He's coming by today to pick up the latest mixes to listen to. The Album should hopefully be finished this summer and he's asking how to make some money back on it. 
As he doesn't go out and play that rules out CD sales.
Three songs are originals, 3 are traditional bluegrass so not sure if licences are needed for those. And I told him best not to try and sell the few cover songs because at his level this might not be worth the hassle of getting copy-write permission.  Used to be you had to become a SOCAN member.  
 
So I figure iTunes etc is how it goes these day's. 
Is Reverbnation's fee and system worth while? Or do you go direct to Apple? I also understand CD BAby as an option. I know there must be a thread at least once a week on the topic but couldn't find one here. 
 
https://www.reverbnation....5l7jUvFeOWQaAotN8P8HAQ

Really paying for CDBaby to put out a digital release is probably the best option. They will put it up on iTunes and everywhere else all in one go. It really doesn't cost that much (last I checked it was around $12 a tune and $50 for an album). That gets it pretty much everywhere on the internet, they collect the money and send the artist a check.
 
They really should sign up for Socan still though. It's free for artists ($50 for publishers) and they can do it online now so it's no big deal. They don't deal with copyright but they will collect royalties in all participating countries and, to me, having a song registered with them would be pretty good proof in court of ownership even if they don't shell out the ridiculous copyright fees (of course all intellectual is automatically copyrighted... you just gotta prove it in court if a dispute occurs).
 
As far as the traditional songs... well the Socan cats may be able to help figure out what's allowable and what isn't and if it's their own arrangement of an old standard they may be able to copyright/collect royalities on that.
 
You probably know much of that anyway but that's kind of how I'd go about it. There is also the songwriter's guild and similar orgs that are better for the copyright stuff.
 
As far as making money? lulz... It ain't impossible but without being able to hock the stuff from a stage that's a rough go. That's why CDBaby is kind of cool because it's full saturation. If it's really good and their lucky then who knows. Seems to me you gotta have your own fan base already or be connected with a label/promo company to really have a good shot but without gigging that's all a pretty hard sell.
 
One thing maybe would be to set up a website and try to sell the tunes directly either to individuals or to tv/film folks. They'd REALLY need to get some royalty collection agency on their side for film stuff.
 
Cheers and best of luck to the dude.
 
PS: I just remembered... since you are in Canada they could use the tunes to maybe get some kind of arts grant from the the gov. The grants are all kind of weird and obscure but they may be able to fit into one of those square pegs. If they are aborginal... well lots of funding for native artists. They also have weird multimedia, cross genre/artform/modern tech style grants. So like if they play their songs while painting a picture with a bruch hanging out their butt in front of a backdrop of a film of seagulls eating cigarette butts at the beach while hosting a live webcast to Antartica they might get a bunch of money.... or something like that.
 
lol... your tax dollars at work.

Hey Thanks Beeps,, Good stuff. I showed him both CD Baby and Reverbnation web sites and the costs and all that. He's a real hillbilly, and almost 70 and doesn't have internet.  I'm not sure I want to be involved in the marketing of clients material but I want to give him some sort of hope that he could make some money. He's bugged me about what he should do when the album is done for a year now..  all he understands is a CD album that you make and sell. I told him CD's are really only good for selling at Gigs and that you almost don't need them anymore. 
It seems for the price you could do both CD Baby and Revernation.
But as you say without internet and a way to promote yourself on line and not going out to gig, I don't think he's got any hope. But I hate to tell him that after he's paid me over a grand to record all this,,, but I did warn him from day one.. 

That is a shame but you did your job. I think CDbaby will actually upload to Reverbnation too but I would have to check their list of sites they publish on again.
 
Gigging at 70? Yeah, that sounds like a pain. I'm not even 40 yet and couldn't do it (but I might as well be 70... lol). Maybe he's got some kids/grandkids who could manage it for him. There really isn't much to do. You just send CDBaby the files, give them your info and, with any luck, get a bit of money rolling in every quarter. They'll also do limited manufacturing so he can have a hard copy (and they'll keep a few discs in stock for orders and to send to stores) but it sounds like they may have been dropping the ball a little on their hard copy distro (new ownership/management or something). I don't blame you for not wanting to manage clients. You have a studio so... well that's enough work as it is.
 
I intend to pay to become a publisher through SOCAN myself at some point and maybe take on a couple friends acts or something someday but it would really be mostly casual and for convenience (essentially instead of trying to show them how to do it all I could just say... yeah, I'll be your publisher, set you up and you can bail on me in the unlikely event you get real label action... if you even care about such things).
 
I'm not running a brick and mortar studio though and I'm kind of an artistic flake so it's more about just keeping busy and doing interesting stuff. If I had a full on studio I'd just try to manage that (but more than likely never let anyone in and just play with all the toys myself... lol).
 
Anyhoo... I guess another option for him would be to get some discs together and fire them off to some of the radio jockeys who are into his stuff or even see if he can get airtime on CBC. I've had demos of my old celtic band played on specialized radio shows simply because my bandmates new the DJ and he liked our stuff (I think he came out to see us and asked for something to play so I did a crummy off the floor recording in my old "studio" which was essentially my bandroom with some crappy mics and a computer set up).
 
The country/bluegrass festival circuit is alive and well in Canada so if he gets some attention he could even play a couple of those and almost immediately make his money back. They pay very well for good artists. I'm pissed because I was juuuuust starting to break into that type of scene before my body crapped out on me and I couldn't gig anymore. Total suxxor but what can ya do.
 
Cheers.

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/05/29/digital-distribution-company-review
This is worth reading.

I have used cdbaby in the past and have been pleased with what they provide, but in reality I'll never recover the money spent. For this reason I'm looking pretty hard at Distrokid. $19.99 a year for unlimited uploads...plus ISRC codes. That may be enough for me.
 

One thing I did find out. With cdbaby once the fee is paid your music is uploaded forever. With Distrokid you have to pay the $19.99 every year or the songs will be pulled.

Thanks guys good information that I'll pass along to him. 
Yes it seems CD baby works out the best deal if your in for the long haul. Reverbnation is a yearly fee. 
The client can't gig because he can't get a band together. I told him I could make him performance tracks but he's so old school he could never go that route. Besides he never plays the same arrangement 2x. I had to force him to stick to song structure to get through the recording process. He's my last client I'll do like this , it's to painful...I'll stick to bands from now on.  

I'm trying a couple of songs out with Distrokid. They e-mailed me with a $12.99 a year offer. It take another year before I'm done with another cd...so I thought I could at least play around with these two and maybe learn a little as far as comparisons go.

I know this is an old thread but I just uploaded my albums to Distrokid and was impressed with how smooth the whole process was and how quickly my music got pushed to the different sales sites.  Very well designed webpage.  Well worth the twenty bucks a year in my opinion.