CD Baby has paid over $200 million directly to musicians and is still expected to grow and cross the quarter billion dollar threshold in 2012.

This is great news for many independent artists who want to get their music out and earn from the results of their hard work.

CD Baby is considered to be one of the largest distributors of music by independent artists in the world and is maintaining a current rate of well over $40 million in commissions paid to unsigned artists each year.

CD Baby has been successfully building up independent musicians for a decade, and this includes award-winning artists like Ingrid Michaelson, The Fray, Jack Johnson, and Regina Spektor. CD Baby has also been helping established artists and artists that have dedicated cult followings, from 80s icons like Rick Ocasek and John Oates to 60s legend Martin Balin of Jefferson Airplane.

Last October 3, CD Baby made another step forward to help promote independently released music, by announcing its Music Store for Facebook. It is a free app that allows CD Baby artists to sell MP3s, CDs, and Vinyl directly to fans on their Facebook page. Just after five weeks, the music store has been getting 250,000 monthly active users.

CD Baby president Brian Felsen was quoted saying: "CD Baby was there in the beginning of the internet music boom. We've grown along with technology and along with our artists. We've become the model for the new music economy". CD Baby is one of the few CD-based business models that successfully transitioned to a digital download based business, with continued growth in revenues and profits each year. In 2011 alone, CD Baby has been getting a big chunk of its revenues from music downloads and streaming, while the traditional CD sales and distribution merely accounted for 12.8% of the company's revenues.

CD Baby is currently supporting over 200,000 independent artists, and manages a music catalog totalling to 3.5 million songs. CD Baby is still estimated to release 100,000 new music titles in 2011 and has over 100 million unique website visitors per year. Felsen says: "We've made worldwide music distribution affordable and available to all artists, musicians have long criticized the revenue share they receive from traditional record deals. We turned the record label model upside-down and gave the lion's share back to the artist. Now artists can sell their music to a worldwide audience, and receive 91% of all revenues." The royalties that CD Baby pays their artists are between $6 and $12 per CD and $7.50 per album download which is way better than the $1 to $2 per sale for a major label artist. Obviously this is a major boost for independent musicians, giving them the opportunity to earn better without the help of a Major Label.

CD Baby plans to continue cultivating and building vibrant careers for emerging artists. Brian Felsen closed by saying "We provide unsigned artists with the biggest sales channel available anywhere, which includes distribution to major digital outlets including iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and now their own individual Facebook music stores in addition to other key sales platforms."

If you have an album or a song to share, or if you want further details, do check out CDBaby.com.

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