What is Zimbalam?
Zimbalam is a digital distribution service powered by Believe Digital, one of the largest distributors in the world. Zimbalam gives artists the ability to sell their music through dozens of the most popular digital and mobile music stores worldwide and collect 100% of the royalties earned from their sales.
Great! So how much does it cost?
Zimbalam charges you an up front fee for the distribution of your release and then an annual fee is deducted from your royalties to allow us to provide you with storage, royalty reporting, promotional tools and more. The initial cost varies based on what type of release is being distributed but you will always receive 100% of the royalties generated from your sales.
Currently Zimbalam costs £19.99 to release a single (2 track maximum) and just £29.99 to release an EP or album and an annual fee of £9.99 for a single and £19.98 for an EP or album.
Please note: We will only ever charge you once. You pay an up-front fee to cover your distribution and the first year's subscription all in one, after that the subscription fee for following years will be automatically deducted from your royalties. After your subscription fee has been recouped, you earn 100% of the royalties generated from any sales.
If for some reason you don't earn enough royalties to cover the subscription fee, for a particular release we simply keep whatever royalties you have earned and don't charge you again. This is reset each year.
Many distributors will charge you a full subscription fee regardless of whether a release has sold any copies, so we have created this solution as the fairest option for artists on the market.
How do I pay for my release and, more importantly, how do I get paid?
The initial fee is payable by credit or debit card or can be made with Paypal through our secure software, whichever is more convenient for you. The fee covers you for full distribution to all of the stores Zimbalam covers, the price doesn't go up, whether you want to cover one store or all of them!
We pay you by direct debit straight into your account and are currently the only distributor to do so. Most of our competitors are only able to pay by cheque or PayPal, meaning you have to wait for your royalties or pay extra fees to access your money with PayPal.
Once your music has sold enough to reach the royalty thresholds of your annual fee. There are no additional costs to consider and if your release doesn't sell, we don't think it's fair that you should continue to pay to keep it in stores. We detail everything on your sales reports including sales that go towards your annual fee so you can see exactly who has been buying what, when and where!
Great but what type of contract do you offer? Does Zimbalam own my music?
Zimbalam offers an entirely non-exclusive contract and you keep all of your rights. By using Zimbalam, you are simply granting us the non-exclusive rights to sell your album on the services and in the countries you select. You can terminate the contract at anytime simply by giving us 30 days notice.
Phew, so where will my music be sold?
That's entirely up to you! Using the Zimbalam Backstage area, you have full control over your release, you choose which stores you want to sell your music and in which territories you want your music to be available.We cover more than 35 stores worldwide, which, in turn, cover hundreds of outlets around the world.
As well as setting the price and release date for your music, you can choose exactly which stores you want to sell in, from one to the full list. Many other services only offer 'packages' with a different number of set stores, our back-end system means you can use Zimbalam if you don't own the rights to your music for all territories or have already had your music distributed to some stores using a different service.
We offer you the ability to sell your music worldwide on the major services, as selected by us because they represent the largest services globally and in their respective countries. Many competitors boast lists of hundreds of websites you've never heard of, most of which don't exist and will never account for a single sale, usually the same stores are counted in each country to increase numbers. As far as we're concerned, iTunes is iTunes so only represents one store on our list. Why pay more for the same service?
If you have a specific question about a particular store or service, please contact us on suggestion@zimbalam.com
This is the largest network offered by any company in the world and all our deals are direct through our parent company, Believe Digital, this means that we don't deliver your music through any third parties, we own and operate our technology internally and this ensures we can offer the best rates and fast, reliable delivery of your content. iTunes, eMusic, Napster, amazonmp3, PLAY.com, Sony Ericsson, Shazam, Virgin mobile, Vodafone live!, Spotify, 7digital.com, T-Mobile, Rhapsody, HMV Tesco, Orange, SFR, Beatsdigital, Dance Tunes.com, Trackitdown, Djtunes.com, Junodownload
How much do I make from sales on each store?
You receive 100% of the net amount we receive from each store once your annual subscription fee has been recouped. This differs from store to store and will vary depending on the price you select for your release to retail at. Please note that not all stores accept variable pricing so your release will appear in the closest available bracket on stores that don't
To give you an idea of what to expect, as of May 1, 2009, the amounts paid in average by the services per download (in Europe) stand at €0.70 for a single track sold at €0.99 and €6.00 for an album sold at €9.99.
What about streaming services such as Spotify?
Streaming services are offered under the same terms as the traditional download services we cover, you will receive 100% of all the revenues we receive from Spotify and others for streams of your music, once your annual fee has been recouped.
Based on our discussions with such services and prior experience with other streaming services internationally, we anticipate the royalty rates to be 1-2 pence per 'subscriber stream' and 0.2 pence per 'free stream'.
Please take note of this when considering if you want your content available on the service as these revenues are considerably less than are generated from traditional sales.
Please make sure you are fully aware of the royalty rates when adding streaming services to your package as you will be unable to remove your music from any services in the future without incurring a £29.99 take-down fee (please see point 8 below).
Despite the low revenues earned from streaming services, there are a number of benefits to making your music available on these services; Spotify, for example, has a download agreement with 7 Digital in the UK, meaning that anyone who likes a song can click straight through from Spotify to purchase it from the store so you can drive your fans towards the site to 'try before they buy'. There is also a promotional benefit to being on these services, with Spotify in particular currently receiving a lot of media attention there are an ever increasing number of users for these service and this is a great audience to make your music available to and a great way for people to discover your music.
