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Artist’s Guide to Selling & Promoting Music on oySongs.com
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elcome to oySongs.com! We are so excited to feature your music. oySongs.com offers you a whole new way to market and distribute your Jewish music. We want to make your life easier – let us take care of the selling so you can concentrate on making new music!
oySongs makes your music available to the whole world.
To help sell your music, oySongs not only asks for high-quality mp3 and sheet music files, but also for your promotional content – and a lot of it! The more informed the customer is, the more likely they are to make a purchase.
Whether or not you (or your authorized representative) are computer savvy, below you will find that working with us to set up your oySongs Jewish music store is as easy as, well, mandel brot…
The Kishkes of Your Content: The MUSIC
mp3 Files
oySongs customers will download their audio files in mp3 format. What does this mean? mp3 is a standard music-compression file format that allows for compression of around 10x. What does that mean? Well, it basically means you can fit around 10 times (or more) more music on a CD or hard drive. It also means they can listen on their portable mp3 players (iPod, etc.). And it means they won’t have to sit at their computer waiting hours to download 1 song!
But, the existing audio files on commercial CDs (like yours) are not mp3s – they need to be converted to this format to be sellable on the web. Because we want to ensure that the customer gets the highest quality music product, we must require the following specs for each mp3 file:
File Information: Use ripping software like WinXMedia, iTunes, Nero, or Windows Media Player (use the LAME encoder with ID3 V1 or V2) to generate the actual mp3 files and to provide Track Title*, Artist Name*, Album Name*, Year of Release*, and Genre (* = required info)
Required Bit Rate: 192 kbps – no less, no more. You may use VBR set at 192 if you like.
Required Sample Rate: 44100 kHz
Cover Art: 150 x 150 pixels full-color .jpg (or .jpeg) file – please make sure it’s a good scan – album art often sells the music as much as the music itself does! For now, we can’t offer scans of the rest of the album art (it’s in the plans)
Other: Please no artificial (computer) fades; no unnecessary silence at either end of the track; no tracks under or over 192 kbps unless set on VBR. Set the channels to Stereo.
Puzzled look on your face? Read on. There are two ways to get oySongs your audio files:
- Send us your CDs (not copies – actual unopened commercial CDs, if available – we need artwork, etc.) – and we’ll do the hard work. There will be a service fee of US$20 per album – that’s less than CDBaby’s $35 per. For that small fee, we will take care of everything – making all necessary mp3 files, generating 30-second samples, and scanning cover art. We’ll need to keep the CD for our records.
- Or, ‘rip’ (industry term) the mp3s yourself, using the exact specs above. If you do this according to our exact specs, there will be no service fee (however, if we have to go back and redo most of it, there will be a service fee, so please follow the directions). We even provide an online source for you to upload the files, including cover art, pictures of you, and biographical and promotional content. Log into your already-created oySongs account, go to My Account, and click “Upload Music”, then follow the wizard. If you want to do this, follow the specs listed above.
Which software should you use? You may use any of the standard media players like iTunes or Windows Media Player. Just make sure the aforementioned specs are followed exactly.
- When you’re done ripping your songs and scanning the art, log into your account and follow the Upload Music wizard. You can upload songs as being part of an album, or as singles.
Your Sheet Music on oySongs
To add your sheet music to the catalog, just send it to us as an attachment to artist@oysongs.com. We’ll prepare it with the oySongs.com log and catalog number and associate it with your album and/or mp3 file. Sheet music is a key ingredient to the success of your music in the Jewish music world – our cantors, music directors, and worship/music leaders depend on it. There’s no better way to reach these essential markets than with oySongs sheet music.
oySongs offers the option of adding your PDF or paper music without using Sibelius. These ‘flat’ documents cannot be interacted with Sibelius-source files. However, users can still view the sheet music using Scorch. This is especially useful for artists who don’t have access to the original music files or have older ‘legacy’ content. If you would like to sell your non-Sibelius music on oySongs and have PDF files already created, please contact us. If you have paper copies, we can refer you to ECG (see above) for scanning services (from paper to PDF) for $1.50 per page, and you will receive copies of the PDFs to keep. oySongs reserves the right to approve the quality of the sheet music.
Sheet Music Files using SCORCH software
oySongs is a proud partner of Sibelius USA, Inc.. Sibelius Scorch is an amazing advancement. After installing this free plug-in (www.Sibelius.com/Scorch), the user can:
- VIEW the music without the ability to print the full piece (before they purchase)
- PLAY THE MUSIC BACK using their sound card. Want to make sure you’re downloading the right Sh’ma? Just play it back to hear the tune. The user can also adjust tempo and instruments/voices used for playback, and rewind/fast forward.
