Our Goal: TCB’s always operated on the belief that our most important function is to help create a bridge between the artist and the music and country music fans. Through our reviews, editorials, newsletters and webcast we endeavour to help the music that may not make a straight path to consumers via regular corporate distribution channels, still find its way to the potential listeners and buyers.

Background Premise:  TCB’s webcast is brought to our listeners via Live365.com’s services. Through their service we operate and program 100% of TCB Radio. At this point when listeners are interested in buying music from an artist they hear on the webcast the ‘buy link’ provided by Live 365 takes them to Amazon.com For mainstream, big label artists this may work fine…but TCB has always prided itself on playing the bulk of our music from small, Indie labels or music that is being distributed directly by the artist themselves. Much of what we play is distributed through a wide variety of outlets (ie: Texas Music Roundup, Lonestar, Miles of Music, CD Baby, CD Universe, artist/band website or via email correspondence) Live365’s ‘one link should fit all’ doesn’t really work for the artists we promote or the music fans we support.

A review of our Live365 stats demonstrates the validity of this argument. Many of the selections on our playlist were attempted to be purchased or put on wish lists that consumers had little idea where to turn to find alternative purchasing avenues. Many artists/bands have requested that we change the Amazon link to a link that would work better for their individual projects (which is simply something we are not able to do) So --- we’ve come up with a solution that we hope will work for everyone involved – the creation of a Virtual Storefront at TCB that will allow consumers and artists to connect easily, affordably and via the preferred purchasing avenues as directed by artist/band.

This is your opportunity to directly reach out to the thousands of listeners and readers that pass through TCB's website monthly. They come our way looking for new music that they have a hard time finding anywhere else. A recent reader survey indicated that well over 75% of our reader and listener purchases are influenced by contact with what  we offer via TCB's website and webcast.

Proposed Services Outline:

TCB’s Virtual Storefront will be divided into 4 sections:

Global (all music projects submitted will be listed alphabetically) Listings will include:

• jpg of album cover
• title, artist, label and release date info
• link to TCB review (if available)
• direct link to artist’s website
• up to 3 direct links to purchase avenues of the artist’s choice (website or email addresses are acceptable)
• 30 second audio sample.

Subgenre Listings: categories included but not limited to:

1. Bakersfield Sound
2. Honky Tonk

3. Americana

4. Alt-Country
5. Bluegrass
6. Western Swing
7. Classic Country
8. Texas Country
9. Folk

Subgenre listings will include the same information and links as the main listing. The benefits of subgenre listings include the ease of the consumer to go directly to their preferred musical sub-style.

Cost:  TCB is run completely by volunteers and the generous donations from our readers and listeners. Our main objective in pricing this new service was to keep costs to a minimum while at the same time helping to cover our out of pocket expenses in providing the website, storefront and webcast to help promote your music. Remember: the fees are paid one time only and the service will last for the life of the project. Our aim is to make this an affordable and effective promotional service.

Primary Global Listing (alphabetical) one time only $20(US) fee that will last the life of the record. (ex: as long as the project is in distribution we’ll keep the listing)

Subsequent Global Listings for other projects will be assessed the one time fee of $10(US) per project.

Subgenre Listings – will first require an initial global listing. Subgenre listings will be available for a one time fee of $5(US) per category that will last for the distribution life of the project.

New Releases – For a one time fee of $10 (US) you can have your new release promoting in this category for three months. (The month prior to, the month of, and the month following release)

Featured Artists – This section will change weekly. It will include out top 5 TCB Radio Chart picks (as selected by our listeners) and our webcast’s Indie Showcase Picks of the week. There will be no charge for these listings.

For immediate inclusion payment can be made via our Paypal link