How do I access my royalty reports and when do I get paid?
We give you access to a secured personal area where you can upload and manage your releases yourself, make changes to your artist player and monitor your sales.
We make all the data available to you immediately once we receive the information from the stores and generate a royalty statement each month. Some stores report to us on a monthly basis (usually within 45 to 60 days after the end of the month) and other stores report on a quarterly basis. Reports not received in time from a specific store will be shown in the following month's data.
We are the only distributor to provide you with reporting on daily sales for all sales made through the iTunes store: 'Realtime sales', this can be found on the Zimbalam back office.
Please be aware that 'Realtime' statements cannot be 100% accurate as it is updated monthly by iTunes to account for cancelled or incomplete sales. As such, there can end up being a slight difference between your daily 'iTunes Realtime' statements and your final monthly sales reports. 'iTunes Realtime' reports cover the 90 days preceding the report.
We pay royalties following each complete quarter, whenever you request a payment and once you have earned sufficient royalties to cover your annual subscription fee. Please be aware that we can only pay royalties once we have the sales data for a complete quarter.
We will pay you directly to your bank account after the amount owed exceeds 20EUR. You can request a payment at any time from your Zimbalam Backstage area. We are currently the only distributor to pay you directly to your bank account, meaning you will never have to pay any fees to a third party to access your royalties, no matter how much you earn! Although we can, of course, pay you to a Paypal account if you choose.
What do I have to do to release my music with Zimbalam?
Releasing your music with Zimbalam is very simple, once you have completed the sign-up form on our website, you will receive an automatic email with secure login details to access your 'Zimbalam Backstage' member area where you will be able to start uploading your release(s) immediately.
From The 'Zimbalam Backstage' interface you can upload all the data associated with your release, choose your release date, pick which stores you want your music to be available through, what price you want customers to pay and choose in what countries your music will be sold.
Using the 'Zimbalam Backstage' area you can stop and start as many times as you wish and can work on more than one release at a time, the process is completely online and can be accessed 24/7 remotely, so wherever you are you can continue to work on your release!
You can also create, monitor and update your Zimbalam Player and Facebook and MySpace Apps using the 'Zimbalam Backstage' interface, for more information about the players and apps provided by Zimbalam, please visit http://www.zimbalam.de/promotion.php
What do I need to provide in order to distribute my music?
In order to upload your music to Zimbalam and distribute it to the retailers we service, you will require:
Cover artwork - we can only accept your artwork as a .jpg file of 1440 x 1440 pixels. We offer a resizing tool if you need it.
Music - we can only accept you music in the following formats:
WAVE, 16 bit, 44100Hz, Stereo only.
Windows Media, 'lossless format' only.
MP3, 320 kbps, CBR format only.
Debit/Credit Card information or Paypal account details - for initial payment and to receive royalty payments.
Metadata information - artist name, track names, release date etc that will appear with your release on the stores.
How long does it take for my music to be available on the stores?
First you need to upload and 'validate' your release on the Zimbalam Backstage Area, once you have validated your release, it takes us about 24 hours to check that your release is complete and all the uploaded data is compatible, at which point, we start delivering it to all the stores. Your release will be available for sale on all the stores you have chosen, on average, within 4 to 8 weeks.
The time it takes for your music to appear on each store depends on the process specific to each outlet and unfortunately we have no way of accelerating this part of the process so please make sure you have allowed enough time for your music to clear if you are planning any activity around your release. Some stores take as little as 2 weeks to ingest content, others can take much longer.
When choosing your release date, please leave enough time for all the stores to clear upload, 6 weeks should be plenty, but the more time between upload and release, the better as you can start registering pre-sales before your official release date, so if your release is ready to go now, why wait?
What do I do if I want to close my account or remove a release from any store(s)?
Simply send us a written termination notice. Upon receipt, we will instruct all the stores to take your music down and will pay you all outstanding amounts due.
A takedown fee of £29.99 will be deducted from your final payment to handle the take down (unfortunately this process remains largely manual, which is why we have to invoice you for this service).
Can I upload and sell 'Audiobooks' with Zimbalam?
We provide Spoken Word content to iTunes (Stand-Up Comedy, for example). We do not deliver audio versions of works previously published in a physical book or magazine format.
What's included in the Dance Package?
The Zimbalam Dance Package offers 5 of the most important Dance Stores. Please be aware that only 'Dance' content will be sent to these stores. For example a Hip Hop, Pop or Rock release will not be delivered, even if you select the services.
Beatport and some other stores reserve the right to select what music they want to sell through their stores. This kind of selection is not compatible with the automated Zimbalam service. We don't want you to pay for a service, that nobody can guarantee that you will appear on so we have not included Beatport in the deal.
Can my release be chart eligible?
Yes, any release can be eligible for the UK charts. In order for your release to be chart eligible, you need to register your release's ISRC code with the PPL a minimum of 2 weeks before the release date so that the sales data can be accumulated for The Official Charts Company. The full steps for how to register a release are available on the PPL website and you can register for free:
https://www.ppluk.com/Register-with-PPL/
We are working on a solution to provide the PPL with the information they need automatically for free but until then all the information you need can be found at the above link.