- TRANSPOSE (change key) the music!!! This is perhaps the greatest advantage to the software. The ability to change keys for a cantor or songleader offers huge convenience. No more making the accompanist transpose on the fly.
The user, after making their purchase, will then be able to print that piece out – not download it – this makes digital copying (like e-mailing a file to a friend) much more difficult. The printout will be in the key the user specified.
When submitting sheet music to oySongs, we ask that you send us publish-ready, edited, and professionally-engraved sheet music. We prefer original Sibelius files (for conversion to the Scorch format, which allows for playback and transposition.) If you have Finale or PDF files (or other formats), we can help.
Thanks to our partnership with the leading Jewish music engraving and editing firm, Eglash Creative Group (ECG), we are excited to offer you a significantly-discounted price for sheet music work, available to you as an oySongs artist. Find the option below which fits your music, and contact ECG to begin work:
- If your music is in Sibelius format already: E-mail it on over (artist@oySongs.com) and we’ll get it started at no extra charge. We will add an oySongs item number and logo to it, and make sure it’s in good form. If by chance it isn’t in good form, and needs a lot of reformatting work, we can refer it to ECG for a small service fee of $13.00 per page (editing music can be a very time-consuming task!).
- If your music is in Finale format: ECG can convert and reformat it for a small fee of $20.00 per page.
- If you have manuscript, PDF, or paper copies only: ECG can professionally typeset your entire catalog for use on oySongs, but you will own the typesetting you pay for (and the Sibelius files) for any future use such as printing a songbook, which ECG can also help with. This option is available for only $26.00 per page for lead sheets (melody line, lyrics, chords, and Hebrew if applicable). If your music has other accompaniment or is choral/instrumental in nature, contact ECG for a quote.
- If you would like for us to sell your sheet music as PDF files, but only have paper copies, ECG can scan and convert them for use on oySongs for $1.50 per page (and you will own the PDFs).
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Note: All rates subject to change without notice. oySongs reserves the right to approve all sheet music for addition to our catalog
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If you don’t have anything notated and need transcription (recording to sheet music): ECG is proud to offer a flat fee of $32.00 per page for transcription of a song into a lead sheet – that includes transcribing and typesetting of melody line, lyrics, chords, and Hebrew. For a more complex arrangement, contact us for an estimate.
Please contact ECG for an estimate on your project: Eglash Creative Group (Joe Eglash)
ecg@eglashcreative.com 918.924.5324
www.EglashCreative.com
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What else makes selling your music on oySongs so handy-dandy and cool? In addition to your traditional album/songs format, you now have a place to sell your demos (please, only well-recorded demos), orphaned songs (songs not part of whole albums), unreleased songs, outtakes, alternate takes, older cassette-only albums (if you need a transfer service, we can help you out), instrumental versions, alternate arrangements, live concerts, ANYTHING YOU WANT OR CAN THINK OF!!! Music lovers always appreciate an expanded catalog.
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Marketing Your Music with oySongs
Independent artists know it best: Getting your name out and your music noticed is a tough job. Driving over-stimulated customers to your music is a challenge in the physical and digital world. oySongs wants to work with you to give your music the exposure it deserves. We believe in supporting independent Jewish artists.
You will automatically be assigned your own personal oySongs home page. This is an easy way for you to point people interested in your music to an all-inclusive store. oySongs will work with you to promote both of our entities – it is mutually beneficial to do so. Your home page will read: www.oySongs.com/YourName. We encourage you to let your fans know that your music is available on oySongs.com.You may print this on your concert information, flyers, brochures, link to it on your website, social media pages, and list it on your CD sleeves. We will happily provide logo art and all necessary design elements. If you think of other ideas of how to work with each other, let us know!
oySongs has the ability to create infinite ways to offer your music. Unique opportunities exist with the digital format, such as:
- Virtual Songbooks (mixes of sheet music from various sources)
- Virtual Albums (mixes of audio content from various sources)
- Special Promotions (e.g. “Top 18 Tot Shabbat Songs from Shloyme Goldstein”, etc.)
- For each new album you send, oySongs will add it to the “Just Added” section on the home page, at no charge.
- All new items will be added to the appropriate “Nu?!” page.
Can you think of other ideas? We want to hear them – oySongs is open to any promotional idea. Just let us know.
oySongs Co-operative Marketing Programs
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Our colorful email newsletters are sent monthly to more than 4000 self-selected users and fans of Jewish music.
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The newsletters highlight multiple albums, artists, themes, and other oySongs-related topics
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The newsletters always have links to your oySongs Artist page for quick access to purchasing action.
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We will work with you on content and photos.
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We will schedule your space in advance to complement your other publicity programs.
Contact us at Artist@oysongs.com to reserve your space and plan your content.
