What distribution company do you guys use. There are many out there like Tunecore, CD Baby and ect. I know You Tube pays royalties if you use Adsense with them. They are paying me pennies from a cover song that I did.

Spotify pays depending on their venue and logarithm. I know if you have an average 200,000 thousand plays a month you can actually make a living. Here the calculator that does all the math for you http://spotifycalc.com

Do you guys promote your music? I use Facebook a lot to promote my music. The worst mistake that independent artist are doing is giving song for free. Even if you were to upload it on sound cloud or YouTube not downloadable, you still are giving it away. Because once they like it or sub your page it is know in there online library.

Promote...not sure about that really. I post on Facebook when I have a piece of music online, I suppose that counts. Sold a few CDs.. These days I make music because I enjoy it, and I really don't mind giving it away. I have no illusions about making money from it. That's a young person's game

100% agree with James - there is nothing wrong with sharing a song for people to enjoy (whatever your age).
As soon as you throw in the money making aspect, it becomes something very different in my opinion.
Better to have your stuff out there being heard and enjoyed than being paranoid about it being stolen or not paid for. If it's good enough, you'll make some money.    

This question gets asked now and again on the forums. I think last time it was either on the sonar forum or maybe the coffeehouse. Subject something like: "How to make money with sonar".
 
I tried Taxi a some years back for three years. Nothing doing. Other have tried Taxi with the same result. I briefly tried the youtube/adsense route, but took my only video out of "monetize" pretty quick. Like James and Daryl, I felt kind of weird with the ads. I just wanted to share it. However, I may try again with my next video.

I got some music into film and TV shows last year and got a check from BMI...  and just got the 1099 from them as well for tax purposes. 2 made for TV documentary films and 2 "reality" TV shows (Beverly Hills Pawn & Hollywood Hillbillies) used my music.
 
I tried TAXI for several years and got a few tunes signed but to this day, nothing has happened with those songs... they just sit on the shelf somewhere collecting dust.  Tired of spending money and spinning wheels, because it seemed they were "returning" everything I was sending as opposed to forwarding it..... I took it upon myself to find other music libraries and publishers who would represent my music and have the industry connections to get things done.  It just takes time, lots of music, and patience to get the cuts for your cues.  I even have a few European publishers handling some of my music in the old country.

Some of the plays of my music were in Europe & Canada so I guess I can say I'm an internationally known composer and musician. 

If you're looking to make money in this business... a band in a club is the best way...sell your CD's to fans and you can make a decent living.  Placing music in libraries for film and TV is ok, as long as you're writing what the industry is looking for. You won;t make a lot but it's cool to get those BMI royalty checks quarterly.

Doing the spotify, pandora thing.... man, you got get hundreds of thousands of plays to make enough for a hamburger, fries and a coke.  That's crazy.  I'll pursue film and TV.... since I can do it from the comfort of my home studio and don't need to play gigs and drive home at 2am.
 
my 2 cents
 
 

jamesg1213
Promote...not sure about that really. I post on Facebook when I have a piece of music online, I suppose that counts. Sold a few CDs.. These days I make music because I enjoy it, and I really don't mind giving it away. I have no illusions about making money from it. That's a young person's game

Hear hear! Every time I hear someone ask about how to make money doing music, I tell them to jump off that train to nowhere immediately. As soon as it becomes about making a living, there are all sorts of things you become required to do that will take up enormous amounts of time and energy and which you might not be very good at and which have little to do with your initial music-making passion. Promotion, drumming up gigs, traveling, demoing, playing stuff you don't want to play, etc., etc. If you discount the abstraction of "Look at me I'm making money doing music" then it's really kind of a lousy job. And in the modern world of streaming and home studio and all, trying to be a traditional musician for a living is sort of like wanting to be a farmer when there's free corn falling out of the sky everywhere.
 
