A steady flow of money. Royalties on book sales. Sales of CDs We’ve spent a lot of time discussing these revenue streams. This time around, we’re focusing on passive income, a lesser-known type of music money.
What exactly is passive income?
Any revenue generated after the completion of a task is considered passive income. Now that the labor is done, you can put your finished product to use.
After releasing a song, uploading a video, or launching a new merch line, some passive money is earned. As a result, the revenue described in the introduction could be viewed as passive income.
And that could mean that you’re making money while you’re promoting your music or video content through affiliate links. When it comes to subscription-based businesses, it may be possible to start making money before you even start creating anything new!
These forms of passive income will be discussed in greater detail below. But first…
To what extent may I benefit from passive revenue from my music career?
Passive revenue, as previously said, benefits you. Once the hard job of making music has been completed, you will receive this payment. Months, years, and even decades are possible. Never give up hope of finding a buyer for something you’ve completed years ago.
You should be proud of yourself if you’ve had great success with passive income. But even if you simply earn a few dollars here and there, you may use that money to help your music grow.
What are the best ways for artists to make money while they’re not working?
Various types of passive income can be found in the music industry.
1. Affiliate programs
If you’re an indie artist, this is one of the most difficult passive revenue sources to get your hands on. What exactly is an affiliate program, and how does it work?
Advertisement through an affiliate program (sometimes referred to as affiliate marketing or affiliate models) is performance-based. Online retailers such as Amazon pay commissions to other parties for traffic and purchases that are directly linked to referrals. To put it another way, you share a product or service link. Whenever someone clicks on your link and purchases something, you get a share of that sale.
There are a lot of prospective content creators who rely on affiliate marketing to make money. Ever seen a YouTube video where the author states that viewers can purchase a product via links in the description? What a great example of affiliate marketing!
So, how does affiliate marketing work for musicians? It’s the same as everyone else’s, except for the fact that it’s specifically designed for musicians.
A few affiliate programs for musicians are listed below.
The Amazon Associates Program: How to Make Money While You Sleep
It’s a major deal because Amazon is the world’s most popular internet retailer. In addition, it’s the easiest to join.
Your audience can be directed to select products that you use or suggest through the Amazon Associates Program. You can then earn a fee on the sales made through those links. “
Favorite instrument? Favorite sound effect? Favorite headphone set-up? What about your home studio’s DAW or audio interface? Get paid every time someone buys a product you’ve recommended through Amazon’s Affiliate Program!
For musicians, the Amazon affiliate program is particularly valuable, as it allows you to profit from links to your own tracks on Amazon Music.
Bounties is the system used to do this. When your followers sign up for a free trial or membership to Amazon Music*, you receive fixed commissions. As a result, you’ll be making money while simultaneously promoting your music!
Bounties can be earned in two ways on Amazon Music.
It’s possible to produce a picture from your Amazon Music library and embed it on your website using the Music Deeplinks feature. When a user clicks “play,” Amazon Music will offer them a free trial. The more people who sign up, the more money you’ll make.
To create an Amazon Music Deeplink, select an album, track, station, or playlist from the catalog. Select “Share Playlist” by clicking on the icon with a circle and three dots.
Add your store ID to the back end of the Deeplink you just established by clicking “Copy Link.”
Widgets for embedding your tracks, albums, or playlists in your content may be found here. If a listener signs up for a free trial of Amazon Music, you get paid.
In order to add a playlist to a widget, select “Share Playlist” by clicking the icon with three dots in a circle. Click “Embed” instead of “Copy” to insert the link into your post. The embedded link must have your Store ID at the end of it.
Apple Music is a great way to get money without doing any work.
It’s similar to Amazon Music’s bounty system, where you get rewarded once a referral ends up paying for the first month of Apple Music. The Apple Music Premier Partner Program works in the same way.
