Here are the steps for becoming your own physical distributor

1. Create your CD

The first step for distributing your CD is creating it. Artglider’s CD Producer helps you create your CD online, sell it anywhere you like and ship it to any address without actually going to the post-office.

2. Sell it, start from your own website

As an independent artist or label, it is very important to have your own website. Your website is the first link to starting your own physical distribution chain. If you do not have a website yet, start one.

3. Expand your physical distribution circle.

Now a handful of companies let independent musicians / labels to sell their CDs on their platform. Here are our top picks:

4. Search online to expand your distribution circle

There are sites and mail orders out there who will love to list your CDs on their platforms. You may consider adding them to your physical CD distribution circle.

The post Physical CD Distribution for Independent Artists appeared first on Artglider.

Hello, my first question is how you started making music?

I was mostly raised by my grandfather. He was a music teacher at a elementary school here in Germany. I had access to an old piano which was placed in our living-room. So I started playing some chords and melodies on that old piano. Shortly after that I received a wonderful birthday present. It was a Casio Keyboard. The keyboard also had some kind of drum pads…so I started programming beats and played synth sounds to the beats. It was 1984 or 1985 and the synth sounds really influenced me. Eighty`s music like Pet Shop Boys or The Cure was a big thing at that time and influenced me a lot. Later, I started to learn drums. My teacher was a jazz drummer and he showed me how to explore other genres like pop music that was playing on the radio.

Can you tell us about your music?

For me music is like the air we all breathe. I need it for living. I`m influenced by 80`s pop music, the 90`s grunge scene, today`s electronic music and, of course, the big names in post-rock like Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky and Caspian. I only make instrumental music because I`m a really bad singer. Also, I think that lyrics are putting me into a certain direction regarding the meaning or feeling of a song. Instrumental music is unique and a soundtrack of my life. I`m listening to so many different genres of music. That means that my influences on each release are totally different. During the last months I discovered modern classical and ambient music. So I decided to release my first ambient album called “Convex” which is available for free on my Bandcamp page. In February 2017, I released my post-rock album called “Smile” on Fluttery Records. It`s a pretty heavy album with lots of distorted guitars and huge riffs. “Rock and ambient album? Both released in 2017?” you might ask. Yeah, I don`t want to limit my horizon to just one genre. It would probably bore me. Also, I released music under my name Jan-Dirk Platek. This music is more electronic than We Deserve This. Layed back piano stuff.

How do you promote your music?

I use Bandcamp notifications, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to promote my music. I share my music in different groups on Facebook to spread my music. I`m pretty good (and annoying) in spamming my audience on social media. Some like it and others are hating it. I think that Social Media is a good tool for promoting music and art. But I also have a mailing list and from time to time I send out newsletters. The Internet destroyed the market of selling music but it opened the door to get more attention. I really don`t care if someone is downloading my music from an illegal download page. Nearly all my releases are leaked. But I don`t care. More important for me is the fact, that my music is spread all around the globe. I´m not in it for the money, I just want to reach as many people as possible with my music.

Can you tell us about your sold-out CD campaign? How did Artglider help you in the process?

Artglider was a huge help for me. They created my CD called “Versions” in a very short time on a high quality level. They helped me with the artwork on their page. It`s so easy to produce high quality CD`s through Artglider. And the best thing is, if an album is sold out you can easily order new ones via the internet. Artglider is an outstanding service for small artists like me.

What do like most about Artglider?

They produce high quality print on demand CD`s for very low prices and deliver these CD`s to your customers if you want it.

Would you recommend Artglider to your friends or any artists?

Yes, no doubt about it. Artists can trust Artglider and services they offer.

Do you do any jobs besides making music?

My normal day job is sound and light technician in a theatre here in Germany. Music is just a hobby for me. Producing music is like vacation for me.

What’s your daily life look like?

I have a beautiful wife and two little daughters. I`m really enjoying the family life. I go to work (mostly in the evening hours) and when I have a day off or two I produce music in my own studio space. My life is not very spectacular, I`m a daddy with lots of instruments. It`s fun.

We can see on your Bandcamp that you release a few albums in a year. How do you keep yourself this productive?

Like I said in the beginning: I need music like I need the air to breathe. I can`t live without music and I always have a riff or melody in my crazy head. I love creating music. I`m also into photography and this is also very inspiring for my music work. I`m a workaholic, I can`t be lazy. Live is too short to be lazy. Thanks for asking me these questions!

Thank you very much for your time.

To listen Jan’s music you can visit his Bandcamp page
If you want to have your music on CD, you can check Artglider’s CD Producer

The post German artist We Deserve This makes a sold-out CD campaign appeared first on Artglider.

Besides a digital version of your release you can also sell your physical products on Bandcamp. CD is the best collectable item for your fans and it is a source of income for artists.

You don’t have to order hundred copies of CDs at once and ship it to your customer any more. All you need to do is create your album on Artglider CD Producer and list your album for sale on Bandcamp.

Whenever your fans order a CD, log in to your Artglider CD Producer account and ship the item online to your fan. You are able to ship as little as one CD for a little price.

This solution can save you from big up front investments and stress. We do all the fulfillment, storage and shipping for you. This way our musicians and label owners can save lots of time, money and energy and they can focus on what they like most.

Quick Links:
Artglider CD Producer – Easy and cost-effective solution for CD production and order fulfillment.

The post Fulfilling Bandcamp orders appeared first on Artglider.

