Exciting things ahead at CD Baby

CD Baby is doubling down on the tools that matter most for today’s musicians.

2020 is already off to an exciting start! CD Baby recently announced we’re delivering your music to TikTok. This week we partnered with Boomplay, the fastest growing music app in Africa, helping you reach a whole new market for your music. And we have big things in development for this year and beyond, including pay splits, new promo tools, and a whole lot more.

Our mission is to help artists monetize and promote their music in the best ways possible. In order to provide the tools and services you need to succeed in an evolving music ecosystem, we’ve made the decision to retire the CD Baby retail store on March 31st, 2020.

Physical distribution will continue through CD Baby. 

The majority of orders we currently ship are coming through Amazon and wholesalers like Alliance Entertainment. If you’ve stocked us with CDs and vinyl, we’ll still warehouse your product and fulfill those orders for you. We’re also looking forward to announcing exclusive opportunities for you with partners like Bandzoogle, so you’ll be able to sell physical formats from your own website and have us handle the fulfillment. For more information about the future of physical distribution, click HERE

We’re proud of where we came from, and excited about where we’re going.

22 years ago when CD Baby launched our online store it was revolutionary, helping independent musicians gain direct access to their fans and the market in the only way available at the time. By 2009, sales through our store accounted for only 27% of the total revenue we paid to artists every week. By 2019, sales on our store comprised less than 3% of our clients’ total earnings. It’s clear that our store just isn’t where fans want to engage with their favorite artists and discover new music. 

So we’re going to focus on what is making a difference for musicians today — our distribution, monetization, and promotion services. We’re already recognized as the only distributor to have top-preferred partner status with both Spotify and Apple Music, but we’re also making it easier for you to reach new listeners, earn more money across an increasing array of channels, and opening up new territories for your music too, including the massive markets of India and China.

It will be bittersweet when we retire the store, the end of an era. But it will enable us to better serve the growing community of independent artists making music today in a fast-changing environment. 

Sincerely,
Tracy Maddux
CD Baby CEO

To learn more about about the future of physical distribution at CD Baby, click HERE.

For more discussion about these important changes, listen to Episode #249 of the DIY Musician Podcast.