ask yourself whether you're really at a point in your career where you're ready to shut out a big portion of your potential audience by refusing to make CDs.
- The following info applies no matter how many songs you have on your album. A “single” is considered an album with only one track.
That being said, here's exactly how to do a "digital only" release:
- Burn one finished mastered copy of your music on to a regular audio CD-R. (NO mp3, aiff, or wav. Just regular audio CD.)
- Sign it up at CD Baby like any other album.
- Pay the $35 setup cost, and if you don't have your own unique barcode for this new album, have us make you one for $20.
- Mail that one CD to us, with a note explaining that it is for digital distribution only.
- Email a 1000-by-1000 pixel TIFF file (RGB, no compression) to art@cdbaby.com, for us to use as the album cover/artwork.
- We will add it to our CD Baby system, like any other album, except CD sales for your album will be permanently out of stock on cdbaby.com.
- We digitize it and distribute it to all of the usual digital distribution outlets.
- Voila! There's your digital-only release.