New Company Launches Website To Sell Albums Digitally

NovaTunes, a new internet music company, launches at the end of November. The Venice, California, based company has built the platform to distribute and sell music to a global audience of music fans in high quality digital album format.

Many artists are experimenting with selling music directly to their fans. "We've developed a model in which we leverage the fan bases of all artists on NovaTunes—the famous ones and the ones who are at the start of their career. By doing that, we add something very valuable to the model: an instant audience of music fans around the world, who are interested in quality music from great artists," says founder & President Hans Veldhuizen.

NovaTunes embraces a 'Hear, Like, Buy' approach: users can hear each album in full and if they like it, they can buy and download it directly. Music fans can also join 'artist networks' where musicians and their audience meet. They can discuss music, write reviews and recommend other NovaTunes artists they like. This type of 'social network' is a great way to discover new music and new artists.

The music on NovaTunes is sold in a new digital album format called the 'DP', which stands for Download Pack. Each DP comes with high quality DRM-free music tracks playable on any device. The package also contains printable artwork, with a bio, lyrics, credits and liner notes and an iPod-ready video.

NovaTunes cuts out the middleman. Fans can purchase DPs directly from the artist pages on NovaTunes. Pricing is determined by the artist, but will likely vary between 5 and 9 dollars, with the average DP selling for around $7. Additionally NovaTunes gives regular customers an 'All Access' status, where they can download albums to listen to on their iPods and decide to pay later. NovaTunes pays 70% of music revenue to the artist at the moment of purchase, thanks to its innovative payment solution and transparent accounting system.

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The company currently represents over 60 artists in the singer-songwriter and rock-genres, including heritage as well as developing acts. All NovaTunes artists have complete creative control over their music, imaging and release date. "The artists on NovaTunes have been carefully selected," states John Wooler, Senior Director of A&R. "We don't take on every artist. We only want to work with artists we strongly believe in."

NovaTunes expects to release at least two new DPs each week.

NovaTunes launches in the second half of November, but you can learn more and sign up for a launch alert now.

For more information, visit their web site at www.novatunes.com.