There are many online services available these days that quickly and easily help you sell your music as ringtones, or turn album art into mobile phone wallpaper. These services will give you your own mobile content store that you can embed in your MySpace page or on other sites, and give your fans new ways to enjoy your creations.
Caveat: Do people really use ringtones? I’m not sure. While I exist in a bubble insulated by snobbery and isolation, I hear that human consume ringtones in supersize quantities, and that people are actually willing to pay MORE for ringtones than the actual songs they come from. Which seems RIDICULOUS to me. But hey, perhaps that means ringtones are a great way to subsidize the cost of songs. In the near future I will be setting up some songs as ringtones and do an experiment to see how well they sell…Perhaps those of you who actively use ringtones can share your stories and ringtone dreams…
Below is a quick review of two of the more popular services available that enable independent artists to sell their own ringtones…
MYXERTONES
Myxer helps you create and distribute mobile phone ringtones and wallpapers. If you want to sell them, you can use their tools to do that as well.
Cost
Myxertones is free if you want to give away your content. Otherwise they keep 70% of gross sales for overhead and their own pockets if you sell your tones or wallpapers.
Selling Tones
Myxertones allows you to set the price for each ringtone or wallpaper between $0.99 and $2.99. The service provides MyxerTags, small pieces of HTML code, that you can add to your website or MySpace page to sell directly to your listeners. Users enter their phone number and receive the corresponding mobile content.
Pros
- Includes online tools to make ringtones and wallpapers
- No up-front costs.
- Receive payments through Paypal
- Generate text codes to enable download of ringtones directly from mobile phones
- Ringtones included in the Myxer catalog, which may give additional exposure
Cons
- Because you pay nothing up front, you receive a lower percentage of sales (30%) compared to other services that charge monthly fees and pay out 40-50%.
XINGTONE
Xingtone enables you to turn your audio into ringtones, and then sell or give them away via your own mobile content webstore. These “webstores” can be embedded on your website, blog, myspace page, etc.
Cost
Xingtone is free if you give away your ringtones. If you want to charge people, Xingtone will charge you. Plans are as follows:
Selling Tones
Artists can set the price for ringtones (they recommend $0.99-$3.00), and the plans pay out 40-50% of the gross sales, with the rest going to Xingtone.
Pros
- Customizable embedded “mStores” for selling your ringtones
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