Log in to your Artglider CD Producer account. When you go to “My Albums”, you will notice that now your product status is “In Stock” which means ready for distribution. Choose the album you want to ship and click “Add to Cart”. Next, you can view your cart and proceed to “Check Out”.

When you are on the Check Out page, first we need to choose a billing address which is usually your address. This is just for the records, we will never bill extra charges. You can simply choose the billing address from existing addresses or you can enter a new one.

The next step is choosing a shipping address. You can ship your album to your fans, yourself, stores, distributors or anyone you like to. You can simply choose the shipping address from the existing addresses or you can enter a new one. Then you choose the shipping method and pay the ammount on PayPal.

You will receive an email that your payment is complete and you can see all your orders in “My Orders” tab in the “My Account” section.

As soon as we receive your order, your album is going to be packed and shipped and you will get a notification that the album is on the way. You can also track the order status in your order history page.

You can fulfill all your CD orders coming from Bandcamp, your website, Facebook store or anywhere you sell music. Also you can re-stock CDBaby or your distributors you have. This approach to CD production means no waste, lower costs and less administration. No storage costs, no boxes in your home, no inventory risk, complete process integration and order management.

Quick Links:
Artglider CD Producer – Easy and cost-effective solution for CD production and order fulfillment.

Written by Artglider team, Graphics by Freepik

The post Shipping your CD to your fans online appeared first on Artglider.

Log in to your account and click “Create An Album” in the top menu. Enter your artist name, album name and upload an album cover. It’s size should be less than 1 MB. Ideal image size here is 700 X 700 px. If your image is too big, resize it on Pixlr or any other software. The ideal resolution is 72px. This image is not going to be printed on your CD. It is an image to be displayed on the website.

After you have select the image from your computer, click activate button. Wait until the green button changes. When the green button changes into a payment button, simply click on it and make the payment via PayPal.

After you make the payment, your album will be visible in “My Albums” section, but you can not order it yet. We need to finish a few easy steps to make this product ready for distribution.

Next step is to send your files. After we receive your files, your album will be available for order shortly and you can sell it anywhere including your site, Bandcamp, Facebook store and ship it anywhere.

Quick Links:
Artglider CD Producer – Easy and cost-effective solution for CD production and order fulfillment.

Written by Artglider team, Graphics by Freepik

The post Creating your album appeared first on Artglider.

Exporting Bandcamp emails

Go to your Tools page on Bandcamp. In the section titled “Mailing list,” you’ll see links to export your full list, or just the addresses added since your last export.

How can I grow my mailing list via Bandcamp?

Bandcamp collects emails for paid downloads and merch automatically. For free downloads, check “require email address” in the track or album editor.  You can now collect a fan’s email address when they download a free track or album. Simply tick the “require email address” checkbox on the Edit Track or Album page, and when a fan downloads your music, Bandcamp will ask them for their vitals and email them a link to the goods.

How can I add fan emails to my mailing list and send newsletters?

Sign up for Artglider Mail Enginner – The best way to send email newsletters to your fans. Export your fan emails from your Bandcamp “tools” page. Go to your “Subscribers” tab in Artglider Mail Engineer. Create a user group. Here is a great article about what to do next.

The post Exporting Bandcamp Fan Emails and Adding to Your Mailing List appeared first on Artglider.

Click the SUBSCRIBERS link on the left hand side of the Artglider Mail Engineer Control Panel. Click the VIEW button next to a group you have created.Click the IMPORT tab at the top of the page. You now have a number of options as to how you would like to import subscribers.

Click “From a Spreadsheet”

Click on the Upload File and select any Excel or CSV file on your hard drive.

There are some more advanced option here also, which you can use to aid your import.

Mark emails that already exist in this group as Active or In-Active. This is useful for importing lists of subscriber that you DON’T want to email any more. You can import your list and if the email already exists you can have the system set it as inactive (ie not emailed again).

You can also exclude emails that already exist in any other group, handy for weeding out people you already have in other lists. It is slower to do this tho.

And finally you can choose to exclude emails that have bounced before.
Once you are happy with everything, click “Upload Spreadsheet File” to start uploading your spreadsheet. Please note, you MUST have gained opt in permission from any subscriber you import.

When your file has finished importing you will be presented with the following screen.

This screen shows each column that we have found in your spreadsheet, along with some sample data so you can easily see which columns refer to what.

For each column you would like to import, click the Red drop down box at the top of the column which is defaulted to “Don’t Import” and select the data field you would like to import that column of data into.

For example if a column relates to First Names, click the “Don’t Import” drop down list at the top of the column, and then select the “First Name” field from the Artglider data fields.

Carry on this process for each of the fields you would like to import.

The only field that is REQUIRED is the Email Address field so make sure to select a column for Email Addresses.

Once you have assigned all of your fields to Artglider fields, click the IMPORT button at the bottom of the page.

You will now see a screen that shows the progress of your import, detailing the emails that have been imported and the emails that haven’t (and why!)

Try not to navigate away from this page during the import process, or all of your emails will not be imported.

Wait for the import to complete (Watch the blue progress bar get to 100%) and then click the “Finish” button that appears.

Your fans should now be imported!

Use one of the above methods to start adding subscribers to your account.

Quick Links:
Artglider Mail Enginner – The best way to send email newsletters to your fans

Written by Artglider team, Graphics by Freepik

The post Adding Subscribers by Importing from a Spreadsheet appeared first on Artglider.