People always say that you need to invest in your career, but nobody tells you how to spend your money. We can help.
The vast majority of young musicians are building a career with limited resources. Not only do they have to balance their pursuit of music with jobs and other commitments, but they often have minimal financial resources. Every dollar matters. Musicians want to grow, but they also want to produce a good product, and sometimes, it’s unclear how to do both with a small budget.
Every career is unique, but there are many similarities. The most important of these being that songs matter above all. Without good songs that are produced well, there isn’t much you can do to build a career. You can throw money around all day, but those efforts will ultimately be in vain without quality material. Today’s listeners have zero tolerance for artists pushing poorly produced music, which is why we always recommend focusing any budget towards making the best possible product first—quality matters.
If you make the best possible recording you can afford and still have a budget, the second area we recommend artists invest in is digital advertising. Many services will do this for you, but we have found that most won’t do it well without a massive investment. The best course of action is to first participate in the multiple online training sessions for digital ads offered by companies such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, and others. These free courses will teach you everything you need to know about setting up targeted ads that deliver actual results, and from there, you can begin building a digital following.
We can go on and on about ways to invest your money, but it’s also important to note that there are many things artists waste money on that should be avoided at all costs. Those items and much more are outlined in the latest Music Biz video. Host James Shotwell will walk you through the best and worst ways to spend your money if you want to grow your career. He will also discuss the pros and cons of each investment and how your priorities may shift over time. Dig in now:
Music Biz is brought to you by Haulix, the music industry’s leading promotional distribution platform. Start your one-month free trial today and gain instant access to the same promotional tools used by BMG, Concord, Rise Records, Pure Noise Records, and hundreds more. Visit http://haulix.com/signup for details.
Spotify playlists are shaping the future music business, but reaching the curators of the most influential lists is often incredibly difficult. We can help.
Spotify shook the music industry late last month by announcing plans to empower all artists to directly upload music to their services. The decision marked a change from the industry norm, which has traditionally required artists to work with distributors like Tunecore and CDBaby, but it also left many questions. In particular, how much will artists get paid, and how does it compare to the deals currently being made throughout the industry?
In a new report released by MusicBusinessWorldwide late last, it is revealed that Spotify’s latest move is actually quite beneficial…As long as you know what you’re doing.
Spotify has confirmed the direct distribution deals with artists will pay a 50% share of all streaming revenue. This figure is in line with industry expectations, as anything less would make the service no better than any current distribution offerings.
But how does that compare to Spotify’s label deals? Currently, Spotify pays all major labels a 52% share of all streaming revenue. That number looks better on paper, but only before you remember that the label shares that figure with the artist. Performers working with major labels typically receive anywhere from 15-50% of that share, which is far less than artists choosing to use the direct upload model. Only hitmakers like Drake or Taylor Swift have any chance at securing the full 52%.
To further illustrate these numbers, MBW produced the following infographic:
To use an example, let’s say an artist generate $10,000 in streaming revenue over the course of a single month.
With the new directly upload deals, Spotify makes $5,000 and the artist makes $5,000.
With traditional major label deals, Spotify makes $4,800, and the label gets $5,200. The artist then gets anywhere from $780-2,550.
With the average internet distribution deal, Spotify makes $4,800, and the artist generates $4,420, while the distributor claims the remaining $780.
Taking all this into consideration, Spotify’s direct upload deals would appear to be ideal for anyone hoping to get the most significant return for their music. However, these figures do not take into account how a major label can aide an artist in getting their music heard. While an independent act may make more on paper, artists backed by labels staffed with marketing geniuses have a higher likelihood of bringing in large amounts of money as long as their music is as popular as the label hopes it will become.
Still, if an album released through a major flop, the overall take for the associated artist could be next to nothing when compared to an independent act with a similar amount of streams.
Now is the best time in history to be a music fan. The era we live in is the first where music is available everywhere, all the time, for only a few bucks a month. You can use YouTube and enjoy millions of songs for free and artists STILL get paid. It’s incredible.
Despite the rise of streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, digital piracy has continued to be a thorn in the side of the entertainment industry. The amount of media pirated in 2016 was double the amount stolen in 2008, and it is expected to double again by 2020.
