[LAU] How to do an online album release?

[shane richards]

Thanks to everyone who has responded. The LAU list rocks!

After doing some investigation today, it looks like my approach will be:

1) Sign with someone like Magnatune to handle the commercial side, official releases and promotion. Now there's an agency that seems to understand both artists' and listeners' needs; they promote and distribute, you retain the rights to the music (so you can still give stuff away), you can make a little money, and your audience *owns* what they've bought...as it should be.

2) Create a dedicated web-site, to host lots of free extras - demos of new stuff, things that don't make it on the official releases, remixes, re-recordings, live recordings.

BTW: I found an interesting article by Courtney Love on the subject - it's quite old, a bit political, but a good read:
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index.html

We live in exciting times.
- shanerich