Make Money From Your Music Online

How to make money in the music industry is a lot easier than you think, however, people often complicate it till this very day. Too many people make the common mistake of beginning and never finishing in any venture that they try. I feel that when it comes to music, this mistake is too common. I'm going to briefly help you lessen your mistakes and make the most out of your music venture.

Sign Up for as Many Social Networking Sites as You Can
This is a very important step that many people fail to take because they feel as if they only need one website to market their self. You need to have as many social networking pages as possible because this creates maximum exposure. If I were to sell 10 CDs a day in front of my house, I would possibly make decent money. If I were to get 10 people selling 10 CDs a day in front of their house also, I will more than likely be more successful in the music industry. The same thing applies to social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and more. For one, it's less work that you have to do in the long run and two, more pages equals more people, meaning more money in your pocket. Another trick you can do is sign up for Myxer.com and Soundstation.com. You can use Soundstation to sell your albums directly to your fans and use Myxer to sell ring tones right on any of your social networking sites by embedding the code's onto your pages. So many people struggle trying to figure out how to make money in the music industry and one of the answers is as simple as the above.

An Extra Street Marketing Tip
As I said before, the more people you have to sell for you, the less work you have to do. Too often I run into people who have fans that are so into them, they feel it not robbery to enthusiastically tell the artist as if they were in love with the musician and the response the artists will give the fan is "thank you very much." This is the worst response you can give someone with that much enthusiasm from listening to your music. If you offer to pay them a percentage of sales for the number of records they promote and sell for you, they will more than likely take it because they love you that much. This is a trick that many musicians don't follow, therefore, now that you know about it, you have an edge on them.

Sell You Music Before Your First Performance

The vast majority of independent musicians are of the opinion that they had entered a new frontier when the advent of internet music thrust itself upon the world, only to be hunted down by unscrupulous corporations & bled for every penny that they are worth. The harsh reality is the unscrupulous corporations were here well before we were.

These sharks were circling before we even arrived!

These guys had such a head start it's laughable! They knew the ropes & what was coming next and being in the positions they were, all they had to do was what they would do were musicians any other commodity. Wait for the market to be willingly flooded by products that PAID to be there and make sickening amounts of money on the trickledown effect for them almost as an afterthought.

Yes, we were all dazzled when we first saw our photo & bio on iTunes or Amazon & heard our songs being played on fancy little widgets. How long did THAT novelty last before you realised something wasn't adding up?!? Some folks still enjoy that superficial side of the internet which is, sadly, only perpetuating a badly flawed system.

Never Mind The BoLLockS!

The horse has bolted on the online music industry for the small-time independent musician as far as creative freedom, financial viability & competitive conditions. “What can we do, Bob” I think I hear you think.

Firstly, instead of emailing ME, post the overall angst of your emails to sites that provide message boards & forums.*

(*Don't get me wrong, I DO appreciate your emails*)

Keep it tidy. Keep it clean. You're on display.

Introduce yourself on these boards & get involved, but conduct yourself in a professional manner. These boards are excellent places to subliminally advertise yourself for FREE!!!

How many musicians go to such places? Why is this? Because it's not “cool.” Well,

forget about being “cool.” That died off in the 70s. If you're being yourself, then you're cool.

Make a point in these forums, on these boards & in discussion groups of making music  LISTENERS aware of how the online industry is actually run, the actual pressure put on independent musicians (use yourself as an example to personalise the message) to provide free music & how much this 'free' music costs YOU. Make mention of how you feel cornered & overpowered by the big guns & how dedicated & serious music listeners are being seriously misled instead of being given the TRUTH by those who can afford to force-feed the market. In other words, call it as you see it.

You can PRE-SELL an album here!

I receive EXTREMELY surprised & genuine feedback from music lovers from these forums. I have been as surprised by their misconceptions as they are aggravated by

the way the online music industry operates.

The most effective way of informing music lovers of the state of the online music industry is to write to YOUR followers. ReverbNation & Facebook in particular allow you to write DIRECTLY to your followers. It doesn't get more personal than THAT online.

Spend some time writing your letter, keeping it concise & relevant. Save a copy and use the same letter for wherever else you have the ability to email followers of your music. Point out how music lovers are being kept in the dark about online music without even REALISING it. Avoid 'ranting & raving' & stick to the facts. Making the reader feel 'involved' isn't even a task as they already ARE involved. Suggesting any course of action is purely up to you & you WILL be humbled by the dedication of your followers. Believe me, I know.

Complacency doesn't work.

As irritating & time-consuming as it may seem, 'read the fine print' on every online document before agreeing to ANYTHING. Yes, they all appear to be the same and yes, certain online places suggest you skip the formalities & tick 'I Agree.' After being seconds from entering several song competitions when I initially began in the online music industry when I scrolled down to read of the 'non-refundable fee.'

WHY organisations practise this subversive activity is, to my mind, far from ethical. They are, of course, 'legally' entitled to operate this way but it's not in the spirit of what music is all about.

YOU can help keep the online music scene real.

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