How Artists Get Paid

If you ever wondered how an artist gets paid from an online sale or broadcast, here's a great infographic from the Future Of Music Coalition that shows just about every scenario.

The thing to watch is how many steps in each case that it takes for the royalty payout to make it back to the artist or songwriter.

What might not be obvious on the chart is that anything in red has to do with the copyright of the song, and anything in yellow is the sound recording.

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Musicians Income From Branding

One of the basic tenets of Music 3.0 is that your music is your marketing, which means that you shouldn't be afraid to give it away as long as it raises your visibility and establishes your brand. Where music artists have always made the bulk of their money is from gigging and selling merchandise, and the actual music sales of an established artist is as little as 2%.

But it's easy to paint a pie-in-the-sky picture of how these revenue streams work, and I've been as guilty of this as anyone. The fact of the matter is, in order to make any of the current Music 3.0 principles work, you first need an audience. Now I cover how to establish, nurture and sustain that audience in the Music 3.0 guidebook, but it's really easy to overlook the fact that people really have to like your music, and you still have to put in a lot of work to make things happen. In other words, it's pretty difficult if a lot of people think you're mediocre; it's less difficult if a lot of people think you're great.

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I firmly believe that almost any artist can find an audience out there if you search long enough. The problem is, it might not be large enough to sustain a career.

So let's assume that you've had at least some minimal success and developed a core audience (however large or small). How much revenue can you expect from your brand? Here's a great slideshow that the Future of Music Coalition did for their MIDEM 2012 presentation that represents a survey of 5000 musicians asked just that question.

View more presentations from midem

One of the major points that the slideshow makes is that you can't expect to make any money as a musician unless you establish your brand first, and even then you still might not make that much if you don't work it hard. Most musicians either don't know how or don't care about the brand part of their careers. If they're lucky, they latch on to an established brand (like a successful band) and ride its coattails. But if you're really interested in a long-term career, your personal brand is of utmost importance. Do it now!

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

6 Steps To Your Email Newsletter

As I've said many times on this blog and in my Music 3.0 book, the single best tool for communication with your fan base is via your email list. I found this great article on The Future Of Music blog by George Howard that described 6 vital steps in constructing your email. They are:

1. It must be short and highlight one and only one action. The total length should be less than 500 words.

2. It should be frequent; once a week (I believe that once every two weeks to a month is better) on a regularly-scheduled basis.

3. It should have a call to action. Tell the recipient what you want them to do: come to the site to get something, come to a show, etc.

4. It should be forwardable. Ask your recipients to forward the email to someone they think will enjoy it.

5. It should have sharing functions embedded. Allow people to Tweet, add to a FB status.

6. Make it easy for people to unsubscribe.

George also states the following:

"Don’t worry about overwhelming people with email blasts. If people are unsubscribing, they’re likely non-value adding “fans” any way. Instead, focus on presenting real, timely, share-able value to your current fans so that they have a tool to help you gain new ones."

This I don't buy. I think it's important NOT to overwhelm anyone, as you'll be perceived as a spammer. Emails are difficult to design well, and it's pretty difficult to keep coming up with pertinent info regularly, especially on a weekly basis. That's why I believe that it's both better for you and your fans if you have a longer period in between emails.

That being said, George's steps are right on. His post was more on psychographics and converting fans into customers, and is definitely worth checking out.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.