The majority of albums that leak ahead of their release date find their way online due to careless promotional tactics on the part of the artist or their team. Dozens, possibly even hundreds of copies of a record are shared with members of the press, radio, and industry at large before an album is released to the public. Somewhere along the line the album reaches someone who decides to share it with a third party, and that is all it takes for countless sales and streams to be lost forever.
In an age where artists can make money for every stream of their music across countless platforms there is no reason to risk the loss of a single penny to piracy. Protect your music and easily share it with the industry at large by joining Haulix today.
Haulix is a digital distribution platform built specifically to enable the advance promotion of new and unreleased music without the fear of piracy. Their platform makes it incredibly easy to upload, watermark, distribute, and track your new release.
Within a matter of minutes you can be sharing your music with fully customizable emails and promotional pages without having to worry whether or not someone will choose to leak your material online. You can try Haulix for free for the next 30 days by visiting their official website and choosing the subscription that best fits your needs.
In my decade of experience in music writing I have found that contributors, especially those working for little to no money, are incredibly flexible as business professionals. The way people are able to find the energy to create brilliant observations before or after committing their time to a job or other interests that often provide much more fruitful returns is something that has never ceased to amaze me. Your favorite writer has probably been one of these people at one or more point in their life, scraping together whatever they can from the volumes of work they create in hopes of one day finding regular pay that is good enough to support themselves (or, for the real dreamers, a family). I know I’ve been there my fair share of times, and I am almost certain I will find myself there again before my time in this business has come to an end.
While it is true most contributors are able to put up with a lot when it comes to developing their careers in this business, the one thing no one has time for are false promises of payment that never result in writers actually being paid. This goes for everyone in writing, by the way, and not just those who have only recently begun their journey in music. Publications of all sizes have been called out online by frustrated writers looking to be given the compensation they were promised for words already written, but despite a consistent outcry from writers everywhere the amount of hurdles that often need to be left over in order to actually see the money owed to a writer can be substantial.
And make no mistake: Writers understand that finding money to pay for creative writing is harder and harder to come by in the modern age. Social media and the splintering of consumer behavior in regards to new consumption in the digital age has created hundreds of niche audiences that are served by a wide variety of sites and blogs who are all competitions for the same shares of an often quite small market. The only publications able to make real money are those who are able to cultivate a community around their content offerings, and even then convincing a major brand to advertise takes business skills few in the world of music journalism possess. Still, we (contributors) need to be paid.
When you promise to pay a writer, or even better sign a contract guaranteeing payment, it is your responsibility to make good on that deal. Not when it’s convenient. Not after they have asked for it for weeks or months on end with little to no response. You need to pay them when you agreed to pay them, and if some reason that is beyond your means you need to be open with them about this fact. You may have other bills and costs piling up, but a deal is a deal. You need contributors as much, if not more, than they need you, and rest assured they will be vocal about any wrong doing on your part. There may be thousands of aspiring writers in the world, but only a couple hundred are doing it in any real capacity, the cream of the crop – the ones who really matter and maintain some semblance of influence in a time where ‘everyone’ has been given a voice online – only work for the places that make good on promises. They not only talk to one another, but they have an audience of writers at every level following their every thought on Twitter.
It’s simple: You are trying to build something – a site, zine, magazine, etc. – and you are looking to others to help you accomplish that goal. Bringing on writers is no different than hiring on a construction crew. Both work when the money is good, and they stop when it’s not. Make good on your agreements and everything will be fine.
Thank you for joining us for another installment in our our ongoing Journalism Tips series. We started this column as a way to help aspiring writers get their start in music, but over the couple months we have been evolving into a place writers come to have their questions about life in the business answered. Today we are continuing that effort with a response to a question posed by multiple reader in regards to how long it takes to begin making money as a writer. If you have any questions about developing as a writer/blogger in music, please do not hesitate email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
There are a dozen ways Facebook can suck you in and steal hours of any given work day, but for me the biggest hurdle to overcome is the allure of the platform’s messaging system. Any time I log on there are either friends or industry peers available to chat, and it’s rare that I do not click one or two just to say hello. After all, networking and communication are key in this industry. Earlier this week, however, I was pulled into a conversation for over an hour with a writer I had never met or known. They claimed to be fans of this blog and wanted to ask my opinion on something related to their writing career. I was flattered by the comments, but to be honest I still struggle with these kind of situations in public. The music industry is a crazy place, and what works/worked for me might not have the same results for someone else. This blog allows for advice to be given in a generic sense, making it possible for a lot of people to take in the ideas and refine them to fit their needs, but when talking one-on-one everything is much more direct.
