Selling Your Music and Merchandise

Some people believe that the MySpace profile exists to sell product. I believe it’s there to represent your music and image in a snappy format, making it easy for fans and industry people to access you. If you sell product as well, then it’s a bonus. Having said that, it is important to offer your wares (or at least a small selection) through your MySpace page. If someone is ready to buy while visiting your page and listening to your music, then you want to make it easy for them.

The first place to start is to sell your music on your page. When listening to major and some indie artists, you may have noticed that a Buy icon appears beside their songs in the music player (see Figure 20.1). When you click it, you will see an Amazon.com link. MySpace has an affiliate account with Amazon, so every time someone purchases a song directly from the Amazon link in the music player, MySpace gets a little commission. Aggregate this over thousands or millions of MP3 purchases, and MySpace can collect a nice commission check regularly. The catch is, artists cannot add or remove this Buy icon from their music players. MySpace detects whether an uploaded song is already offered on Amazon.com and will automatically link to it. It doesn’t always work perfectly, unfortunately, and it takes time for the MySpace system to accomplish this.