Making Minimum Wage Through Music Sales

Still want to try to make music for a living?

Does "making music for a living" include teaching music, either through a school district and or teaching private lessons ?

Also, does playing gigs on weekends count toward that income?


Essitaillay, that's how I make my living. Doing all those things combined, as well as trying to sell my own music.
I would consider it waaaaaay better than flipping burgers.

But I see your point.

It is a job you have to love and it's as hard an any other.

I guess that's why nowadays major labels be more interested if the band is performing 'live' and already built-up a fairly good following.

For an indie band? it's not so much just the CD sales that generate income for the band, it's getting the shows and selling CD's at the door, pooling those incomes (shows + CD's).

In Australia at the time I was gigging, the manager submitted the band's PK/CD to either of two major agencies; Harbour and Premiere Agencies. And follow up calls/fax on an almost weekly basis.

I'm not sure; but I think nowadays there is only one major agency in Australia.

The deal was simple; door/fee, on average the band made $1,200 (after expenses; crew, lights, PA) then add on CD sales which averaged; 400 per month.   The venue/club made their money on drinks.

If (that's a big IF) a band can average at least two shows per-week (earn in total: $2,400, after expenses) and sell on average 100 CD's ($8.ea) per-two-weekly (total: $800), than I guess that's not too bad but...

Also considering income is divided equally to the band and of course the manager want's his cut.  There were 6 hungry mouths to feed in my band (including manger).

Next time, I'm going lean (fewer band members, and PC/backing music), and self-managed.

Honestly! Life ain't easy for the indie/unsigned bands, often members having second jobs to make up their income to pay for; mortgages and loans.

Often no sleep after finishing a show at wee hours in the morning 3.am, then driving home, expecting to start work the next morning at 7.am. It's tough yakka!!

Also, you can't predict what income the band is going to make from week-to-week, a band could go for several weeks without any shows. I guess the agency tries to spread the work out evenly; there are other bands they need to consider.

Anyway! The bottomline is; don't be too dependent on making money on CD's alone.  You need to get out and gig, gig, gig, and selling those extra CD's at your gigs helps a lot.

Also; have you noticed that most major (signed) artists are expected to be active on social network sites such as; MySpace, Facebook, YouTube?  they participate daily (activity/posts; their new CD, special offers, upcoming shows, oh it's back to the studio, more press/photos, whatever).  It's all part-n-parcel of being an artist nowadays.

Hey Bit, that Bobby Owsinski's blog: is excellent :-)

JR... back in the day when I played music for a living ....aka my only source of income was the band (for 3 years) I ran a T-shirt booth in the clubs we played. It was not uncommon for me to make more money from T-shirt, pictures, and buttons than from my share of the gig. We didn't have any recordings so we didn't offer them.

We worked steady, and made enough to pay our rent, gas and eat...... and mostly had fun but stayed broke.

quantumeffect


can always go to med school ... medicine is probably not a bad fall-back career / option

and I hear medical doctors make more than min. wage

min. wage was $3.35 when I was a teenager, what is it now?

Aaaaaand.....
 
We'll be needing a bunch more doctors after they all quit when Obamacare kicks in.

Found on Bobby Owsinski's blog: (thanks to Dave King for turning me on to that site)

 
Glad to oblige!

Maybe the next generation of DAW user interfaces will be modeled after McDonald's point of sale terminals.

If you want a piano, you just press a button with a picture of a piano on it. Of course, it then plays a generic piano part for you and records it.

This approach kills two birds: it dumbs down the software for those who think learning how it works is too much work, while at the same time providing vocational training for their next career.

Bit there was a time when one could.

My dad use to take me to nightclubs when I was 8 ('63) and he'd get the band to tell me stories and sometimes I'd set-in. I'd been playing only a couple of years but I remember it being fun.
Many of the bands played "circuits" so I got to see or play with them when they came back.

From what I recall it was but a few years later and things changed.
I know by the time I was 15 it was no longer like it was. I took the place of a good friend in a local nightclub band when he went on the road. He wound up playing with Kenny Rodgers and Dottie West but his stories getting there didn't sound good. And for whatever reason he wasn't real happy doing their gig. He went down from there. Snowblind.

