A lot of independent artist struggle with earning an income from doing what they love, and that’s making music. It can be frustrating and very easy to become discouraged to say the least. I have been there and done that. So I’ve decided to write an article as almost a guideline as to the steps I have taken to begin making money from my music.
I’m going to talk about how to get your music on streaming platforms such as Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal and many more.
I have been writing lyrics and recording music for a little over 11 years now and I wish that I had the information I’m providing in this article way sooner.
This information will help you take your passion for music and turn it into a consistent source of income. Because let’s be honest with ourselves, we all want to make money from doing what we love. The information I’m going to provide you with is the same information that I have used in the last 6 months to go from $0 to being able to make enough money monthly to pay some bills. I’ve given this information to many other artists who have benefited and thanked me tremendously, so I decided to write an article to help out others.
I highly recommend that you don’t wait too long to start implementing and you take action right away as I wished that I would have not only known this, but started doing the exact strategy I’m about to tell you all about.
So let’s dive in.
What I Was Doing Wrong
First off, lets start with the things I was doing wrong without going into depth about them and then how I fixed it to start earning an income.
- YouTube Beats
- SoundCloud (uploading songs for free download)
- Marketing and Ads
How I Started Making Money
Invest In Yourself
The biggest things I could possibly recommend is to invest in yourself. I know what you’re thinking, “I thought I bought this book to learn how to make money from my music, not spend money.” So have you ever heard the saying “It Takes Money to Make Money.”? Well this almost goes hand in hand with that motto. When I say invest into yourself, there are a few different ways to do so.
Beats and Exclusive Rights
I’m very stern on this and the main reasoning for that is because when you distribute your music to all the major platforms so you can earn some streaming royalties, you HAVE to own the beats. Otherwise you will be risking the possibility of getting sued, splitting royalties or having to delete your song all together and then BOOM, you just lost a possible relationship with a producer. So anytime you can reach out to a producer and buy the exclusives or even a lease, I highly recommend doing so.
If you don’t have the fund and the ability to purchase any leases or exclusive rights. Try finding a friend that produces that you didn’t know produced. Now I’m not telling you to just ask for free beats unless that’s something you guys agreed on. Maybe just split the royalties.
Distribution
This is probably the biggest piece of advice I could possibly give and the most important aside from owning the rights to the beat. You have got to go thought a distribution company. There are tons out there. They will distribute your music to all music streaming platforms.
This is what you want. Not only did I start getting revenue from my streams but it has also gained me a lot of exposure from other people and listeners that may not have known about my music otherwise. It just makes it a lot easier for you to be discovered. There are plenty of companies that offer distribution, just make sure the one you decide to go with lets you keep 100% of your royalties which is exactly how it should be since you are the one that put in the time to make the music. It’s yours!
Marketing/Ads
This also plays a huge roll in your success. So you own the beat, you recorded a super good song. Now who is going to listen and hear it outside of your friends and the fans you already have? This is where marketing and social media ads come into play. Make sure your image for your ad is aesthetically pleasing and by that, I mean make sure it catches the attention of the audience you are going after. Ask yourself, would I be willing to click this? If so, then chances are you have a pretty solid image for your campaign.
If you haven’t done so, create you an artist Facebook page to link with your Instagram account. From there, login to your Facebook ads/business account and from there, you can create and run ads. Yes you can create ads right from Instagram/Facebook but if you do it through your business/ads manager, you can actually target your audience you are trying to reach and be more specific. It goes more in depth, but I will cover that in a later article.
When it comes to Twitter it is a little bit different. The minimum you can spend is $50. Images and videos do a lot better than just a regular Tweet.
As of the date that I wrote this and had it published, TikTok doesn’t have a way for the general public to place or run ads. They have a beta program that has been rolled out for bigger companies but not available to the general public as of yet.