Making music is what you do. Now, no matter who you are — unsigned, already working as a musician, managing artists or running a small label — you need one thing: distribution (a way to get your stuff into places where people buy music). That’s where we come in.
Learn MoreDid you know that when a song you wrote is downloaded or streamed, stores are required to pay you — the writer — a publishing royalty known as a mechanical. The problem is they don’t know who you are.
Learn MoreWe put your music on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and many other stores. We collect and give you 100% of the money from your music sales along with detailed streaming and sales reports.
Here’s what you’ll need to get started:
That’s it.
To create an album, single or ringtone, you’ll enter your release name, artist name, set your release date and fill in some optional information.
Once your release is created, you’ll add your songs and cover art. We’ve kept this very simple and we have tutorials in case you need help converting your audio files to the right format. If you don’t have cover art, we’ll even make it for you.
With iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify, you’ve already got three of the largest, most vibrant music services covered. We have a long list of stores. Just recently, we added Google Play, Simfy and Deezer with more new stores coming later in 2012.
On average, it takes stores 2-14 days to make your release available for sale. Even before then you should start getting the word out by using Facebook, Twitter, sharing your TuneCore Media Players and creating an awesome YouTube video.
We offer two kinds of reports for music sales: Daily Trend Reports, which show your most recent sales in iTunes, and official Music Sales Reports from all stores. Stores send us official reports and the money you earned about two months after the actual sales.
You can withdraw funds at any time in one of 3 ways: Paypal, physical check via US Mail, or by electronic funds transfer to a U.S. bank account.
We register your songs with hundreds of societies around the world to help you claim your publishing royalties. (Pssst! If you don’t claim your money it gets paid mostly to major music publishing companies.) Ready to fix that and get what’s rightfully yours? This service is for you, if ...
It’s possible, but it’s a big and expensive pain in the neck. Our infographic has the details.
ASCAP and BMI collect performance royalties. We collect those — plus mechanicals and many other types of royalties. Lost? Check out our royalty map.
The money you earn from download sales outside the U.S. & Mexico, and all your streams worldwide, doesn't include songwriter royalties. You're missing out on real money.
First, we’ll need you to fill in our songwriter registration form. Next, we’ll ask you to pay, then you’ll fill in your splits. Once all that is done, we register all your songs around the world.
Your split describes how much of a song you own. If you write all your own stuff, that means your split is 100%. If you wrote a song with another person, each of you would likely get half of the royalties — a 50% split, unless you negotiated differently with your co-writer.
Good question! We’re trying hard to bring more transparency and efficiency to this industry. While most of the societies are trying to help us get there, it can still take months for money to be released. That said, whatever we collect is paid out quarterly, directly into your TuneCore account.
