The more astute reader might have noticed that I have retired New Music Ideas – the spinoff site from New Music Strategies. Its purpose was to act as a place to review and alert the readership to sites and services that may (or may not) be helpful.
It occurred to me recently that as there is such overlap between that site and this one, it didn’t make any sense to keep them separate – so from now on, this is where those reviews reside. But here’s the twist. I don’t do the reviews – you do.
I link to the site, post a short sentence or two about what it purports to be – and you let me (and everyone else here) know if it’s any good, if you’ve had any experience with them and if there are other, better services around. I’ve imported all the other reviews I did from the old site to here – but here’s the first at its new home.
Music Submit takes your music and sends it to genre-specific radio stations, online music magazines, online music directories, blogs, podcasts, indie record labels, and other electronic music media. It starts at $35 for 100 submissions, and tops out at 1000 submissions for $210.
Essentially, you’re outsourcing something that takes time, research and effort. But is it worth the money?
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19 Comments
Having tried the service a couple of years ago, I have to say: No, it’s not worth the money. I did a 100 submission package and, out of those, only 2 or 3 podcasts picked up my song. By comparison, I’ve had much better results with free alternatives (like http://www.podsafemusicnetwork.com).
In the end, I think the service is too generic. You end up sending a generic message to an undisclosed list of organizations, who probably receive the same kind of generic message all the time (’cause that is basically what Music Submit does).
I think your time and money are better spent sending out a smaller number of targeted messages to people that might actually be interested in your music.
I have no experience with Music Submit, but it sounds similar to RadioDirectX, which we’ve used for our last 2 CDS. RDX has the DJs subscribe to the service, and request your music if they want it…so the chance that your CD is going to be a coaster is lower (targeted, in a way). There is some process, apparently, to verify that a DJ is in fact a DJ (or a reviewer etc), not just a guy in his mom’s basement, gettin’ free CDs.
http://www.radiodirectx.com/
We saw quite a few reviews, and a fair bit of airplay, for both CDs. Requests came from all over the world.
I agree with Jim 100%.
I have not tried Music Submit yet, but I’ve used a very similar service before. (I’m not naming them since I have no intention to hurt their business…)
They claimed that they’d prepare a professional press release, and send it out (with links to my band’s music) to thousands of “highly targeted”, “solicited” music contacts such as radios, zines, labels etc. for a flat fee of $300 or so.
The result?
I got one review from an online zine in Germany, and a whole bunch of mailer-daemons.
So, while I was waiting to get any exposure through this wonderful service, I did everything on my own from the scratch, and 1/3 of what I sent ended up reviewed or aired.
Maybe Music Submit does better than the service I used, but I think you might as well do it all yourself for a much better result.
Aaaaaaarghhhhhh another place to send music to, another website to get involved with, another place to plug your band. My poor musician brain hurts :-(
I think I will just go home and play the acoustic guitar and sing a bit to take away the blues….
I’ve spoken to many within the music industry that say they immediately delete emails from MusicSubmit. They consider it spam.
I tried it out for awhile and found it completely not worth the money. I sympathize with Atul above. It’s yet another service for artists that claims to be helpful, but is ultimately not.
Thanks to Jim and Angela for sharing their experiences. Another site to scratch from the watchlist and God knows they’re multiplying like crazy.
I think Atul sums it up best (I did a post on exactly that a while back, but I won’t plug it here): the huge turnout of Web-based businesses aimed at helping musicians is turning out not very helpful at all.
Thanks for the information on this particular site.
I tried them once but did not get favorable results.
Also thanks to Andrew for this thought provoking site.
Music Submit has been very effective in getting my CDs airplay on internet stations (particularly Live 365 stations) around the world. They have also helped me get airplay on public radio stations. When I saw that Derek S. , then of CD Baby, did an endorsement for them, I checked them out and was glad I did. I’ve tried to do it on my own via The Indie Bible, etc., but couldn’t begin to match their exposure. Hits on my website go up significantly wheb I have one of their “campaigns” going.
Some other sites I have paid for and received nothing in return.
I buy the $99 pacage for 400 songs. I’ll be doing it again soon!
alan
I’ve received a few artists submissions from Music Submit in the hip hop genre and I’ve run them on my site.
But that’s the extent of my knowledge about them.
