The trick to selling beats online is to not worry about selling beats online.
Think about producing music like you would any other entrepreneurial
venture. Take the “online” aspect out for a minute. Don’t think about
the music part either. You are starting your own business. You need a
great product, a store, goals, a budget, a brand, a schedule, and a
plan. You need to invest in yourself in order to get a return. Approach
selling beats like you would approach selling any other item. Start by looking at your production catalogue from an
artist point of view. Compare your beats to industry caliber production.
How good are your beats? How many do you have? What type of beats do
you have? Is your production better than most? How clean are your mixes?
What makes you different? Are your beats worth paying for?
If your beats are actually quality, then there are just 2 steps remaining.
It's that easy - that's how you sell beats. Setup a store, upload
your beats, and other software will handle the payments part. The harder
part is driving traffic and building a presence so that people actually
visit your store.
How To Get People To Buy Your Beats
You'll probably want to set yourself up with a YouTube and Soundcloud
page. Release your beats here for free, but put in tags (tags are the
repeating "purchase this now..." or "your name" bring spoken over the
beat).
With Soundcloud you can add a "Purchase URL" - set this to be your
online beat store, so when people hear your beats, they know where they
can purchase the license for them.
With YouTube, use the annotation to setup an annotation to drive traffic
to your store. Also make sure to include in the video description links
to your store as well as other social networks.
Naming Your Beats
Avoid using names like "Reminiscent" - or vague, "artsy" names -
instead use names that people would likely search for. When a rapper is
looking for a beat, they want to find beats similar to an artist style
or to fit a mood.
Therefore titles like "Eminem Type Beat - Hardcore, Grime, Inspiration -
'Death'" work best. It's got the tags (of moods), the artists, and the
"artsy" name if you want. Make sure to put a good thumbnail - your video
can be a static image with the instrumental in the background, or it
can be dynamic (ie. changing with the beat)