CDBaby.com is an online CD store which definitely caters to the independent musician. As opposed to CDNow.com and Amazon.com, they are easy to get into. You don't have to negotiate or have power in order to register with CDBaby.com. Actually, the submittal process is quite easy. From http://CDBaby.com, just click on the linked text that says submit music, and follow the directions from there. There is a simple, brief explanation of how to submit. If you want to skip that, you can go to CDBaby.com/submit.htm and be thrown directly into the process. It guides you step-by-step through the submittal process. The first thing you do is fill out the submittal form. It takes 5 to 10 minutes maximum, depending on typing speed. After that you send five copies of your CD, and a check for $25 to the following address (which they post after you go through the submittal form):
CDBaby
18 Juniper Lane
Woodstock, NY 12498-1208 USA
The $25 gets you several things, though. First of all, it gets you into the store, which is well worth the money, especially if you aren't in an online store. If you've ever checked to see how much accepting credit card payments on your site costs, you'd know what I was talking about. It also gets you a small webpage on their site, which includes a picture of the cover, a description (which you provide) of your CD, and streaming RealAudio soundclips of four of your songs, and of course, an easy way to buy your CD. They send you coding for a button which links directly to the page where they can buy your CD. That way, if you submit your CD for review, in say this magazine, then the editor/writer of the article can include the link. Very helpful for those of you who get glowing reviews. It also gets you $20 worth of promotional materials for your site. To be more specific, you get 100 postcards that say "You can buy our CD online at CD Baby!" and newsletters from Guerrilla Music Marketing, and great articles on how to boost your record sales.
Onto how they pay you. CDBaby gets $4 per CD sold ($1 of which goes to the credit card processing company). They recommend you price your CD at $10, so you make about $5 or $6 per CD sold. They pay by certified check for every 4-5 CDs sold, then you send them a new batch. If sales are going well, they'll have you send 10-30 CDs at once to save postage. On top of the $10, there is a shipping and handling charge of $2.25 per CD, and the average shipping time is 3-5 days. If you have any more questions, email submit@CDBaby.com.
From how CDBaby caters to you, the artist, to the consumer. There are several ways to buy music at CDBaby.com. First, you can search by looking through a list with the artist's name and a brief description of their music. The list is in reverse alphabetical order. This method is kind of boring, but quick and informative. Secondly, a consumer can browse the store by looking at album covers, kind of like they would in a real CD store. This method is much more eye-pleasing, so is probably more popular. Browsing the CD covers is definitely beneficial to those with wonderfully graphic CD covers. It's also slightly slower because the graphics have to load, but not much because they do pop-up pretty quickly. Third, they have a top five list, which is helpful for artists to keep sales in the top five, and makes the most popular bands easy to find for the buyer. Fourth, one can check out the CD Of The Week. I'm a very big fan of this feature. It gives a band each week more exposure than they would get from just being on the site, which gives them the potential for being seen by an online music publication. The CD Of The Week feature also gives buyers a reason to come back every week, which increases overall sales. Finally, a buyer can do a search by any of the following: Artist Name, Song Name, Genre, Adjective, or Similar Artists. This method gives a quick list of results.
One last note about CDBaby.com. They have useful links on their site as well, including EZCD.com, which you can read about in the next issue of Underground Music Monthly, coming out in January.