Updates
Music distributors like RouteNote, DistroKid, or Amuse no longer allow guided meditations as they are not deemed music. This is true, and many folks could previously use a loophole in the “Spoken Word” music category, which is for music with a spoken voice instead of singing.
Alternatively, you can distribute your guided meditations as audiobooks using services like ACX by Amazon or Findaway Voices (now part of Spotify) that distribute to major audiobook stores like Amazon, Audible, or iTunes.
Resource
Lesson Summary
This lesson walks through the digital release process as it worked when Meditation Maker was originally recorded, including preparing your audio and artwork, entering release information, and submitting a finished recording for distribution. The available platforms and rules have changed since then, so check the update on the lesson page before choosing where to release your meditation.
Transcript
Welcome back to the second half of the module. I’m on ReverbNation.com. At the time this lesson was recorded, ReverbNation worked as an aggregator: you could upload your music, arrange digital distribution, create an online presence, and generate an electronic press kit through one portal. Other services included Bandcamp and TuneCore, but ReverbNation was my personal favorite because it combined distribution to iTunes, Amazon, and other retailers with artist-profile tools.
As an example, here is the page I helped create for a client named Liama Aesha after we recorded a meditation CD in 2014. We used the basic ReverbNation profile to support her iTunes listing, where her release is available. In this lesson, I’ll demonstrate the same process with the artwork from the previous lesson and the recording we created throughout the course.
On ReverbNation, select Join for Free. Enter an email address, create a password, and select Join. On the next screen, choose Artist as the account type and enter the artist details. For the demonstration, the artist name is “Meditation Maker,” the primary genre is Spoken Word, and the location is Hanoi, Vietnam. Accept the terms and create the account.
ReverbNation sends a verification email. Open the “Confirm Your New Account” message and select Confirm Registration Now.
The setup then prompts you to upload a song. Choose the MP3 version of the mastered Meditation Sample recording that we created in the mixing and mastering module. While it uploads, enter its title and availability. You can make a track available for streaming, downloading, both streaming and downloading, an exclusive download, or only through the ReverbNation press kit.
Offering one free download can encourage people to join your social channels when an album contains several tracks. Most of the time, however, I set songs to streaming only. People can listen on the profile and then follow a purchase link to ReverbNation or iTunes. For this demonstration, choose Streaming Only and confirm that you own or have licensed the song, since we created and recorded it ourselves.
The service asks whether you want to share the upload on social media. I skip this step and handle sharing later; the setting can be changed from the account. The same sharing prompt appears for many types of uploaded content.
Next, add a profile picture. Unlike the square icons used on many social networks, the ReverbNation layout shown here works better with a rectangular, landscape image. Browse to the artwork folder, open the prepared profile picture, make it the profile photo, and use the scaling screen to center it before saving.
You can then connect social-network accounts. I skip that option because it can be configured later from the main account settings. For now, the goal is to establish a basic presence and prepare the track for distribution. ReverbNation guides new users through the remaining setup and provides a tour, both of which you can return to later.
In the profile’s admin view, the management panel is invisible to fans. Scroll down to see how the public portion of the profile will appear. It displays the landscape profile image along with the artist name, Spoken Word genre, and Hanoi location.
Add a cover photo from the artwork folder. The composition used here places its important material toward the right so it fits beside the profile image and the artist, genre, and location text. Reposition it if necessary and save the changes. That gives us a basic public page people can find. A custom profile URL and more content can be added later.
The uploaded sample recording appears in the page’s audio player. The profile can also contain YouTube or Vimeo videos, a biography, live-performance information, comments, status posts, and press coverage. Each time you sign in, a profile-completeness indicator suggests content that can make the page more useful and discoverable.
Now let’s set up digital distribution. Open Tools, select Digital Distribution, and choose Start. The service asks about the release; for this demonstration, select Album because many of you will record more than one track.
