Opinions Please!...Preference to Placing a New Album Online (listeners preference)

Buco

On the other hand I'd want people to hear my music.

Really, when you think about it small acts never made money selling records. What was it that you would get from a single CD sale? $0.50 from a $15-18 CD? If you were Sting or U2 etc, you would have a better contact that got you about buck, but even those guys made their fortunes from touring. So unless you were a big name, the only way you could possibly support yourself from playing music was live gigs, where you could also sell your CDs and actually make a profit. Which is the way it's been for centuries, playing live music to make a living, until what, a little over a hundred years ago?
So for roughly a last century musicians were able to put their music on a physical media and sell it and potentially make money without ever stepping on the stage. Yes, there's also how Craig makes a living, composing for hire, but that's a relatively small number.
I don't know, maybe this digital age is doing us a favor, getting us to go out there, hustle and look for gigs, making a personal connection with your audience. I'm not following today's scene, but I'm inclined to say that today's popular bands have more intimate relationship with their fans because of all this.
So give your audience at least a taste if not the whole pie and go play live.
Also maybe do a certain number of monthly free downloads?

Jazzaferri

If you want publicity, do a video and put it on youtube. If you can get someone you know in the business world to put an ad on it even better

Scoredog

We did do one...we got marginal views...off our first album.

Getting a sponsor is something else.

Jazzaferri

Good fun

morricone

Or there's band camp as well where you can stream the songs a number of times and also buy the downloaded album