As for me, I love the fact that I've been doing it for over 30 years and have never been burned out, can not do it when I don't want to, can explore some idiosyncratic niche, and don't have to answer to anyone. Meanwhile, I earn a living doing something totally unrelated to music. I'm so so so glad I took this path.

jkoseattle

jamesg1213
Promote...not sure about that really. I post on Facebook when I have a piece of music online, I suppose that counts. Sold a few CDs.. These days I make music because I enjoy it, and I really don't mind giving it away. I have no illusions about making money from it. That's a young person's game

Hear hear! Every time I hear someone ask about how to make money doing music, I tell them to jump off that train to nowhere immediately. As soon as it becomes about making a living, there are all sorts of things you become required to do that will take up enormous amounts of time and energy and which you might not be very good at and which have little to do with your initial music-making passion. Promotion, drumming up gigs, traveling, demoing, playing stuff you don't want to play, etc., etc. If you discount the abstraction of "Look at me I'm making money doing music" then it's really kind of a lousy job. And in the modern world of streaming and home studio and all, trying to be a traditional musician for a living is sort of like wanting to be a farmer when there's free corn falling out of the sky everywhere.
 
As for me, I love the fact that I've been doing it for over 30 years and have never been burned out, can not do it when I don't want to, can explore some idiosyncratic niche, and don't have to answer to anyone. Meanwhile, I earn a living doing something totally unrelated to music. I'm so so so glad I took this path.

^^^^^^
excellent advice 

Anthony,
 
I feel your pain and since I know you I know you through previous collaborations  I know you have a super work ethic. By making it a business, it can easily derail you from enjoying what you probably love doing the most, endless hours creating at your home without worrying about it.
 
I have a new album coming out now in a few weeks which I am going to try and sell. Really, I dont care about the money at all but I feel I have actually invested money into this as a business project and so I would love to be able to recoup that money back(maybe sell about 250 copies to people that know me or like my stuff to break even). Considering the mastering, artwork, promotional video I don't think that's unreasonable to aim for or do. If I make a profit, hell the drinks are on me! Luckily I am a qualified engineer so that doesn't weigh in as heavy.
 
Really have a think about what you love to do. If you want to make  a business out of it, man unfortunetely youll have to work twice as hard get your own personal brand out there and perform, gain fans. There is a million people who do what you do so you'll have to work on a unique selling point, unless of course you stand out by having a 6 octave vocal range or three eyes coming out of your head!!!
 
 
Cian 

Great advice here!
 
I agree totally. We put our music in all the places (itunes, spotify, etc. etc.) just because when someone wants to hear our music it's nice for them to find it on whatever platform they already use. We use distrokid.com to do this as it's really low cost and gets it out there. Would be nice if we could make it free on itunes.
 
We also have a bandcamp site. Which we give our tunes away for free, because we can.
 
gabo

Post #6 makes a lot of sense.

The business of music and making money with it, has certainly changed. Used to be you could throw a band together with a few guys and start gigging almost immediately and making decent money doing it.  I recall a few bands where we had the gigs booked and were still looking musicians to complete the band.

I was in a town that was a thriving live music scene. But things have changed..... in NC they tighened up the drunk driving laws (a good thing in many ways) but that practically killed the club scene in the process. We saw attendance at the gigs drop off as people were scared to come out, have a good time, drink a few beers and drive home through the highway patrol road blocks, get popped and lose their license.

Currently, the club scene is dead.  A few duo's with older guys are playing the corner of the occasional restaurant that decides to try live music. Of course, this isn't a large city either..... so it may be different in a big city.
 
But with all the free music and a-la-cart sellers of tunes on the net, it's hard for anyone to make a living in the business like I and others were able to do 40 years ago. There's always going to be room for a successful artist, but you gotta make that success yourself. Record contracts are not as popular a way to do things because the record companies are trying to figure out how to stay in business as well. It's a different world for them.
 
There will always be those souls who sell everything they have except the clothes on their back and their guitar and head out to Nashville or LA to give the business their best shot.  We need folks like that. And some of them will become stars or touring musicians and become successful. Kudos to them. I wish them well. The majority will scrounge up bus ticket money for the ride home. Time for plan B.

The advice they used to reserve for songwriters now seems to apply to most all musicians across the board......
 
Don't quit your day job.