The artist and development company in Los Angeles, 440 Aritst Alignment, took the D.I.Y. approach one more step when it came to releasing digital music for independent artists. Susan Calloway, formerly known with the velvet voice who sings the theme song "Answers" from the new Final Fantasy XIV game, turned to 440 Artist Alignment to re-package her debut solo album, Chasin The Sun. In most situations using TuneCore or CD Baby could've done the job. However, with 6 songs, 7 videos and a Digital Booklet, using one of these sources could cost an artist in the thousands, I don't know about you but that is not indie- budget friendly!
Solution? With months of hassel, the final decision was to self-release the album, using her strongly built Social Networks (Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter) to market, a secure file- share company, Box.net to download her content from and the world's safest online payment method, PayPal (94.4 million users) to purchase. All three powerful mediums working together to release, Susan Calloway's Chasin The Sun (Deluxe Edition).
In 2011, when debut- album sales have dropped 77% since 2003, budgeting very carefully to release your album could make a difference from being able to start a Facebook Ad or a Jango Radio Station that would benefit more to promoting than album than just having it available. While an artist may loose the convience of selling through iTunes, they do have the flexibility of pricing their content unlike on iTunes where singles are usually sold at .69 cents or .99 cents. When you self-release, the price is yours and you can even set an option up like Radiohead did where they let customer choose themselves. What to come away with all this? There is more than one way of doing things, so find a way your own way to stand out.
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