How much does it cost?
You pay a one-off fee per release of just:
- €19.99 for a Single (1 to 2 tracks)
- €29.99 for an Album (over 2 tracks)
The fee is payable credit or debit card or can be made with Paypal through our secure software.
We pay you 90% of the income generated by sale of your music and unlike services offering '100% royalties', there are no annual, subscription or hidden fees to deal with so you, the artist, stand to make more money from your music.
Great but what type of contract do you offer? Does Zimbalam own my music?
Zimbalam offers an entirely non-exclusive contract and you keep all of your rights. By using Zimbalam, you are simply granting us the non-exclusive rights to sell your album on the services and in the countries you select. You can terminate the contract at anytime simply by giving us 30 days notice.
Phew, so where will my music be sold?
That's entirely up to you! Using the Zimbalam Backstage area, you have full control over your release, you choose which stores you want to sell your music and in which territories you want your music to be available.We cover more than 35 stores worldwide, which, in turn, cover hundreds of outlets around the world.
As well as setting the price and release date for your music, you can choose exactly which stores you want to sell in, from one to the full list. Many other services only offer 'packages' with a different number of set stores, our back-end system means you can use Zimbalam if you don't own the rights to your music for all territories or have already had your music distributed to some stores using a different service.
We offer you the ability to sell your music worldwide on the major services, as selected by us because they represent the largest services globally and in their respective countries. Many competitors boast lists of hundreds of websites you've never heard of, most of which don't exist and will never account for a single sale, usually the same stores are counted in each country to increase numbers. As far as we're concerned, iTunes is iTunes so only represents one store on our list. Why pay more for the same service?
If you have a specific question about a particular store or service, please contact us on suggestion@zimbalam.com
This is the largest network offered by any company in the world and all our deals are direct through our parent company, Believe Digital, this means that we don't deliver your music through any third parties, we own and operate our technology internally and this ensures we can offer the best rates and fast, reliable delivery of your content. iTunes, eMusic, Napster, amazonmp3, Spotify, Nokia Music Store, Rhapsody, Beats Digital, Dance Tunes.com, Trackitdown, Djtunes.com, Junodownload
What about Spotify?
Spotify is offered under the same terms as the traditional download services we cover, you will receive 90% of all the revenues we receive from Spotify for streams of your music. The revenues paid by Spotify are 50% of what the service generates globally divided amongst artists based on their number of plays and includes revenues from both advertising-funded 'free' accounts, and subscriber accounts.
Based on our discussions with Spotify and experiences with other streaming services, we anticipate the royalty rates to be 1-2 pence per 'subscriber stream' and 0.1 pence per 'free stream'.
Please take note of this when considering if you want your content available on the service as these revenues are considerably less than are generated from traditional sales.
Please make sure you are fully aware of the royalty rates when adding Spotify to your package as you will be unable to remove your music from the service in the future without incurring a €30 take-down fee (please see point 8 below).
Despite the low revenues earned from Spotify streams there are a number of benefits to making your music available on the service; firstly Spotify has a download agreement with 7 Digital in the UK, meaning that anyone who likes a song can click straight through from Spotify to purchase it from the store so you can drive your fans towards the site to 'try before they buy'. There is also a promotional benefit to being on Spotify as the service is currently
receiving a lot of media attention there are an ever increasing number of users for the service and this is a great audience to make your music available to and a great way for people to discover your music.
What about Shazam?
Shazam is an application for instantly identifying the title of a song that's playing. Simply launch the software and point the microphone of your iPhone, Blackberry, Android at the music source, the application will record approximately 20 seconds of the track and after a few more seconds will send the title of the song directly to your device with full details of the music (artist, album title, CD cover, etc.) as well as links to purchase the music directly from iTunes and other digital music stores.
If you choose to deliver your music to Shazam, we send the 'fingerprints' of your music to Shazam so that users can identify your music through the application. However, as this application is not a sales department directly, you will actually not receive sales royalties from Shazam, but users can identify your music and then buy it directly from other websites selling your music online.