“the huge turnout of Web-based businesses aimed at helping musicians is turning out not very helpful at all.”
Most are more interested in making money from online artists as opposed to actually helping them.
“I’ve spoken to many within the music industry that say they immediately delete emails from MusicSubmit. They consider it spam.”
Ok last post today….
I think the main problem with a lot of these services is that they send out this stuff unsolicited to people.
I’m in the process of starting something similiar for Urban music but with a difference. Everyone who I send stuff too will be in the network and will have a monetary incentive to support the artists.
My feeling is that if those who you’re submitting too get a piece of the profit as well, they’ll be more likely to support.
I’m not sure if this is the right direction to go.. but I’m going to give it a shot.
http://www.x-linemedia.com
My experience closely mirrors Jim’s above.
I found that better results can be obtained by focusing on a select few targets who are more likely to be genuinely interested in what you do.
Coming from both sides of the coin, as a musician as well as a Celtic media source, I’ve found MusicSubmit to be much as someone suggested above “spam”. It didn’t help me at all in my musical genre. And I feel that’s mostly because of the mass email approach that they make with it.
Thumbs down for MusicSubmit.
Back in 1985, when I first got started in the music business, I offered a prepaid service that helped American independent artists get their recordings released in overseas markets. My company would submit recordings by international airmail to a network of record companies and music publishers in 42 countries, in the form of vinyl records and cassette tapes. We would followup a few weeks later, and make monthly reports back to our clients indicating interest, if any, in their recordings.
This was during a time when international telecommunications were quite expensive — there was no Internet, no email, and was a year or two before fax machines became common. Long distance phone calls to Europe still cost more than $1.00 per minute, and a 14-minute collect phone call from the People’s Republic of China cost $34.00.
The cheapest international telecommunication technology was a Telex number, which was billed by the character (I think modern texting via phone is ironically similar to sending Telex messages).
We charged a nominal fee that covered our costs, which mostly consisted of mail packaging and international postage — it could cost as much as $16.00 to mail a 12″ vinyl record to places such as Japan or Korea. We made our money on the back end via commission when we successfully licensed the recording and sub-publishing rights, allowing the licensee the right to release the recording in their geographical territory..
We did manage to get various records released in Australia, Aisa and Europe.
My partner in this venture, a veteran of the European music industry for many years, had advised that we take all comers who could afford the upfront fee. He did not want to make A&R judgments on the recordings we marketed. Ultimately, that strategy failed, because we lost some credibility with our foreign partners, many of which were foreign subsidiaries of major recording and publishing companies.
I discontinued the service in 1988 and shifted my business focus to artist management and development, music publishing, and production.
MusicSubmit (and probably most other online submission websites) strikes me as having the same flaw my international marketing service suffered — no A&R filter — the ability to say to a prospective customer “I’m sorry, we are unable to serve you because your material really sucks.”
Pretty soon the recipients on their submission list will begin to be very unimpressed, and will most likely prejudge anything that comes out of the service to be a waste of time, and thus, spam.
Artists committed to develop their careers are still better off in the hands of an experienced personal manager connected into the music business than with an email machine.
Hmmmm, looks like this service is a little suspect. If it sounds too good to be true…you know the rest.
Personally, developing direct connections with bloggers and podcasters pays off in the short term and the long. When you have a new release you can go back to those who you’ve talked with before and have a greater chance of being featured many times if they truly like your music/art/whatever. True, it is a pain at first but the dividends make the effort worthwhile.
Do not subscribe to musicsubmits service or affiliate program. They do not pay affiliates and they spam artists info to radio stations. They are fradulent spammers who are known to make bogus reviews for their site. Click link below to read more.
http://www.4dasoul.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=366:artists-avoid-a-scam-musicsubmitcom-&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=55
Пластиковые окна не боятся огня, им не страшны ни влага, ни морозы, окна пвх хамовники, заходите заказывайте.
http://okna-mi.ru
Как правило, котята рождаются через каждые 15-30 минут, хотя этот интервал может варьировать в значительных пределах. В среднем роды длятся 2-6 часов. Иногда роды как бы прекращаются. Кошка успокаивается и ухаживает за котятами.
http://waet.ru/
Покажет ли тест внематочная беременность.
there are a lot of radio stations that prefer to get or will only accept submissions through music submit