Joni Mitchell isn't a name you'd expect to see in the running for an Australian music award, but the Canadian singer-songwriter made the cut yesterday along with home-grown talent Delta Goodrem, John Butler and Silverchair.

Mitchell is in the running for an APRA Music Award after nominations for this year's songwriting trophies were announced in Sydney. Her 1970s hit Big Yellow Taxi, revived last year by American rockers Counting Crows, was one of five contenders in the best overseas work category.

The big annual prize, however, is Australian song of the year and the nominees for this year's title, to be awarded at the gala music industry event in Melbourne on May 24, represent the breadth of Australian talent across several genres.

Independent roots music artists John Butler and the Waifs are up against pop diva Goodrem and rockers Silverchair and Jet for the main prize, which is voted for by members of the Australasian Performing Right Association.

The emergence of Butler and the Waifs, both of whom have developed their careers largely under their own steam, is further indication that the local music industry is no longer governed by, or indeed dependent on, the large multinational record companies.

With the digital download revolution radically changing the industry, Australian artists are enjoying more freedom to shape their careers.

Butler co-owns his record label, Jarrah Records, which enables him to pursue an independent path, with greater artistic control and financial reward than he could have expected from a major label. Even though he is about to sign a lucrative American recording contract, he will do so with a large degree of artistic independence.

Furthermore, like his stablemates the Waifs, Butler controls his own publishing (any public performance of his work, live or recorded), which means he takes a greater cut of songwriting royalties (collected by APRA) than he would through a major publisher.

His APRA nomination for the hit song Zebra is, he says, acknowledgment of his songwriting talents but also highlights the possibilities of doing it all yourself.

"It's good to have many ways to have a successful career in music," he says. "You don't want one path, you want many paths. It doesn't mean you're any better or any worse than anyone else. I'm just proud of being able to do it another way."

Butler says the APRA nomination is extremely gratifying.

"To be recognised by a peer group as a songwriter rather than just a performer and recording artist, especially among such great songwriters, is fantastic. I've never really considered myself that much of a songwriter."

The Waifs, nominated for their hit song Lighthouse, are a mirror image of Butler's success story. Like Butler, they began their career independently in Western Australia and they share the Jarrah label and manager Phil Stevens.

APRA chief executive Brett Cottle echoed Butler's sentiments yesterday, describing the present trend in Australian music as more diverse, both in content and delivery, than before.

"We are seeing artists now who are selling their work through the web, we have others who are selling their work at gigs, others through conventional distribution and others who are self-distributed. It's a whole new range of diversity of different business models that reflects the different kind of music that we have. That's a wonderful sign."

Cottle says the rise of the Australian dollar against the American greenback had raised fears that publishing earnings for Australian acts overseas would decrease in the past year. "But in fact we will earn as much from overseas performances as we have in the past, if not more, so there's more Australian music being performed there and more frequently. That's really pleasing."

Goodrem's No. 1 song Innocent Eyes is also in the running for the top APRA prize. She has received three songwriting nominations in all, while another hit from her album Innocent Eyes that she didn't write, Lost Without You, is up against Mitchell in the most performed overseas work category.

Goodrem is just one of a handful of Australian female artists in the running this year. Candice Alley, 21, is pitted against fellow pop divas Goodrem and Amiel (and rockers Powderfinger) in the most performed Australian work category, for her song Fallen, a track she wrote when she was 16.

Sara Storer, who scooped the pool at this year's Country Music Awards in Tamworth, is nominated for most performed country work for her song Raining on the Plains, while former Bardot member Katie Underwood's song Danger is in the field for most performed dance work.