You must own or control the commercial rights to everything you upload. In other words, you need to be the creator or authorized rights holder. You cannot upload someone else’s music and sell or stream it as your own.
Enter the release details. The demonstration uses “Meditation Maker Album” as the title, “Meditation Maker” as the artist, the chosen genre, a 2016 copyright year, and the following day as the release date.
Continue to the cover-art upload. At the time of recording, the stated iTunes requirement was a square image measuring 1000 by 1000 pixels. Browse to the square artwork created in Canva, upload it, and check that the service accepts its dimensions. Confirm that you have reviewed the artwork guidelines and continue.
The next step adds the songs. The MP3 uploaded earlier belongs to the public ReverbNation profile; digital distribution is a separate workflow and requires another upload. In the recording, I initially select the converted MP3 by mistake, cancel it, and choose the post-master stereo WAV instead. This is why we created a high-quality WAV master. Allow the file to upload, then enter the song title, album information, copyright year, and other requested track details. An album can contain additional songs, but we continue with one for this demonstration.
Review the release before submitting it. Confirm again that you own the recording and have the required rights. Check the artist, genre, label, release date, release title, number and duration of songs, copyright year, universal product code, catalog information, artwork, and individual song details. When everything is correct, select Finalize.
The recorded interface then opens a payment page that accepts PayPal or a credit or debit card. At the time of recording, the displayed distribution price was US$9.95 per year for the release. Complete the requested billing information to purchase the service.
The stores review uploaded material before publishing it. The lesson notes that iTunes performed a manual check, so a release did not appear instantly. For a quick turnaround, the advice at the time was to allow at least a day or two. For my own albums, I normally plan a six-to-eight-week lead time after mixing and choose a future release date so the stores can prepare the release before the coordinated launch.
Back in the ReverbNation dashboard, select View My Profile Page and scroll below the private admin panel to inspect the public view. From here, you can add a video by supplying its YouTube or Vimeo URL, write a biography, and upload more photos. Promotional offers may appear during these steps; they can be declined.
The biography field shown here allows a substantial artist description. The Members feature is useful for bands whose individual members have ReverbNation profiles. Additional photos can be uploaded from the artwork folder; landscape images often need to be scaled or repositioned for the preview. Songs and albums can be managed either from their section on the page or from the Content area.
At the time of recording, ReverbNation distributed releases to iTunes, Amazon, and more than 50 other online retailers while also acting as an artist website and electronic-press-kit service. The FanReach tool could build a subscriber database, import contacts, and send newsletters. I generally sent one every two or three months between releases.
Under Tools and Press Kits, the existing profile content forms the basis of an electronic press kit. I had used one for a band and found it professional and effective for finding work. The recording shows both a free basic starting option and paid features after a trial, with the exact price shown at that time. Whether those features make sense depends on the commercial purpose of your meditation.
I think of ReverbNation as LinkedIn for musicians and recording artists. The more relevant content you add, the more complete the public presence and press kit become. A press kit can be shared with industry contacts through a link, and access can be restricted to people who receive that link.
Select View Profile as a Fan to see what the public sees. The Customize Profile area lets you drag and drop the layout and choose which sections to display. A solo meditation creator may not need a Members section. Press, a blog, statistics, fans, and other modules can also be shown or hidden. As a social platform, ReverbNation lets users follow artists in much the same way that people subscribe to channels on YouTube.
My own profile illustrates a more complete page. It uses the cover photo to promote a crowdfunding campaign and includes photos, songs grouped by album, a biography, management and contact information, recommendations, fans, videos, press, shows, social links, posts, and a chronological discography. Keeping those sections updated helped the page rank strongly for my genre and location.
The discography also reflects the reason I created this course. It runs from the release I was promoting in 2015 back to my earliest work in 2012, shortly after I began learning to record at home. Recording and releasing work is now within reach of far more people. The internet has made the playing field more level for anyone with an artistic vision, and it is possible to publish recorded work much more easily and affordably than before.