How do I access my royalty reports and when do I get paid?
We give you access to a secured personal area where you can upload and manage your releases yourself, make changes to your artist player and monitor your sales.
We make all the data available to you immediately once we receive the information from the stores and generate a royalty statement each month. Some stores report to us on a monthly basis (usually within 45 to 60 days after the end of the month) and other stores report on a quarterly basis. Reports not received in time from a specific store will be shown in the following month's data.
We are the only distributor to provide you with reporting on daily sales for all sales made through the iTunes store: 'Realtime sales', this can be found on the Zimbalam back office.
Please be aware that 'Realtime' statements cannot be 100% accurate as it is updated monthly by iTunes to account for cancelled or incomplete sales. As such, there can end up being a slight difference between your daily 'iTunes Realtime' statements and your final monthly sales reports. 'iTunes Realtime' reports cover the 90 days preceding the report.
We pay royalties following each complete quarter, whenever you request a payment and once you have earned sufficient royalties to cover your annual subscription fee. Please be aware that we can only pay royalties once we have the sales data for a complete quarter.
We will pay you directly to your bank account after the amount owed exceeds 20EUR. You can request a payment at any time from your Zimbalam Backstage area. We are currently the only distributor to pay you directly to your bank account, meaning you will never have to pay any fees to a third party to access your royalties, no matter how much you earn! Although we can, of course, pay you to a Paypal account if you choose.
What do I have to do to release my music with Zimbalam?
Releasing your music with Zimbalam is very simple, once you have completed the sign-up form on our website, you will receive an automatic email with secure login details to access your 'Zimbalam Backstage' member area where you will be able to start uploading your release(s) immediately.
From The 'Zimbalam Backstage' interface you can upload all the data associated with your release, choose your release date, pick which stores you want your music to be available through, what price you want customers to pay and choose in what countries your music will be sold.
Using the 'Zimbalam Backstage' area you can stop and start as many times as you wish and can work on more than one release at a time, the process is completely online and can be accessed 24/7 remotely, so wherever you are you can continue to work on your release!
You can also create, monitor and update your Zimbalam Player and Facebook and MySpace Apps using the 'Zimbalam Backstage' interface, for more information about the players and apps provided by Zimbalam, please visit http://www.zimbalam.de/promotion.php
What do I need to provide in order to distribute my music?
In order to upload your music to Zimbalam and distribute it to the retailers we service, you will require:
Cover artwork - we can only accept your artwork as a .jpg file of 1440 x 1440 pixels. We offer a resizing tool if you need it.
Music - we can only accept you music in the following formats:
WAVE, 16 bit, 44100Hz, Stereo only.
Windows Media, 'lossless format' only.
MP3, 320 kbps, CBR format only.
Debit/Credit Card information or Paypal account details - for initial payment and to receive royalty payments.
Metadata information - artist name, track names, release date etc that will appear with your release on the stores.
What do I do if I want to close my account or remove a release from any store(s)?
Simply send us a written termination notice. Upon receipt, we will instruct all the stores to take your music down and will pay you all outstanding amounts due.
A takedown fee of €29.99 will be deducted from your final payment to handle the take down (unfortunately this process remains largely manual, which is why we have to invoice you for this service).
Can I upload and sell 'Audiobooks' with Zimbalam?
We provide Spoken Word content to iTunes (Stand-Up Comedy, for example). We do not deliver audio versions of works previously published in a physical book or magazine format.
What's included in the Dance Package?
The Zimbalam Dance Package offers 5 of the most important Dance Stores. Please be aware that only 'Dance' content will be sent to these stores. For example a Hip Hop, Pop or Rock release will not be delivered, even if you select the services.
Beatport and some other stores reserve the right to select what music they want to sell through their stores. This kind of selection is not compatible with the automated Zimbalam service. We don't want you to pay for a service, that nobody can guarantee that you will appear on so we have not included Beatport in the deal.
