Menyou, one of midemlab's 30 finalists, offers an embeddable online store for your music that your fans can also use to sell and get a cut. Artists are provided with an ecommerce option, fans can spread the word via sales from their own sites and social media outlets and Menyou makes sure everyone gets paid. A percentage of proceeds for specified charities is also an easy option.
Menyou Artist Sales Process
In some respects Menyou is simply a music ecommerce service with an affiliate program. Any musician or label can sell music through the Menyou Market and anyone (who buys an album) can act as a reseller for any of the content found in the Market. However, sales are designed to occur through the Menyou Micro Store which can be embedded across the web rather than through affiliate links.
Artists uploading music for sale can decide what percentage of sales will go to resellers and can also designate individuals who will share in the revenue making things a bit easier for collaborators. Menyou takes 10% of the sale plus 2% VAT.
Menyou also facilitates giving a portion of revenues to charities
A unique feature that you'll find at the bottom of many album pages in the Market is a chart showing Revenue Distribution.
The differentiating factors that make Menyou of particular interest include facilitating sales via multiple parties and providing a form of transparency that is usually not so obvious. Such an approach is in keeping with Menyou's About statement though I wonder if it will be a deciding factor in artists' decisions regarding use of Menyou's services.
Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith maintains his freelance writing hub at Flux Research and blogs at All World Dance and This Business of Blogging. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
