# I need a little honesty...



## sIR dORT (May 27, 2019)

So, I've alluded to this before but I'm planning to release an EP of about 4-5 songs of mine that are a bit longer and that I've spent more time on. However, I believe that it was @NoamL who made a point about my structure not being very suitable for my music to be licensed very much, meaning that the music will not be library music (you could say that it is more film score-ish and expresses multiple melodies and ideas). So, assuming I do all the right steps releasing my music through digital distributors and PROs, how much money, if any, will I earn from my music simply being released, say per month?

I'm very new to this area so please bear with me...


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## jneebz (May 27, 2019)

What are YOUR expectations of 5 songs released into the wild? If I'm being honest, (and I've not heard your tracks) if you're not aware of the fact that those 5 songs will probably bring you pennies per month, I would start with a brush up on the basics of the music business. I found a few resources to be very helpful in my journey:

1. https://www.macprovideo.com/about/trainer/paulbissell - Dr. Paul Bissell's Music Business 101-104 (videos)
1. http://thebusinessofmusiclicensing.com/ - Emmett Cooke's "The Business of Music Licensing" e-book
2. https://librarymusicbook.com/ - Dan Graham's "A Composer's Guide to Library Music" e-book

Good luck!


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## Jeremy Spencer (May 27, 2019)

Depends how you market the album. In reality, you probably won’t sell anything except to your family, friends and colleagues. @jneebz is unfortunately correct about pennies per month.


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## SchnookyPants (May 27, 2019)

> ... how much money, if any, will I earn from my music simply being released, say per month?



Not as much as cutting lawns.


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## Desire Inspires (May 27, 2019)

If you want to make money, conform and make what will get you the most money. There is no need to over think these things. 

Not many people will say this, but you have to put in work and please other people to earn money. There is absolutely nothing wrong with working to make more money!


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## sIR dORT (May 27, 2019)

Well... crap. Thanks for the honesty, I still will go on with the plan, but I do intend to switch over to library music in the future. The link in my first post is an example of my work for those who are wondering. Does "pennies" mean like literally nothing or below $50 (just throwing a number out there)? Bear with me, I'm in HS and broke lol


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## MatFluor (May 27, 2019)

Pennies means literally pennies. One stream is roughly about $0.006. With the current "state of the industry" that buying albums almost vanished in many parts - it's pennies.

With my old band we released an album with a digital distributor and managed to rake in the unbelievable amount of $60 over three years. Through CD sales at concerts (paired with T-Shirts and lighters) we made much much more. In Power Metal, which is not ultra-niche.

so yeah. Literal pennies.


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## storyteller (May 27, 2019)

Don’t feel too bad. Other art fields are just as bad if not worse. If you are a writer and climb the mountain of writing your first novel, you will soon discover the reality that there are over 1 million books published a year. The average amount per author breaks down to around a couple thousand dollars per book written. In reality, that is WAY way off because the big authors make a disproportionate amount of money leaving the true average somewhere around a few hundred bucks per book at best.


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## Jeremy Spencer (May 27, 2019)

sIR dORT said:


> Does "pennies" mean like literally nothing or below $50 (just throwing a number out there)?



Yes, believe it or not. I have a few albums on iTunes (among other sites) and we get a whopping $35 annually for streaming revenues. The sales are a dime dozen if you are an unknown artist. Don’t go into it for the money! We sold a ton of CD’s, but that was at our merch booth at live shows.


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## Rctec (May 27, 2019)

https://www.businessinsider.com/pha...-43-million-plays-of-happy-on-pandora-2014-12


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## SimonCharlesHanna (May 27, 2019)

Rctec said:


> https://www.businessinsider.com/pha...-43-million-plays-of-happy-on-pandora-2014-12


It's a bit obscene isn't it


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## sIR dORT (May 28, 2019)

Rctec said:


> https://www.businessinsider.com/pha...-43-million-plays-of-happy-on-pandora-2014-12


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## ThomasNL (Jun 2, 2019)

Rctec said:


> https://www.businessinsider.com/pha...-43-million-plays-of-happy-on-pandora-2014-12



This is because it uses the radio model, one airplay on the radio also gives your around €60 as it gets listened by one million people at once. Of course this does not translate at all to the streaming services...


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## will_m (Jun 4, 2019)

I think bands now have begun to try and go back to physical media like vinyl, its obviously costs more to produce but you can sell it for $30+ as opposed to someone streaming it for a lifetime and it netting you about nothing.

I see more film soundtracks being released this way too, through the studio labels or third parties like Mondo.


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## MartinH. (Jun 4, 2019)

will_m said:


> I think bands now have begun to try and go back to physical media like vinyl, its obviously costs more to produce but you can sell it for $30+ as opposed to someone streaming it for a lifetime and it netting you about nothing.
> 
> I see more film soundtracks being released this way too, through the studio labels or third parties like Mondo.



To be able to actually sell your physical media, you'll probably need to put in a lot of work to build the kind of following you can market those to. E.g. here's a 2 minute podcast episode that has been sold on wax cylinders for 49 GBP each: 
http://www.bradyharanblog.com/wax-cylinder/cylinder
sold out of course!

They already did a vinyl episode in the past.



I wonder how (metal) bands that don't play live and don't do social media are supposed to make any kind of money from their music...


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