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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Applications > Selling large digital downloads: anyone with advice?

Selling large digital downloads: anyone with advice?
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mac freak
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Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Highland Park, IL / Santa Monica, CA
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Jan 30, 2010, 03:27 AM
 
First off, I'm shocked that my login is still in the system here. I used to post like a maniac back in '00-'02, but I don't think I've posted since '05. This was always the best Mac forum on the web (even if my post count slowly approaches zero as old archives get deleted!).

Google has failed me on this question, and so I fall back on you guys.

I've been writing electronic music here and there for a while now and have always offered free AAC downloads on my website. I also sell on iTunes and other digital stories and send off physical copies to people who ask for them once in a while.

As I prepare a revamped website, I would like to offer lossless downloads of my albums for $4 or $5 each. That means a 300-400 MB download. There seem to be a good number of digital download services out there, but many of their websites look unprofessional and no single service seems to rise to the top, even when reading user reviews. Payloadz looked good until I read various reports of people's sales stopping abruptly, apparently because Payloadz decided to keep the sales for themselves!

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone here had any good digital-download experiences to report. Have you successfully used any of these services? My volume won't be high -- I can't imagine more than 250 downloads per month.

Thanks a ton, and long live MacNN!
Be happy.
     
reader50
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Jan 30, 2010, 05:07 AM
 
Welcome back, mac freak.

I've no advice on your problem, but can answer the implied one. We don't delete any posts for being old. All your posts should still be here.

However, when the board was upgraded from UBB to vB, the import failed to pull in a bunch of older posts correctly. The posts were imported, but not linked to user account. They show today as made by a Guest with the same name as you.

I'm down maybe 500 posts too - the glitch only affects us older hands who registered under UBB. I may write a script sometime to match those posts to users and fix the problem.
     
ghporter
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Location: San Antonio TX USA
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Jan 30, 2010, 10:37 AM
 
It sounds like you're wading into troubled, and poorly settled waters, mac freak. The biggest of the big are not appropriate because they'll expect lots more traffic than you reasonably expect-and their rates would be based on their much higher throughput expectations. The little fish are, well, little and not stable.

Your biggest issue isn't hosting, but payment collection. There are a lot of online vendor support businesses, and even Amazon has some sort of storefront mechanism-along with tons of back office support. I'd suggest you expand your search parameters to focus on getting paid for downloads, rather than providing downloads.

Oh, and welcome back! When reader50 says he's going to fix something around here, it gets fixed. I don't know if the guy actually sleeps, but he sure does make things happen here.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
Cold Warrior
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Jan 30, 2010, 12:03 PM
 
Would the iTunes store let you register as an artist and upload your music? Then you could link to it from your page and Apple would handle the transaction too. I think we have some musicians here who have done that, but I also found this on MacWorld: Getting your music on the iTunes Store | Root | Macworld
     
mac freak  (op)
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Location: Highland Park, IL / Santa Monica, CA
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Jan 30, 2010, 03:06 PM
 
reader50 -- Sounds good! I remember the UBB/vB transition. I can't even remember what the old skin looked like.

Regarding more traditional digital stores, I've been doing that for years. I'm on iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody, and a couple dozen more (and I wish I could set the price lower than the default). The thing is, these stores don't offer lossless downloads. Since I already offer all my music for free as 128 kbps AAC on my own site, these online listings are actually redundant. The thing I want to sell is a lossless version.

Now, I could just host the lossless download myself and charge people for access to a password-protected download link using PayPal. However, I'd only know how to set one password to protect it -- not a very secure solution.

I'm not a big web developer (more of a Flash design specialist), but I'm willing tinker with some server-side software if it can dynamically generate password-protected, time-limited links without too much fuss. I already use PayPal for lots of payment processing and I'm very familiar with them. Honestly, I was surprised they don't have some kind of built-in mechanism to do paid downloads.

Feels good to post again. Maybe I'll stick around for a while!
Be happy.
     
   
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