HOME PAGE FOCUS + NEWSLETTERS |
- One of rotating home page Featured Artists for 60 days
- + feature in 2 oySongs e-mail newsletters
- + oySongs-designed home page banner
FEATURED ALBUM PACKAGE $25
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One of rotating home page Featured Albums for 60 days
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+ feature in 2 oySongs e-mail newsletters
FEATURED SONG or SHEET MUSIC PACKAGE $15
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One of rotating home page Featured Songs or Featured Sheet Music for 60 days
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+ feature in 2 oySongs e-mail newsletters
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SPECIAL EMAIL NEWSLETTER: Single Artist
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Special E-mail newsletter $50
Single Artist featured in one email newsletter. Dedicated to one Artist, this is perfect for new CD releases, songbooks, upcoming tours, and a great way to focus attention on your catalog. Limited to twice a year per Artist.
We will work with you to design and write these features. They greatly increase your exposure to Jewish music shoppers. Adding your music to a Featured area on the oySongs home page is an affordable way for you to market your name and your music. It’s certainly much cheaper than a magazine ad or doing an expensive mailing!!
Your Promotional Content
In addition to the music upload capability that your artist account provides, you can also upload promotional content; bits of information and pictures that make the customer shopping experience more complete:
- Biography. Click My Account/My Bio and add your already-completed biography. It can be as long as you like, but please make sure it’s spell- and grammar-checked and proofread.
- Pictures. Click My Account/My Pictures and add your headshots, in-action pics, or any pose. You can upload up to 6 images – the more, the better. Please make sure they’re .jpeg files, max size 500 x 500 pixels.
- News & Reviews. Click My Account/News & Reviews and begin uploading reviews, articles, links, or anything else you think would help people better get to know you and your music.
Other Cool Things About oySongs
- One of the perks of being an oySongs artist is catching up on your colleagues’ music – you receive a permanent 15% discount for everything on oySongs – just use the coupon code ‘artist’ when checking out!
- Since oySongs is a digital music store, and changes can be made in (almost) real time, we can offer any kind of digital music from any source at any time. Let’s daydream for a moment: you are playing a live show in Tulsa, and you’re recording it live to 2-track (mixed stereo). You give the audience a special oySongs discount coupon for the recording of the concert they were at, available for download the morning after! After the show that night, you convert all the tracks to mp3 and send them to us for posting. Sound like a pipe dream? It’s not – we have the technology and know-how to do exactly such a thing. Interested? Let’s talk.
- oySongs has developed a unique search engine to handle the challenges of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino transliteration. How do you spell Eitz Chayim? Eytz Chaim – Etz Khayeem – Eyts Haim? Whatever the customer types in the search engine, they will come up with your song or album, no matter how you spell it.
- Your Artist home page will have space for a full bio, pictures of you, news, media or personality reviews, oySongs customer reviews of your music, and any other info you think might help people get to know you and your music – maybe even tour dates or liner notes. The more info you provide, the better!
- oySongs is a great place to see how listeners react to your new music. When many artists record an album, they record more songs than will make the final cut, or record alternate arrangements of one song, with the intention of putting only one in the final track list. Can’t make the decision? Add it to your oySongs catalog and let your fans decide. Have you noticed that the record companies in recent years have begun to add alternate takes, live tracks, and demos to reissued albums? There’s a good reason for this – it’s very appealing to your fans! A rare track is valuable.
About Cover Songs…
If you have recorded songs written by other people, oySongs assumes that you have gone about this legally (with the exception of songs in the public domain). Furthermore, you are required to pay that songwriter every time the track sells on oySongs (an easy way to keep track of sales is the quarterly report you will receive) the same way you paid them for your recording – according to statutory mechanical rates. As of January 2010, in the USA, that rate will be 9.1 cents for songs 5 minutes or less and 1.75 cents per minute or a fraction thereof over 5 minutes, unless you’ve negotiated a different rate (see www.HarryFox.com for more information, or if you live outside the USA, contact your national rights administrator). That means, when you get your check and report from oySongs, you will need to, in turn, pay that songwriter or publisher their due royalty. oySongs is not responsible for payment of these royalties.
A Final “Note”
The world of digitally-available music is new to many of us. We hope that this whirlwind initiation hasn’t been too overwhelming – we’re just very excited about the new opportunities we can create for you. Also, we hope you took away an understanding of the culture of oySongs: You, the artists, are our partners. We want to see you succeed because we love this music and we believe that the world needs it.
B’shirah,
Susan Colin
Craig Colin
1504 Lakehurst Drive
Flower Mound, TX 75022
USA
Copyright © oySongs, LLC. All rights reserved. - All music protected under federal and Jewish law.