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By Nate Anderson | Published: March 17, 2008 - 08:44AM CT

It's easier than ever for bands to get their tunes where fans can buy them. Anyone with a computer, a guitar, and a microphone can now label him- or herself a "singer/songwriter," churn out some songs, and have them available for sale across the US through online storefronts like Amie Street. What used to require a major-label recording contract can now be done for a few bucks and some mouse clicks. So why are some indie labels ditching the cheap and easy distribution channels and doing their own digital distribution?

"Money" and "shelf space" (or the digital equivalent of shelf space) are the answers. The money angle is simple enough: the label slaps up a store, offers its music for sale directly to fans, and splits all the profits with the artists. Steve Jobs doesn't get his pound of flesh.

Nor are the labels at the mercy of stores like iTunes, which choose which artists to promote. The blessing of a major retailer can be a good thing, as it is for artists like Feist who are lucky enough to appear in an Apple television ad, but it generally means that small acts won't be prominently featured on the iTunes Store. Unless buyers already know about these bands, they're unlikely to discover them through browsing. Building your own store solves this problem and allows labels to feature the bands they want, when they want.

Not that running your own store is all sweetness and light. With the increased revenue per sale comes responsibility for the infrastructure, for keeping the site up, for dealing with payment issues (not to mention the upfront cost of building the store). But plenty of indie sites have decided that it's worth doing, generally in addition to distribution through more mainstream outlets.

Bands have always sold CDs at concerts, and nearly every indie label has some sort of online storefront these days (see, for instance, Fall, Suicide Squeeze, and Rough Trade). What's more recent is the trend toward offering digital distribution, often in fan-friendly formats like MP3 and FLAC. Reuters has a piece this weekend on three indie labels (Merge, Def Jux, and Sub Pop) that are examples of the trend, and it points out the obvious problem that such sites face: most music lovers will never visit a label-specific store.

But in the digital, long-tail era, such stores can succeed by targeting a niche fan base with exclusives, rarities, and out-of-print material. They can also cater to online buyers concerned about audio fidelity by offering lossless versions of tunes, something that the major stores don't even make available.

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Get your Swedish pop in FLAC, direct from the label

With the cheap digital tools and server space now available, digital distribution has become (relatively) simple, so simple that it doesn't even take the backing of a small label to set one up. Individual artists have launched their own digital storefronts featuring all sorts of distribution models (see Trent Reznor's latest experiment for some interesting examples). But if indie labels face an uphill battle getting people to visit their own stores, the situation is that much worse for individual artists, which is why it seems to make the most sense for bands that have already built a following.

For many artists, running a store's infrastructure is a commitment they're not interested in making. For them, the likes of the iTunes Store might offer a bit less cash per sale, but they remove nearly all the hassle of national sales and distribution. The digital revolution has benefited such artists as well. Services like TuneCore make it simple for anyone to get music into the popular music download stores. No label is required; for under a hundred bucks, you too can see your opus up on iTunes.

While the declining major label revenues might generate headlines that sound like the good ship Music is about to be boarded and sunk by P2P-wielding pirates, the larger story is that there's more music than ever in the world, and more ways to get it in the hands of listeners. That should be music to any fan's ears.

"Services like TuneCore make it simple for anyone to get music into the popular music download stores. No label is required; for under a hundred bucks, you too can see your opus up on iTunes."

Yeah, iTunes in notoriously hard to get to carry independent tunes, but one way to get on there is if you sell a CD via CdBaby, something any commercial indie artist should probably be doing anyways.

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My advice to independent artists wanting recognition (and maybe a little revenue too) is to do it all!

(1) Learn a little html and set up your OWN website. It doesn't have to be all that complex or flashy, in fact probably best to keep it simple. (Check out my band's site: http://electricgypsy.info for example of ideas.) - Be sure to link to everything you have on the web from your own website. You do NOT have to host your own bandwidth hogging files on-site directly. (see #2 & 3 below!)

(2) USE sites like DMusic, Soundclick, PureVolume, GarageBand, OurStage, iLike, etc. - But don't just stick your music on there and go away. Participate in the community those sites offer. (I'm biased by DMusic of course because it simply has the best community!)

(3) USE YouTube and DailyMotion and other video sites. Also, a MySpace presence is an almost necessary evil. (You want fans from the unwashed masses? You gotta go to where they hang out.)

As for selling CD's, use CdBaby AND sell them yourself from your own site. To sell downloads, Amie Street and iTunes are options, but check out OurStage. (I read an article on BoingBoing that said OurStage gives you %100 of digital sales!)

No matter what sites and services you use, be sure to shop around for the best deals. ALWAYS carefully read the Terms of Service and make sure you are not signing away something you'll regret. These music and social networking sites are built upon the back of content. That content is YOURS! Don't let them have too much of the pie.

looks like more people are getting tired of being bent over a table and violated by itunes and the riaa whe might as well run itunes.

This is great news indeed! But where can we get economies of scale to work for us?

How does that happen?

And who is marketing savvy enough to do the rest of the business stuff that comes with running those sales, so the government gets its bit, etc?