How To Make Money On Music

How to make money on music without going on stage and without being on salary? If you are involved in the music industry, you have probably asked yourself this question more than once. But today we will talk about those areas of original music production that are “in the shadows”, and meanwhile feed the families of tens of thousands of musicians around the world.

So, oddly enough, there are composers and music producers in the world who do not dream of being public artists, do not want to post strained Tik Toks every day, reminding the audience about themselves, and wander around on tours for eight months a year. They also do not want to sit on a salary in game studios and create sound design that they are told.

Meanwhile, such people sincerely love music and create it regardless of whether it brings money or not. This continues until age and family obligations take their toll, and a choice arises – either the written works will bring income, or it’s time to quit.

There is a way out

Meanwhile, there are at least four international niches in which it is possible to gradually develop your own music catalog, and over time it will begin to generate passive composer-producer income. We will talk about them.

Why music stocks no longer feed

Even five to eight years ago, it was possible to make tracks for marketplaces and other leaders of the royalty free music market and live well. But something natural happened – platform owners began dumping prices for micro-licenses for music for end users.

And, in order to compensate for the losses from the price war, they decided to shift them … to composers. The income split for most platforms has become 70 to 30% in favor of the platforms. Moreover, stocks have introduced subscriptions with fixed prices for music users. And these subscriptions allow you to use at least a thousand tracks from the catalog every month.

How do you calculate the share that goes to composers? Platforms come up with schemes in every possible way, but the result is the same – music authors get less and less money, and they have to write more and more music – in a completely conveyor-belt manner.

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Main ways to potentially earn money on original music

There are quite a few of them, but the main four are:

Creating “library” music for TV, series, advertising, etc.
Creating “elevator music” — tracks that businesses use to play in shopping centers, car dealerships, restaurants, fitness centers, etc.
Creating music for movie trailers.
Creating and independently releasing niche instrumental music on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.

Attention! Three important clarifications are necessary here.

Firstly, none of the described methods provide income immediately and quickly. From the beginning of work on your music catalog to reaching quarterly payments on which you can live, it takes from 2 to 5 years. But after this period and the catalog grows, the income gets a “tail”. Even if you stop releasing new music, the old one will be able to feed you for some time (sometimes up to five years).
Secondly, you also need to write a lot here, but much less than for stocks. Some professional composers manage to reach the “20 excellent tracks a year” mode. But the quality of these tracks is such that they receive a significant number of licenses (placements in the media). Or these licenses are very expensive – again due to the high quality of the music. For an average artist, in order to have an annual income of around 40-80 thousand US dollars a year, you need to create a very decent track every week – without vacations and “sick leaves”.
Thirdly, for “library” and trailer music, it is very, very important which publisher you work with. You should only contact companies with a good reputation.

If you want to transfer your music collection to another streaming service, for example, from Apple Music to Spotify, then you will need a third-party application. MusConv is an ideal choice. With this effective tool that interacts with 125+ streaming platforms, you will complete the task quickly and without any problems.