Ummmm....this blog bursts the bubble a bit.  Seems like there is no money to be made on music.

http://music3point0.blogspot.ca/

munmun


Ummmm....this blog bursts the bubble a bit.  Seems like there is no money to be made on music.

http://music3point0.blogspot.ca/

not so.... it's just not an easy path.  For the majority of folks who will never attract the attention of the major labels it becomes a simple case of deciding if you want to start a business in the music business. Find your niche and fill it...create the buzz and capitalize on it. 


It could be as simple as a solo guitarist singer gig and sell CD's and merchandise at the gigs to whatever you can dream. Make some You Tube videos and build a fan base.... then sell, sell, sell. 


It's not easy starting any business. I was working on this very thing musically but got frustrated with the lack of venues to play and the constant turn over of musicians in the band. A few years later I decided to get out of music as my sole source of income... I was making pretty decent money, but was burning out.... 


so I worked a day job for a few years and decided to start my own business. I have always liked calling the shots myself as opposed to working for idiots. I started a business in electricity and security eventually just doing security related work. I can tell you it was not easy getting this started either, but I've been here 21 years now and it's good.....well worth the effort invested. 


I still work on music as you know.... but not as a source of income. Song writing.... with hopes of future income from that.


An indy artist can make a very nice living since the profit margins are higher at the indy level.   If, for example, you buy 1000 CD's for $1000... a buck each average cost.... and you sell them for $12 to $15 each..... you should gross $11k to $14k. The goal is of course to move as much product as possible in as short a time as possible. Throw T-shirts in at the same profit margins, have a web site for info and additional sales... sell mp3 singles, advertise gigs, and before long you are making money from your music. Book into some decent paying live gigs and you are on your way to make a living at music. 

sell cd's and t-shirts at as many gigs as you can book.

don't print more cd's than you can really sell.

spend time getting to know your local radio personalities, especially if they have a feature 'locals' show.

just like the pros that get signed, if you put it out there enough, and are good enough, you might just get picked up.

Beepster


Right on, Ben. Not really looking make a mint or nothin'. Just a few bucks here and there would be nice, yanno? I've got the time to invest so it's worth a shot. Already have a bit of a fan base from my live days just can't pound those stages anymore. Sucks gettin' old. Cheers.

Why not look into getting some session guitar work? I know it would probably suck artistically, i.e. laying some cheesy rock riffs down on a radio jingle etc, but you hear this guitar work all over the place and someone's got to do it. Of course being a sight reader probably helps. 

@sharke... Yeah, I'm totally into that kind of thing. Just gotta get a decent portfolio together. I'm really not great at on the spot sight reading but can feed the sheet music into a MIDI enable notation software and go about it that way. I can play almost anything by ear and have completely duplicated extremely complex guitar parts that way. I used to be the tribute bands dream guitarist because of that skill. I might even be able to get into transcriptions but I don't find that particularly enjoyable and because I've generally done everything by ear my notation skillz are pretty rusty. It would take me forever to get anything done on that level.

I'll just have to see where all this DAW stuff will take me. I seem to be getting some good reactions with what I've done so far so I'll just keep hammering away at it and try to set up a website or something. Cheers.

Danny, I had to smile at the picture of you playing the guitar all day for days, then starting to mouth the words until you could sing and play at the same time.  Brilliant!  :) Good for you!  :)  

I have just read article about top earning women in 2012 and I almost dropped under the table:

"New York: Pop star Britney Spears edged past Taylor Swift to claim the title of top-earning woman in music after bringing in an estimated $58 million from her album, endorsements and a perfume in the past year, Forbes said on Wednesday. Country-pop singer Swift, 22, was a close second with an estimated $57 million paycheck thanks to her tour - which made more than $1 million each night - a contract with CoverGirl cosmetics, her own line of fragrances and her new album 'Red.'
R&B star Rihanna, 24, earned an estimated $53 million to put her at No. 3, two places up from last year, followed by Lady Gaga, 26, who slipped from No. 1 in 2011 to fourth place with $52 million.
Katy Perry, 28, the only musician other than Michael Jackson to produce five No. 1 hit singles from one album, rounded out the top five with about $45 million in earnings."

So there is money in music to be earned :)  plus you don't have to have talent or brain to do it LOL
How that chick Britney does that, hard to believe...


http://content.ibnlive.in...n-music-310283-45.html