12 Ways How to Make Money With Music
Do you love music? If so, you are not alone! Millions of people all over the world love music. Sadly, for most people this passion is just a hobby. However, the good news is that if you really love music and want to make a career out of it there are a few things that you can do. By becoming a music producer you can earn a nice living while doing what you love. What more could you ask for!
In short, music production can be a way of life, a way for you to earn a living, or it can be something that you do on the side to make a few bucks for new gear, plugins or samples.
1. Playing gigs
This is like a dream job for all EDM DJs and producers! You can literally make more money than you could imagine. Typically, you can expect to earn between $50 to XXXXX per gig – it all depends only on your status and popularity. The best thing to do in order to get started is to make new contacts in the industry and promote your tracks and releases in an effort to gain popularity. Though this can be a long process, the results are worth it! (Sometimes you just need to make a few charts smashers to get big gigs so everything in your hands). You can find more info in Danny Rampling’s book “Everything You Need To Know About DJing & Success”.
2. Releases
Even though piracy has crippled the amount of money you can make from releases it is still in your best interest to move forward and release your music – you can still make money through releases. In general, the artist can expect to get half of all the sales that occur. For instance, if your track hits the Beatport Top 30 you can earn around $500 or more! Of course, the best thing to do is releasing your music on big-time labels as they have the ability to promote it to their huge fan base. You can also sell your music directly (without labels) through iTunes, cdbaby, Amazon, etc.
3. Remixing
If you are already popular then this is something you should look into. Basically, everyone will want you to remix their song depending on your popularity. However, when you first start out you won’t be popular yet. The best thing to do is work for very, very cheap. This will get your name out there and will help you gain notoriety in the industry if your remixes are good.
4. Mixing/Mastering
Besides mixing and mastering your own tracks, you can also offer these services to other produces that may be too busy to do it themselves. Furthermore, you could even try to strike up a deal so that you are working for some produces or even labels on a regular basis if they like what you do.
5. Royalties from Radio/TV rotation
There are a lot of companies out there that provide registration of copyrights. Some examples are:
These companies will monitor your music on radio, TV, etc and collect money for you. In short, each time your track played on radio or TV you will receive money (%). This works really well for pop/commercial music.
6. Music for advertising
Electronic music is really popular at the current time. Large companies like Nokia and Pepsi are known for using it in their advertising. It’s not easy to jump into this industry. The best thing to do is start with sound design contests on Audiodraft. The prizes for these types of contests are great!
7. Games/Movies soundtracks
Big money can be found here! If you are experienced and qualified you can make a lot of money in this area. The best thing to do is start by sending your resume and portfolio to some of the big players in the industry. Additionally, you can check big gaming and audio forums for ads about it.
8. Making samples, synth presets and templates
This method can earn you some quick cash if you are good sound designer or have some exclusive hardware gear. We’re always looking for talented producers to join our team so feel free to contact us.
9. Ghostwriting / Co-writing
Unfortunately this is a common practice nowadays. You can write music for other DJ’s or producers and can get hundreds or even thousands dollars per track. However, the downside is your name will not typically be included in title of this track. You get money, they get the fame.
10. Selling stock music
Stock music is royalty free music that is usually used for advertising, background music for presentations, etc. There are a lot of sites that sell stock music such as iStock, Audio Jungle and Revostock. The amount of money that you can make depends only on you – the more tracks you have more money you earn. You can sell music in any genre but you will earn more if you’ll check what sells better. Be smart 🙂
11. Fiverr gigs
Fiverr.com is a website where you can offer any service that you want for $5. You can create gigs (offers) for anything that you are ready to do and you will be paid a total of $4 (the other $1 goes to fiverr.com). Gigs could be voice transformation with vocoder plugin or a mix of the client’s favorite songs or something else. Be creative, automate your work with presets, promote your gigs and you’ll have success on Fiverr.
12. Elance, Freelancer etc.
These websites are marketplaces that have opportunity in this industry. You simply view the jobs that you are qualified for and bid on the ones that you want. If you win a bid you will be awarded the project for the amount of your bid. The best thing to do is search for music related offers, make a bid and see what happens.
So we gave you just a brief description of each method… now choose one of them, do more research and take action!
As you can see, the music industry works as well as other industries do for people that are qualified and ready to earn some nice money. Simply put, if you are a professional you can really earn a nice paycheck. By being good at what you do and making a name for yourself you should have more opportunities than you can handle. Look at it this way- producing music is a lot more interesting than working an office job that you hate. What is there to lose!
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