Source: Guardian Unlimited.Web retail giant Amazon is partnering with music community site SellaBand from today to offer aspiring bands and new musicians a high-profile launchpad.
SellaBand will have a dedicated store on Amazon as well as an affiliate sales deal and promotion to the 50 most active reviewers on The Vine, retail website's reviewers' programme.
Albums by SellaBand acts will retail for £8.99 on Amazon in the UK and revenues will be shared equally between the artists, Sellaband and the fans.
Amsterdam-based Sellaband is home to 6,000 new bands and operates as a user-determined record label.
Fans can listen to tracks for free, but support bands by pledging money and once a band reaches $50,000 (£24,830) in investment, Sellaband helps them record an album.
To date, 11 bands have reached the $50,000 threshold and three have released albums.
Sellaband makes its money through advertising, sponsorship and through the interest on money invested in the site's bands, with more than $1.5m (£745m) invested so far.
Johan Vosmeijer, the SellaBand managing director, said the bands have a broad appeal, from heavy metal to jazz and hip hop, and that the site thinks of itself as "the record label of the future".
"The advantage for fans is that they feel part of the activity. There are direct friendships between the bands and their fans, and they even organise their own festivals," he added.
"Record companies are afraid to embrace new technologies and new opportunities because they don't know what to do with the web. SellaBand discovers and nurtures new bands - it's a new economic model."
Partnering with Amazon gives Sellaband's artists a more high--profile platform, and also fits with the user-generated ethos of the retail site, which features extensive reviews and discussion about its products.
Amazon will be offering further incentives for bands as they build their audience and investment, adding credits to a band's account once they reach $30,000 and offering extra promotion for the band once they reach $35,000.
SellaBand works with digital distributor The Orchard, one of the suppliers for the iTunes Store, and, under the new deal, through Amazon.
Vosmeijer, who previously worked as general manager for Sony Music, said the site had 150,000 unique users each month but that its priority was the develop its artists, not "global domination".
He added that SellaBand was aiming to bring another 20 artists up to the $50,000 threshold by the end of 2008, and that the site would be holding a showcase in London in February.
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