13 Ways Your Music Can Make You More Money

No need to rely solely on music sales and touring to bring in the big bucks. Here are some additional ways your music can make you as much money as possible. Let’s dive in…

13 Ways Your Music Can Make You More Money

Streaming

Having your music on streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, etc. is a no brainer. Luckily, we’ve got a bunch of articles to guide you through getting your music on these platforms and how to optimize their performance.

• Where Does The Money from Master Recordings Come From?
• How to Get More Spotify Streams
• How to Claim your Label/Artist Pages

Publishing Royalties

Royalty collection is a complex business. The two most common music publishing royalty types are performance royalties and mechanical royalties. With our Symphonic Publishing Administration, these would be the two main types of royalties we’ll collect for you.

Even though we do all the complex administrative work for you, it’s vital to understand how they work and how you can best leverage them to maximize your earnings. Not sure if you’re already earning these? // This post breaks it down for you.

Want to learn more?

• Types of Publishing Deals and How They Work
• Typical Music Rights And Royalties For Creative Licensing

Play Live Shows

Playing live shows is traditionally the biggest (and most fun!) way to make money as a musician. With the pandemic way behind us, there’s no reason for you to not be back in the game! If you’re feeling rusty, we did a post with 6 apps that were built to make touring easier than ever. Whether you need help tracking costs, promoting your tour dates, finding deals on hotels and more, these apps are here to help.

If you’re in need of of a tour sponsorship deck, we also have a post to help you create one. The biggest issue people face when presenting their sponsorship deck is when they haven’t done the proper research before creating the proposal. Check out this post to learn more.

Monetize User Generated Content

To say the least, you work hard on your music. You deserve to get paid for every iteration of your work, wherever it may end up. Whether your content is featured on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, SoundCloud and many more, you can monetize it.

If you’re a Symphonic client, we can deliver your content to Rights Manager for Facebook and Instagram and monetize your sound recording catalogue through reels, music stickers, and ad-supported posts and more. For all your other platforms, check out this post which breaks down everything you need to know about monetizing this content with ease.

Symphonic’s YouTube User-Generated-Content (UGC) analytics provides our clients with detailed information on how their content is being used in UGC videos all across YouTube. This post shows you how to access it in the SMS. If you want to improve your TikTok video performance, understanding your analytics is a big part of it. Luckily, you can also access TikTok analytics in our SMS as well.

YouTube

YouTube is another platform that continues to garner major success for independent artists. The easiest way to earn money on YouTube is with Content ID, a digital fingerprinting system that content creators (like record labels and artists) can use to easily identify and manage their copyrighted content on YouTube.

• If you’re a Symphonic client, you would upload your music to us and we’d go ahead and upload it to YouTube’s Content ID system. When that happens, any song that is uploaded is compared against audio and video files that have been uploaded by many users all over the world.
• If a match is found, we will monetize the video that has been matched and claimed, thus bringing you more royalties and ensuring that your works aren’t being illegally shared and monetized by others.

Video Games

The most engaging video games have great soundtracks to go with them. There’s a reason players get so immersed in their virtual worlds, and the music is a major part of that. — Consider putting out an instrumental version of one of your best tracks just for gaming playlists.

NFTs

There are many advantages to utilizing NFTs as an artist, but it’s often challenging to attract or convince an audience to buy them. While the Music NFT movement is growing, many people still don’t even know what they are, how to buy them, or why they exist. Which is totally fine! We are here to teach you. “How To Succeed With Music NFTs” breaks down everything you need to know.

In addition to that, we’ve actually written numerous articles to help you master the NFT / Web3 game. Check them out and sharpen your skills below:

• How To Protect Yourself From NFT Scammers as an Artist
• Everything You Need To Know About Releasing Music NFTs

Sample Packs

To put it simply, a sample pack is a curated collection of pre-recorded audio snippets like synth loops, synth patches, a cappella tracks, drum loops and so much more I can’t even fit in one sentence, all one package. All someone has to do is buy the pack for one set price and they’ve got a whole file of unique sounds to play with for their next track. It this sounds right up your alley, selling sample packs is a great way to make some extra money.

Merch 

Merch has always been a key source of revenue for independent musicians. Although live shows aren’t what they used to be, live streams are a great opportunity to keep your merch sales going strong. // Check out, “How To Sell More Merchandise During Your Live Streams” to learn how.

Sharpen up your merch game with these helpful resources:

• The Best Places To Order Custom Merch Online
• How to Sell Merch on Amazon
• Instagram + Merchbar Integration

Sync Licensing

Any time your song is featured in a TV show, movie, commercial, or any visual media, that’s called a “sync placement”. In addition to performance royalties you earn for airing on TV, sync placements also pay an upfront “licensing fee”, which is determined based on the song’s market value as well as the various details of how the music was used in the production. // “How To Optimize Your Songwriting For Sync” can help increase your chances of landing placements.

Micro-Sync

Just as an artist would be paid licensing fees and royalties for a placement in a TV show or film, they would also be owed “micro-sync” fees and royalties for smaller features.

Some examples of the types of common micro sync placements include:

• User generated content, i.e. YouTube
• Social media posts
• Internal company videos
• Video presentations at events and conferences
• Professional wedding videos
• Podcasts

Vinyl

Physical music distribution has been an important part of artist and label development for decades. Vinyl is just one of the many retro faves that is making a strong comeback among music lovers. As vinyl sales continue to lead the pack and new independent retail stores continue to expand, there are no signs of slowing down now. If you want to join in on the action, this post features some of the top vendors for getting your music on vinyl.

Instagram

If you aren’t already, you should be monetizing your efforts on Instagram to earn that well-deserved extra money you can use on things like touring, new gear or whatever else your musical heart desires. From affiliate marketing and selling merch to utilizing  Instagram Subscriptions, there are many ways to make money on Instagram… All of which you can learn about right here in this post.

In Conclusion…

Whether you try out all of these or choose a couple of your favorites, we hope these help you make the well-deserved money you deserve for your work! Working towards having the financial freedom to do whatever you want to as an artist is an indescribable feeling we all dream of as creatives… but it doesn’t have to remain a dream! With hard work and consistency, you’re on the right track.

Good luck!