Music Video Distribution for Indie Artists: How to Upload Music Videos to Apple Music, VEVO, TIDAL, Spotify, and over 150+ digital outlets

Have you ever wondered how artists get their music videos on all the digital outlets?

Well, this article discusses music video distribution, who are the key players, what is the cost, what you can get out of it, how it works, and a framework to decide if it's the right thing for you to pursue at this point in your musical journey.

So in our previous articles, I wrote a bit about how you can choose a distributor, and our #1 recommendation for Indie Artist is DistroKid. However, what about your music videos? You ever see that lovely VEVO sticker at the bottom left of your favorite artist’s channel and wondered how you can get your music video here or on sites like TIDAL or Apple Music? Well, once again, we need that middle man again.

You have many choices; some invite-only, some require you to distribute exclusively with them, and some have flat rate fees or a tiered product. I’ll list a few out, but today we will be focused on PeekSound as a Distributor for your music videos.

Why might you ask? Well, I pretty much told you what a big fan of DistroKid I am, and, in my mind, PeekSound is the DistroKid of music video distribution. Let me be clear: There’s no actual affiliation, but I’ll break down what I find valuable in this company for your music video distribution needs and why they might be the best fit for you.

What is PEEKSOUND?

PEEKSOUND is an unlimited music and video worldwide distribution company based out of El Paso, TX that enables you to monetize your music projects and videos on Apple Music, VEVO, TIDAL, Spotify, and over 150+ digital outlets

So, What Am I Paying?

The cost for a PEEKSOUND membership is $79.99/per artist. I am just focusing on the video distribution aspect of this company;. However, you can upload your tracks as well, similar to any other music distributor. The music video outlets are Amazon, VEVO, Audible Magic, Fizy, Hungama, Apple Music, Vibe, Trackdrip, Tencent Music, TIDAL, United Media Agency / Xite, YouTube, YouTube Music/ Premium, and Facebook Premium Video.

However, VEVO and Apple Music are not included in the unlimited plan, and there is a separate fee for delivery to these outlets.

For VEVO specifically, if you do not have an artist profile, PEEKSOUND can create one for you for a one-time fee of $89.99 (just note you need to allow 2 weeks for your account to process with VEVO). Once you have a standing account, it is $24.99/per video to submit a video to your VEVO profile on top of the $79.99 annual membership fee. Apple requires all the projects delivered to them to be encoded, and PEEKSOUND charges a $55 fee to encode per project. Even if you have already had your project “Apple encoded,” you’ll still have to pay this fee because Apple only accepts encoded videos from an encoding house certified by Apple.

Take 'MY SINGLE' as an Example:

$79.99/year
$89.99 for VEVO profile
$24.99/per VEVO video
$55/Per Apple video

All in, the first-year cost for one single is $249.97, and then the price is $79.99 every time you add a new single after that if you want your video on VEVO and Apple. The game is not cheap, especially considering the streaming rate is about 0.00783 per view on Apple Music.

You need about 31,924 streams to make this worthwhile and break even on your first single, and then you need about 10,215 streams per single after that before you can even start to think about profit. I suggest you promote the crap out of it and see if it’s even worth the continual investment for you.

Royalties are automatically deposited into your PayPal account quarterly once your balance reaches $250 or more. The other piece is that PEEKSOUND charges a $10 fee for every $250 royalty payment sent to the artist via PayPal. The payments are automatically processed in $250 increments, so let’s tack on another 1,277 streams to get back to our break-even point.

What Do I Get for All This?

One of the neat things is that a service like this enables you to monetize your projects on YouTube without having 1000 YouTube subscribers, and they also let you keep 100% of your royalties.

So, how does it work?

Step 1: Pick your package
Step 2: Pay for the package
Step 3: Fill out the submission form
Step 4: PEEKSOUND submits your music

As a separate service, you can also use PEEKSOUND to distribute your music videos to TV networks such as BET, MTV, CMT, and more in the US, Canada, and Ireland.

Another bonus is that they can also submit your music to radio stations in the US & Canada. The only issue is that there is a fee for services but no actual guarantee that you’ll get any plays. All they do is make sure your content gets into the program supervisor’s hands.

As for the uploads themselves, there are some specific guidelines you need to be aware of for video content. I’ll list them here.

As far as opting out or canceling the service, you can remove your content at any time. You can also do something similar to DistroKid’s leave a legacy functionality by purchasing PEEKSOUND ‘Project insurance’ feature a $30.00 fee per project.

You can add Project insurance to any release so that it won’t be removed due to a lapsed membership payment (for instance, if your credit card is rejected or something like that). This is a ‘per release feature’ and does not replace your annual membership fee.

The Verdict on PEEKSOUND

Content is king right now, and PEEKSOUND is an excellent music distributor to get your music videos and or tracks out there for the world to see. However, if you’re anything like me and treat your music like a business, it seems one would need to consistently be getting closer to 50,000 streams per release to really make this worthwhile and a little more than a vanity project.

The service provides unlimited video distribution and enables you to keep 100% of your royalties, unlike similar offerings that take anywhere from 10-30%, along with other administrative fees.

I’ll leave a link to a freemium below that provides a listing of available music video distributors and their features so you can decide in your leisure what might be the best option for you.

DOWNLOAD THE MUSIC VIDEO DISTRIBUTION GUIDE

https://artisanal-author-1760.ck.page/e7f2ad640c