How To Release Your Music Online

You have three different choices for charging for your music: free, pay-what-you-want, and a set price. Each has their own advantages and different services that work better. Knowing that, let's break down the best places to upload your music based on how much you want for it.

 If you're releasing your first set of songs, you might want to start by giving your Music away for free. This helps people find it and share it. It also gives you a chance to get feedback from friends and family. You have a few good options to choose from here: Soundcloud: Soundcloud is the easiest to use free music upload service. It takes just a couple clicks to upload a song and once you do, you can embed your music everywhere from Facebook to your Tumblr account. You can allow people to download it, stream it, and if you choose you can even allow people to remix it. It's also a free way to connect with other musicians, follow artists you like, and create a small community around your songs. But the biggest appeal? You can allow people to comment anywhere in the song. This means you'll get personalized feedback on each section of your song. It's hard to get used to all the criticism, but it will help you improve in the long run.
Reverb Nation: If there's an equivalent to Myspace out there right now, it's Reverb Nation. Part social network and part personalized website, Reverb Nation allows you to put tracks online for streaming, share them on Facebook, and showcase your bio and upcoming shows. It's a bit clunky to look at, but it's free and gets the job done.
Upload to the streaming services: If you're interested in the streaming services,Spotmeup is a free tool to submit your songs to Spotify and Pandora allows independent artists to submit songs, but has to approve them first. Other streaming services likeRhapsody and Rdio require you to go through a distribution service (we'll get to how to do this below).
RPM Challenge: February 1 marks the start of the RPM Challenge, a contest where you're tasked with writing, recording, and releasing an album within the month of February (similar to how NaNoWriMo works for novels). If you're up to it, it's a great place to upload your new songs and get feedback from others taking part in the contest.