Making A Living Making Music

The Opportunities

 Bottom line, you make money when your music is used. So, it makes sense that the more places you have your work available, the greater your potential earnings.

 The most common income streams that most independent musicians rely on when building their careers are live performances, streaming, visual media placements, royalties, session work, and record sales. It’s fairly easy to decide which of the different revenue streams are available to you – for instance you want placements and streaming but not performing or record sales – but accessing them and knowing how to capitalize on them is much more challenging.

The Challenges

 The how of getting music out to people is fairly simple:  a song is composed, recorded, distributed, and marketed. Simple, right? Not if you want to be paid along the way.

 Getting compensated is where things get complicated. For each use of a song, there may be several rights owners involved and different licensing deals or contracts involving multiple parties depending on where and how the music will be used.

 It makes sense that artists making their work available in multiple income streams stand to make more money. But, if they choose to self-manage (registering works, negotiating and issuing licenses, collecting royalties, etc.) they may soon find that they are spending more time on the business side and less on doing what they love – making music.

The Choices

 Artists make choices about how involved they want to be in the various aspects of managing their careers. You can go it alone but most successful musicians choose to contract some or all of the management tasks to an outside firm.

 Look before you leap. As you consider whether to self-manage or partner with someone to support you, it is essential that you are aware of the business and legal basics – rights ownership, licensing agreements, industry language, etc. –  in order to make smart choices.

 Educate yourself and ask questions so that fear of the unknown will not slow your progress.  When you understand the options and opportunities available to you, you will feel confident knowing that your decisions will set you up to maximize potential earnings while protecting the rights to your work.

Next Up

 In this ongoing educational series, our goal is to empower you to pursue your craft full-time. Our first topic is music licensing but to make smart choices you need to be aware of the industry landscape. Our next installment starts at the beginning: the creation of a song or instrumental cue – the pieces involved and why they matter.