How to Sell Your Music

The Playground

When it comes to selling your music there are instantly tons of options that will give you the confusion of plenty. There is the never ending story if Spotify is the ultimate evil or the savior. Youtube is the new player in the market and should be taken in to account even though it operates with a system of rubber rules. Band Camp on the other hand is a good old friend for many which is free of typical streaming platforms problems. The eternal debate is about whether these companies pay the artists enough. Well to be fair as one should be present on all of the mentioned above if every platfrom pays a little than it could be still something.

The Game

The truth is that the current modern environment is indeed fair in some respects, as it gives emerging talents the opportunity to publish their works. Looking at it from the other side, the fact that there are already famous artists with much more routine and in a better position in the same market at the same time is more like if the hobbyists were competing on the same track in a car race with the Formula 1 drivers and their professional teams. In practice, this is what happens in the music industry. So, of course, We are not surprised who will win the race, but this is really not the question here, but how much it is worth fighting for the podium places. Music distribution contracts are quite easy to made, You pay the company for putting your music on all platforms, in return you will get your royalites collected and handed over to you after the company took their own cut from it. How big is the cut ? It is depending on the company. The problem is not with distribution but with the delivery of content. All musicians face this problem.

Their numbers are so low that they instantly feel the shame than start to panic which usually results in throwing a bucket of money on methods that works as a quick pain reliever, but in the long run it can do more harm than good. These quick fixes includes apperance on paid playlists that guarantees a lot of listeners or social media ads that drives brand awerness. These will get your numbers up very fast but you will be forgotten in a week or a month as you ad budget dies off. Not speaking of the good old meme:

“If your ad interrupts they will hate you… “

So maybe relying only on ads isn’t the best strategy.

Steady Climb Strategy

In todays oversaturated socialmedia world We have to face the sad fact that is ad fatigue. This means one could simply not handle anymore unwanted advertisement and simply quits using that platform. That is the goal of most platforms because this is their strategy to gain more subscribers where the paying client gets freed from continuously interrupting advertisement. The income generated from ads and subs lets the platform play for artists thus rewarding them for making popular content.But this is not the goal it is a side effect of a sucessful artist project. To become noticed you have to make connections but before that you have to make really good music that is also sounding professional. We can help you with the latter of course. If you will start to appear on relevant playlists and in mixes that is a sign that the flow already picked you up. From this point you’ll have to consciously seek every opportunity for public perfomance so that the scene is seeing more and more of you. In order to be succesful in this field you have to learn to actively reachout and make your name visible to scene. You should start in small, this means go local. When you have some experience you may start to reach out thru the internet for labels and djs/producers and ask to be featured. Naturally one will be engaged by similar artists, that is a good thing. Beaware that being too pushy could easily backfire, but assertive communication is a must to get things going. This strategy seems to work but is has quite a lot time to do its magic. We are taling about years!

The Dilemma

While a lot of creators use the steady climb strategy most of them has to face to cold fact that they couldn’t make enough money in the early years. This leads to less time for the project as they have to pull an actual paying job to be able to support the sidehussle until it becomes the main income stream. Less time means slower progression and less content to be made and also even more income generated. They used to say that there is a turning point where you have to decide and pull the trigger on becoming a fulltime musician. In the ever-changing marketplace of the music industry our source of income, which we believed to be certain until then, could disappear without any sign from one day to another.Not to mention the continuous vulnerable situation caused by the shadey legal environment entangled by the contracts of streaming platforms and other distribution companies. With all of that taken into account there are still a lot of money on the table for artists who are determined enough to carry out such a long plan. More and more people want the fame and glamor that comes with musical success, which already means such a crowd that we can safely compare this to the early days of gold rush. In the river of algorythms and the mud of socialmedia there lies the pure gold of easy success that many whish to find with the least amount of work. Some will find it easy with luck. Some will work their ass off to get it. Our honest advice is that you better enjoy the journey rather than only wanting the goal.