He was always trying to get me to hit the road but the things I knew from the bands 7 years earlier and the things he told me....no way.
One gig was in Vegas, four on, four off, four on, four off...geeze what kinda life is that?
Seemed like a cruise ship gig would easily beat that.

So the way I see it, from 1963 thru 1970 the idea of an average to very good band making a living playing circuits was no longer a good idea.
That left close sit-down gigs. Good pay with little travel and equipment moving and a supplimentary income at that.

Of course that's just a little view from my past. Been years since I've heard of motel/nightclub circuits so I don't know if they still exist. But I know at one time it was a very cool way to make a living making music.

Geeze..an old guy story..! sure doesn't seem that long ago.

Another smart career choice, from an income-potential standpoint, is to go into Country music. That's where the CD sales are. Michael Jackson aside (who was his own industry), the biggest-selling artists of the past decade were Shania Twain, George Strait, Taylor Swift, Garth Brooks and the Eagles. (Notable exceptions: Usher and Beyonce. I guess the key there is to adopt a one-name stage name.)

Whatever you do, avoid the metal genres. Metal bands are a dime a dozen. Metal bands that make good money, now that's an exclusive club.

Jules?
Sounds like your Jewel's twin?

More fascinating info from the site, this time about who's making money in live performances.

I have long found comfort in one aspect of the failing music industry, and that is that live music may make a comeback because it's the one product no one can steal. Here are the big winners:

1. Celine Dion - $748 mill
2. Kenny Chesney - $742 mill
3, Dave Mathews Band - $738 mill
4. The Beatles - $627 mill (including Paul McCartney's and Ringo's ticket sales)
5. U2 - $610 mill
6. Toby Keith - $592 mill
7. Bruce Springsteen - $588 mill
8. The Rolling Stones - $570 mill
9. Tim McGraw - $551 mill
10. Britney Spears - $495 mill

To me, this also suggests that appealing to the over-40 demographic may not be the huge marketing mistake that it's traditionally been thought to be. Only one of the top 10 concert moneymakers has a primarily teenage following.

Note the conspicuous absence of hip-hop and modern R&B artists. One might assume, based on their saturation levels in popular culture and radio, that those are the only genres anyone cares about. Apparently, although those genres may sell soda pop they aren't as reliable for selling concert tickets. Meanwhile, Celine Dion, one of the most un-hip entertainers around, earned 748 million dollars (!).

Only one of the top 10 concert moneymakers has a primarily teenage following.

 
Most teens probably can't afford the ticket prices to see the majority of these acts.

 

There's something to be said about living life as a minimalist: 'just an artist': Playing your heart out ... not getting too rich.  Early Retirement from the day job and all.

I envy those of you that do that.

It's time to unplug our DAW's and hit the road!

Well, it probably wouldn't hurt anyone to get out and play once in a while. My chops wouldn't be so rusty if I did that more often.

But I am definitely never going on the road again, ever. That was a great adventure when I was 21. But at 58 I have to have my Lay-Z-Boy to melt into every evening. And eating Red Hot Beef Burritos at a truck stop at 4:00 AM would probably kill me nowadays.

The leading music retailer is now Starbucks. Maybe they'd consider featuring live music next. Then we could all have a gig and not have to travel more than 6 blocks to get to it.

bitflipper


Found on Bobby Owsinski's blog: (thanks to Dave King for turning me on to that site)

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To make the minimum wage for one month, or $1,160, you need to sell:

143 self pressed CD's (income $8 each)

155 CD's from cdbaby (income $7.50 each)

1,161 retail CDs with a high-end label royalty rate (income $1 each)

1,229 iTunes album downloads (income $.94 each)

1,562 MP3 downloads via cdbaby (income $.74 each)

2,044 MP3 downloads via cdbaby via iTunes (income $.57 each)

3,871 retail CDs, with a low-end label royalty rate (income $.30 each)

12,399 individual track downloads from iTunes or Amazon (income $.09 each)

849,817 plays per month on Rhapsoday (income $.0022 each)

1,546,667 plays per month on last.fm (income $.005 each)

4,549,020 plays per month on Spotify (income $.00043 each)

This makes working at McDonalds start to look like a wise career choice. Still want to try to make music for a living?

Depressing isn't it. I'd like to see where the rest of the money goes. You want fries with that Sir?