Hi Ol' Betsy
Jeff Price founder of TuneCore here. I thought I would provide some of the answers to your questions.
To begin, here is a link to background information on all of us.
http://www.tunecore.com/index/bios
As for myself, I co-own a US based independent label called spinART Records. The label began about 16 years ago and has distributed / worked releases by The Pixies, Ron Sexsmith, Apples In Stereo, The Dears, Frank Black, Echo & The Bunnymen, Apollo Sunshine, Kaito, etc etc.
I started the company for two reasons. The first is I became very frustrated with "aggregators" - that is entities that are a middle man between labels / bands and the digital on-line distributors / services ( i.e. iTunes.) In order to use their services they demand a term of exclusivity and anywhere between 9% - 30% of the revenue generated from the sale of the music. This infuriates me as I believe it is gouging.
Take for example an artist like the Dears. spinART worked extremely hard to promote and market the band in the US. The sales that occurred came from the work the Dears and spinART did. If spinART used an aggregator to deliver The Dears' music to iTunes, the concept that it would have to give up 9%-15% of the revenue being generated from digital sales to a company that mearly a package but did nothing to cause those sales angered me.
So, I decided to do something about it and started TuneCore.
The second reason I started TuneCore is I felt the market could use it. It was time to open the doors to the channels of distribution in a simple and equitable way
In the process, I also decided to eliminate accounting periods. For example, some aggregators pay out the revenue ( after they take their cut) quarterly although they get paid monthly. The model we have created allows you to get your money as soon as it posts. It sits in your account and you can transfer your earnings wherever you like whenever you like. The idea that an aggregator holds your money to earn interest or not allow you to get as you have not hit their random minimum threshold infuriates me.
To answer your questions about where money hits, currency exchanges etc - the following is how things work ( for now ).
iTunes pays for music sold in the native currency of where the sale occurred. So, if one your masters sold in Japan, Apple will pay in Yen. However, when they pay in Yen it is currently paid to a US bank. The bank converts the Yen to Dollars based on the exchange rate. When you draw your funds down, it works the other way around, the account you transfer from transfers out in US $, your bank converts your money into your domestic currency.
However, in the near future there are plans to allow the money to hit domestic accounts in each country without any conversion. For example, a sale in Japan could be paid to a Japanese account in Yen with no conversion involved
Finally, yes, TuneCore does do volume discounts. Please feel free to email me directly at
jeff@tunecore.com with any additional questions etc
I would love to make this service work for you!
And I have to admit - 5,000 to 50,000 unit sales in the UK / Europe is damn impressive!
Thank You
Jeff Price