As a musician, I’ll tell you, there’s not many things out there that will help you as much as CD baby. CEO Derek Sivers founded the company in 1997 in New York City, and hasn’t looked back since. This is the real deal. If you don’t know what CD baby is, then let me bring you up to speed with this highly credible company.

CD Baby is an online record store founded and run by music lovers. This is as independent as it gets. They don’t accept music industry payola, and the company operates under four main principles.

• The musician will be paid every week
• The musician will get the full name and address of everyone who purchases their music
• The musician will never be removed from the system for not selling enough
• The site will never accept advertising or paid-placement

The company listens to every single disc they receive, and has one of the most straightforward and user designed web sites you’ll come across in an online record store. I just love the no frills approach to the organization. I’ve sold music on CD Baby in the past, and I’ll tell you, there’s nothing like getting an unexpected cheque in the mail, but more importantly, knowing that someone you don’t know picked up your record through the recommendation on the site or a random search for a type of music. It’s even better getting an email from that random music lover who took a chance on your release, saying how much he or she loved it. If you’re a musician, press your discs, and contact them immediately. This is as good and genuine a company as it gets, and they are true as anything real about spreading the love of music. These stats are directly from their web site:

• 241,646 artists sell their music at CD Baby
• 4,543,164 CDs sold online to customers
• $81,875,608 paid directly to the artists

Jack Johnson and Regina Spektor are but two notable artists who sold music with CD Baby before signing their major label recording deals. Another cool thing they do…Hostbaby helps musicians set up intuitive and well designed websites.

The company has also launched a counterpart film company, with the same basic business design, but is aimed at the independent film industry. Film Baby operates under the same principles, and spreads the love about independent cinema and film.

This stuff is great for the independent music and film community/industry, and this is what it’s all about.