For most of us, investing in new music means buying a CD or downloading at iTunes. Now the website Sellaband.com lets fans back unsigned acts in $10 (£4.91) “parts”.

Visitors to the site can browse the home pages of thousands of bands and listen to tracks free. Find an act you like, and you can buy one or more of its 5,000 parts – a kind of share.

Once all 5,000 have been sold, the band uses the $50,000 fund to record an album with a top producer. Sellaband retains the rights for a year.

When the album is ready, all backers – called “believers” – receive one limited-edition CD per part purchased. You can keep or sell these, at a 10 per cent profit, on a personal Sellaband homepage. You are also paid a share of CD sales made at the site’s shop, and of advertising revenue from free downloads.

Johan Vosmeijer, co-founder of the site and a former executive with Sony BMG, says that it is too early to estimate how much money believers can make. But look elsewhere if you’re hoping to make your fortune, he says. “If you’re doing this to get rich, please don’t. It is a lot of fun and a chance to help people.”

Mr Vosmeijer, an enthusiast who travels worldwide to visit bands, has a lineup of respected producers on standby to work with new acts, including Bassy Bob, who has worked with Christina Aguilera, the Fugees and Faith Hill. Bassy Bob calls Sellaband “the cure for what ails the record business”.

You can cash in your parts – or reinvest in other acts – before your first-choice band reaches the cash target. So far, just seven bands have netted $50,000. Five are recording and two – Cubworld and Nemesea – have released albums. The first CDs were sent out to believers days ago and are now on sale at the site.

Mark Maclaine, 26, is the bassist with Second Person, a band that has already received some critical acclaim and is the first British group to reach $50,000. He was amazed at the level of help on offer and chose Tony Platt, best known for work with Bob Marley and AC/DC, from Sellaband’s panel of producers. “Without Sellaband, there is no way we could have done anything to the same quality.”

Mr Maclaine – whose band’s “post-trip-hop” album, The Elements, is released on August 1 – enjoys the sense of community the site offers and is hopeful that believers will make a decent return, perhaps thousands of pounds per part.

For their initial £5 outlay, believers will soon receive their limited-edition album. And they have already had free tickets to see the band perform live at Sellaband gigs in London and Amsterdam. With the possibility of a big return as well, that has to be top value.

CASE STUDY: A player of many parts

Andy Wood, 44, goes by the name of Utterly B Groovy on Sellaband and has bought 86 parts in various acts since joining the site soon after its launch in August last year.

He says: “If I listen to an an act and like it, I'll buy one part. If I think they've got something extra special, I'll buy a few more.”

One of Mr Wood's choices, Cubworld, have already made a CD, mastered at Sony music studios in New York. He has five copies, one for each of his parts in the band. He is keeping one and selling the others, at a $1 (49p) profit each, on his personal Sellaband page.

He will not receive his share of advertising revenue for months, but is not expecting big bucks. “Worst case, I think I’ll make my money back,” he says.