Apple Music Toolbox allows you to make these connections to Apple Music, which you can then share with others. Afterwards, you post those connections to your various social media accounts. In order to create subscriptions, you can link to Apple Music, or you can link to iTunes for a commission on sales.
It’s also possible to include a QR code for your fans to scan. Instead of needing to visit a link, they can just scan the QR code and be taken directly to Apple Music. To receive your delicious payback, simply enter your affiliate code below.
Are you a regular Twitter user? Additionally, you can include a 30-second taster track with your affiliate code in a Tweet. As a result, you will be compensated for any subscriptions that are generated as a result of the clicks you have generated.
Through Deezer’s affiliate network, you can earn a passive income.
When users sign up for Deezer through a tagged link, participants in Deezer’s affiliate program (referred to as Dealers) earn money.
This offer is only valid for Deezer HiFi subscribers who wish to stream their music in lossless FLAC format.
In addition, Deezer offers affiliates a free Deezer HiFi subscription as an incentive.
- Revenue generated by fan subscriptions.
As a result, subscription-based income comes directly from those who follow your work and make recurring contributions to your cause. Subscription services are used by content providers as a long-term source of stable income from the work they produce.
Basically, it’s like paying for a fan club or a subscription to your music career…
Because their favorite artists’ fans are paying their favorite creators directly, these business models tend to strengthen the bond between content creators and their customers. It’s like coming up to your favorite band after a gig and throwing them a few dollars, except you get interesting material in return for your subscription.
These subscription services are available to musicians:
Patreon: Patreon, the most popular subscription service for content artists, offers a wide range of possibilities for musicians. You can charge your customers a monthly subscription to access content like music videos, instrument training, and demos of upcoming tracks. Creators on Patreon pay a commission of between 5% and 12% of their monthly profits to Patreon. Donations exceeding $3 are subject to a processing fee of 2.9 percent plus $0.30, while donations under $3 are assessed a fee of 5 percent plus $0.10.
Bandzoogle: Do you host your own website on Bandzoogle? If this is the case, you can set up a subscription service directly on your Sports website. Bandzoogle’s subscription option allows fans to pay you commission-free revenue for access to your material. Subscription tiers can also be created for varying levels of access to the service.
It’s up to you: Subscription and membership models can be created by musicians who are self-motivated. Connecting a payment system with gated material on your website and your email/SMS management system may require some work, but the tradeoff is that you keep all the money and you construct it your way.
- The use of money
In the music industry, monetization can entail a lot of different things, therefore this is a somewhat broad topic. The money you make from your music being used in media like these is what we’re referring to.
Your song has been used in a YouTube video, but you don’t know the YouTube Content ID. This results in an advertising being displayed on the video. Ad money is generated each time an ad is clicked on.
Sign up with CD Baby to have your YouTube videos monetized.
Sync licensing, like Content ID, relies on the inclusion of music in media productions to function. Sync licensing, on the other hand, covers all forms of media, including television shows, movies, video games, and more.
As a result of CD Baby’s sync licensing service, music supervisors from all around the entertainment business get access to your songs. They just need to get in touch with our sync team to work something out. This has the potential to pay off handsomely!
Because the songs in our collection have already been cleared, all you have to do is wait for the upfront payment to be processed. Music supervisors are drawn to our repertoire because of its ease of use. Music supervisors prefer working with CD Baby because they only have to deal with one party to get the correct song for the task.
In addition, there are online courses.
This is an often-overlooked source of revenue for musicians. Sign up to teach a class at an online school if you’re an expert in a particular field! Alternatively, you can build and advertise your own course.
Describe yourself as a guitarist. In the event that you’ve been working on your own music for a long time and are ready to share your experience with others, we encourage you to do so. It’s possible to set up an online course and get paid anytime someone takes it.
You’ve got some wisdom to impart? You can teach online at these schools:
If you know of any others, please share them with us in the comments section below.
Have you been able to make extra money without doing any work at all? Tell us in the comments how you did it.