As electronic music producer Daemon Hatfield says in a recent interview with CD Baby, “I think the future for (independent musicians) involves a lot of tiny revenue streams. A stream from downloads, one from streaming, one from YouTube, one from sync placements, one from live shows… The more you can diversify, the better.”
In the modern music economy, many revenue streams must converge to form a river
10 Ways to Earn Money From Your Music
- Download sales on iTunes, AmazonMP3, Google Play, and more.
- Streaming revenue from popular platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, and more.
- CD and vinyl sales in record stores around the world.
- Music sales on Facebook.
- Music sales on your own website.
- Performance royalties when your songs are played on radio, TV, and in concert venues.
- Mechanical royalties when your songs are downloaded internationally or streamed worldwide.
- YouTube monetization (ad revenue generated by the usage of your music in any video across the YouTube universe).
- Sync licensing fees from the usage of your music in TV, film, commercials, corporate presentations, video games, and more.
- SoundExchange revenue, which is paid to artists, performers, and labels for the usage of a master recording on internet radio stations.
Get paid for your music
That’s an awful lot of ways to earn money from your music, to say nothing of performance fees paid when you play live, T-shirt and other merch sales at gigs, sponsorships, and more.
When it comes to making sure you get paid everything you’re owed for the usage of your music, CD Baby has you covered.
Learn how digital distribution through CD Baby can make you money.
Chris Robley is an acclaimed singer-songwriter and award-winning poet from Maine.
His Beatlesque indie-pop and milltown Americana songs have been praised by The Associated Press, No Depression, KCRW, The LA Times, Boston Globe, NPR, American Songwriter, and others.
His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Poetry Review, and more.
Robley has received a Maine Literary Award in Poetry, Boulevard’s Emerging Writers Prize for Poetry, and in 2016 was selected by former US-poet laureate Robert Pinsky as a finalist for the Dorset Prize.