I confessed all my apprehensions about offering advice, but ultimately gave in and asked what the question was this person had been pining over for so long that they felt compelled to seek help. Their answer, surprisingly, was one of the most frequently contributed questions this blog has ever received:
How long does it take to become a professional writer, and when should I expect to start getting paid for my work?
Questions like this are similar to the questions I think everyone asks themselves in music from time to time. The hard truth is, unfortunately, that there are no definite answers. One thing I know for sure though is that no amount of money can make someone a professional. Likewise, just because you’re getting paid to write does not necessarily mean you are a professional. Let’s expand on this, shall we?
Professionalism, as we have discussed in the past, is not determined by wealth or cultural status. To be a professional is to enter into a mindset where you treat the things you love doing as a profession. You strive to create the most interesting and in depth content you can, without thinking of the payment or praise you will receive for your efforts. The only thing you need to find satisfaction is the completion of whatever you are working on in the moment, and from there you will find a new project to begin. It’s not about figuring out the best way to do something and doing it that way forever, but rather inventing new ways to tell original stories that people may or may not know they want to hear. It’s about setting the curve not just for yourself, but for everyone around you as well.
Individuals become professionals in music journalism when they accept the fact there is no end point in the pursuit of writing perfection. Whether your first or five hundredth article goes viral does not matter if the 400+ articles in between are complete crap. No one story is going to make or break your career, but focused and consistently strong writing will allow you to continue pursuing your love of combining music and the written word. You might not get paid at times, but then again money is never the goal of the professional. It’s nice, and in many ways needed for survival over the longterm, but professionals realize money is little more than a means to acquire the items needed to survive and not the tool for survival itself. You can learn more about professionalism here.
On the topic of compensation and when writers can expect to begin receiving payment, there is no way for me or anyone else to provide any type of substantial answer. It’s likely you could be getting paid to write content right now if you clicked through enough Craigslist ads and LinkedIn postings, but if you want to get paid for creating content you are truly passionate about it may take some time to reach a point where you are able to support yourself from such endeavors. I interview writers every week who have been working in music for a decade or more, and nine times our of ten they admit to not making a dime for their writing for years (usually five or more). If they did somehow start getting paid sooner, they have been around long enough to see the rise of digital media cause a drop in the rates publications are willing to pay freelance contributors.
Reaching a point where you are able to cover the things that matter to you takes a combination of time, practice, networking, and – to be entirely honest – luck. You have to write long enough to develop a unique voice that people not only recognize, but seek out on a regular basis. Once you have established that, you need to create a portfolio of content, as well as a collection of new ideas, which can then be shared with editors and publications around the globe. Those who receive your submissions will then have to review those articles and content ideas to see if you fit in with the voice/focus of their site as whole and get back to you. They also may not even bother to contact you again. That’s just the way the business works.
Some may think starting their own website will be a quicker way to reach a point where advertisers and/or publishers are willing to pay for content, but that path has its own set of drawbacks. First and foremost, as the demand for content grows so will the need to either expand your writing staff or lessen the amount of time you spend on each post. Either decision will alter the way your only voice is received, and as time goes on that demand is only going to grow. If you do land a publishing deal, there will be an expectation for the type and amount of content created, which can make many writers feel stunted in term of coverage options.
If you really want to be a professional and make money while doing so, make it a point now to focus on your craft and set personal goals. Don’t worry about traffic or compensation, but do stress over the quality of the material you deem worthy of being shared with the world. Each article you create, whether a review or news update, should showcase your abilities as a writer to the fullest extent possible. Success comes to those who dive in without worrying about temperature of the water or how others will view their efforts to swim. Be yourself and embrace the fact you have a voice entirely your own, then use that voice to share the best and worst of the world with others. Success will follow.
