There are many musicians out there who think that it is somehow ‘wrong’ to look for the best ways to make money with their music. In reality, the musicians who subscribe to this mindset are NOT highly successful in music, and most likely work 9-5 day jobs to make ends meet. If you have a passion for music and also want to have a financially stable music career, there are many steps you must take. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with making a living with what you love to do, and in this article I will explain to you the different ways that you can do this by make money in the music business.
In truth, achieving great financial success while working on your music career is not as difficult as you might think…you don’t need to be a big time rock star to make good money in the music business. However, in order to become financially free in your music career, you will need to take a very different approach than the one that is taken by most musicians. You will need to approach your music career as both a “musical artist” AND as a businessman (or woman). You must run your career as a business, where your primary goal is to add as much value as possible to your fans, other bands, music company officials, and other people in the business of music.
To quickly test out your current knowledge of what it takes to become successful in the music business, take this short survey on what you must know to build a career in the music business before reading the rest of this article.
On top of not approaching their music careers with an understanding of the business side of things, the majority of musicians do not earn a lot of money in the music industry due to making the following mistakes:
Not Taking The Time To Set Up Various Music Related Sources Of Income
It is common for musicians to treat their music career in the same manner that they have treated any other job that they have had. They expect a single paycheck at the end of an established period of time from doing a “single” activity. Unfortunately, this approach will NOT help you to achieve financial success in the music business. In order to make a good living in your music career, you must stop thinking from the mindset of obtaining a single sum of money as your main goal. Instead, you must work to build many different sources of musical income that go into your bank account on an ongoing, residual basis. By taking this approach, it becomes much easier to make a lot of money from music. In fact, musicians who use this method with save themselves time as well (because they do not have to continually work to get a paycheck). This enables them to have more freedom to pursue things such as writing music, touring and performing, or recording in the studio. In the end, it is important to have income coming in from both your active efforts and your past efforts that you already took the time to set up (that continue to make you money). Additionally, by approaching your music career in this manner, you will feel much more stable since you will not be dependent on any single source of income to pay your bills.
Not Consistently Providing Additional Value To Other People In The Music Industry
To gain a solid understanding of what “value” means when it applies to the idea of making a living in the music business, you must pay close attention to the next sentence. Regardless of what you do in the music industry, whether it be touring in a band, creating music in the studio, giving music instruction or working as a record producer, the people in the music industry (including bands you play for, record labels, music students, etc.) must decide on working together with you versus thousands of musicians competing for the same opportunity. If you don’t want to blend in with the crowd and go unnoticed, you will need to gain the upper hand on your music competition by creating value that far exceeds that of what most musicians are able to offer. This does NOT simply mean working on developing your music skills! Developing truly high value in your music career deals with many different aspects of your personal mindset, emotional stability under stress, and ability to work very hard on a consistent basis.
If you want to make a lot of money in your music career, you will need to make it 110% clear that you are the number one choice when someone in the music industry must choose between you and your competitors. In fact, this must be TOTALLY clear before anyone has even listened to one second of your music!
This may seem like a simple concept as you are reading it right now. However, as simple as it may be, almost all musicians DO NOT build their music careers by acting on this basic principle. To find out how much you apply this concept in your own music career, take this short music business survey about what the music industry looks for in musicians.
By increasing your potential to create value (for all people involved) during any music related activity, you will be able to quickly earn a lot of money in the music business. This is one of the main ideas I focus on while training musicians to build highly successful music careers.
Not Taking The Time To Identify Your Market
Once you have become familiar with the value you have to give to the music industry, you will you need to find and identify the people who you will give value to. For example, imagine that you were about to release your newest record. Who are the people (fans) that would be waiting to buy your new music? Do you have a way to quickly and easily contact these people? If not, what action are you taking right now to build a list of your potential customers? Now imagine that you were a session musician. Do you have an organized list of all your potential customers/business partners such as musicians, recording studios, or bands? What are you going to do today to get in touch with these people and show them how you can help them with your skills and talents?
One of the most common mistakes made by musicians is that they spend the time to create an album, increase their musical skills, or work in another area of the music industry, but when it comes time to receive the payoff for their hard work, they have great difficulty making any money. This happens because they have not taken the time to build a database of customers who are ready and willing to pay for the value that the musician is offering. Since this is such a common issue, I have made this one of my main areas of focus while mentoring the musicians in my Music Careers Mentoring Program.
Additionally, musicians will make the mistake of assuming that once they are signed with a music company that the company will take all the responsibility to further their career. This is not true. The fact is, YOU are the one who will need to take initiative in your music career in order to promote yourself and make a better living. Work on building your own list of customers and fans so that you are the one in control of this aspect of your career. This can be used as a great tool to improve negotiations with future music business partners to make more money for you (AND for EVERYONE else involved).
Not Having Solid Goals And Ways To Reach Them
To earn a good living in the music industry, you MUST develop a specific plan for how you will reach your goals. If you merely fantasize about making a lot of money, this is not enough to make this goal a reality. Rather than fantasizing, start working toward what you want to achieve by asking yourself the following questions:
- What is your desired yearly income from your music career?
- What are the sources of musical income that will make the amount in question 1 possible?
- What are the steps you must take to set up these sources of income? (Read this article about how to plan in the music business to learn more about setting up various streams of income)
- How many ways can you ADD VALUE to your interactions with people in the music business? (Think of every possibility!)
- How many ways can you eliminate risk for other people in the music business?
After you have figured out your answers for each question above, you must focus on making every action you take in your music career go toward achieving the exact goals you have made for yourself.
Most musicians looking to become successful in the music business are not sure what they must do to reach their desired goals. If you are experiencing this as well, the best solution to this problem is to seek out training from a professional who has shown other musicians how to earn a lot of money in their careers. This way, you can avoid making mistakes that will cost you significant time and effort to fix.
Confusing “Being Popular” With “Earning A Lot Of Money In The Music Industry”
You don’t need to be touring in an internationally known rock band in order to make a great living in your music career. The reality is that even some famous bands include band members who are working regular jobs to make a living. It is important to understand this point so that you can place priorities on achieving your goals in the most effective way possible. Obviously there are musicians who have achieved both popularity and great financial stability, however you should prioritize your efforts to reach your goals in the most effective way possible.
Final Thoughts
There are a lot of musicians who think that making good money from their musical talents is “wrong” or “deceptive” in some way. These people think that it is only important to continue improving their musical skills. Although improving as a musician is clearly important, if you’d like to have the freedom to make music for a living, you will also need to invest your time into improving upon the business side of your music career. This way you won’t need to work a dead end ‘day job’ just to make ends meet.
There is no precise method for predicting every decision you will need to make in your music career to make more money. However, by simply avoiding the mistakes discussed in this article, you will be well on your way to making a great living in the music business. Once you have gained more time due to the financial freedom you will obtain, you will be able to focus more intensely on creating the music you love.
If you have not yet completed the music business surveys mentioned in this article on what the music industry looks for in musicians and how to build a career in the music business I encourage you to do this now.
About The Author:
Tom Hess is a music career mentor, touring musician and the guitarist in the band Rhapsody Of Fire. He teaches online guitar lessons to musicians all over the world and mentors musicians on how to build a music career. Visit his website tomhess.net to get many free resources on getting into the music industry and read more music industry articles.