Ok so you are making beats for a while now and your beats are reaching that level that you thin they are good enough to make money with them. But how do you make money with them? I will show you a couple of ways that will hopefully help you to make money as an (online) producers.
1. Sell leases
Instead of selling your beats to just one person and signing off the exclusive rights you can sell the same beat over and over again for a small fee and keep your rights. Maybe $14.99 seems real low for a beat and you want at least $99,- for your beat but if you sell a “lease” to that beat 10 times you’ll make $149,90 with that one beat and you still own the rights and can continue selling leases to that beat as long as you want. Selling a lease means selling the user the non-exclusive right to use your beat and sell an X amount of copies of if. If they sell over that X amount they’ll have to buy a new lease from you to be abel to sell more copies.
There are several websites that you can use to sell leases on. You’ve got beatstars.com ,rocbattle.com and more. What I like about rocbattle.com is that you can attend online beatbattles to promote your beats. Also when you upload new beats to your page they will show up on the “New Uploads” section on their frontpage. When you upload beats there is also an option to let people know if you used samples on your beats so they know they will have to clear them if they want to release it.
Now how much should you charge for a lease? I think for a lease of a mp3 or .WAV 2-track, where you allow them to sell up to 2000 copies, it’s fair to ask for something between $9.99 and $29.99. You have to be comfortable with your price but the lower you price them the bigger the chance is that you’ll sell more of them than if you price them really high. Also look at you competition. What do they charge? If most of the producers on Rocbattle.com charge somewhere around $14.99 for a lease you are unlikely to sell a lot of leases for $29.99 on there. You can also offer deals like “buy 3 beats and get 2 for free” to sell more beats.
Offering different packages can also be a way to go. Let’s say you charge $19.99 for the lease of 2track in MP3 format where you allow them to sell up to 2000 copies. Then you can also give them an option to choose for a deal where they’ll get the 2track of the beat in .WAV format and where they can sell up to 5000 copies for $39.99. And a third option where they’ll get the multi-track stems op the beat and can sell unlimited amount of copies for maybe $79.99. And maybe even a fourth option to buy the exclusive rights to the beat for $199,- or something like that. These are just examples, you’ll have to decide your own packages and prices.
2. YouTube and Soundcloud Monetization
You can also put your tracks on YouTube and put adds on them. Then you will get paid for the adds on your track. So if you get millions of views you can get paid. Also if other people use your music in their YouTube videos you can get paid too. TuneCore.com can help you with that. Sign up to them and pay them a one time fee of $10,- per song and they will search YouTube to see if anybody is using your song in their YouTube videos and monetize this.
In my experience the average rate you’ll get on YouTube adds is around $1,- per 1000 views. So if your track/video gets a million views you will probably get somewhere around $1000,-. You can also try to get deals for adds with companies directly then you’ll get paid more per click. Websites like HipHopOne.tv can help you with this.
Nowadays there are also ways to monetize your SoundCloud. To be honest I haven’t really looked into that too much so I can’t tell you too much about that but definitely do a Google search on that.
3. Sell your own Instrumental albums
Instead of waiting on artists or movie and game companies to buy your beats you can also put out your own projects. Make an instrumental album and sell it in iTunes, Amazon, BandCamp etc. Websites like TuneCore.com can get your music in all digital music stores worldwide for 50 bucks for an album. Then you still have to promote it yourself so I suggest do your own music videos, make great artwork, try to get it on blogs and website etc.
4. Make deals with artists
Next to getting an upfront fee from an artist for your track, which I think you should always get, and royalties and publishing, you can also make other deals with artists for you to get paid for your beats. Let’s say an artist got a small upfront budget to pay you but got a lot of shows lined up, you can make a deal with him where you get paid a percentage of each show if he is performing with your beats. Or maybe you can even join his tour as his DJ.
Another example is that maybe you work with an artist that sells a lot of merchandise and gives all his music away online for free to promote this merchandise. In this case make a deal with him where you get a percentage of the merchandise. Just think outside of the box and create your own revenue streams, be creative! But whatever you and the artist agree on always make sure to put this in a written agreement signed by the both of you.
I know there are many more ways to make money with your music but these where 4 ways that I wanted to share with you.
by Shroom
BeatPlugBlog.com
ProducedByShroom.com
Subscribe to my mailinglist and receive Free Samples
1. Sell leases
Instead of selling your beats to just one person and signing off the exclusive rights you can sell the same beat over and over again for a small fee and keep your rights. Maybe $14.99 seems real low for a beat and you want at least $99,- for your beat but if you sell a “lease” to that beat 10 times you’ll make $149,90 with that one beat and you still own the rights and can continue selling leases to that beat as long as you want. Selling a lease means selling the user the non-exclusive right to use your beat and sell an X amount of copies of if. If they sell over that X amount they’ll have to buy a new lease from you to be abel to sell more copies.
There are several websites that you can use to sell leases on. You’ve got beatstars.com ,rocbattle.com and more. What I like about rocbattle.com is that you can attend online beatbattles to promote your beats. Also when you upload new beats to your page they will show up on the “New Uploads” section on their frontpage. When you upload beats there is also an option to let people know if you used samples on your beats so they know they will have to clear them if they want to release it.
Now how much should you charge for a lease? I think for a lease of a mp3 or .WAV 2-track, where you allow them to sell up to 2000 copies, it’s fair to ask for something between $9.99 and $29.99. You have to be comfortable with your price but the lower you price them the bigger the chance is that you’ll sell more of them than if you price them really high. Also look at you competition. What do they charge? If most of the producers on Rocbattle.com charge somewhere around $14.99 for a lease you are unlikely to sell a lot of leases for $29.99 on there. You can also offer deals like “buy 3 beats and get 2 for free” to sell more beats.
Offering different packages can also be a way to go. Let’s say you charge $19.99 for the lease of 2track in MP3 format where you allow them to sell up to 2000 copies. Then you can also give them an option to choose for a deal where they’ll get the 2track of the beat in .WAV format and where they can sell up to 5000 copies for $39.99. And a third option where they’ll get the multi-track stems op the beat and can sell unlimited amount of copies for maybe $79.99. And maybe even a fourth option to buy the exclusive rights to the beat for $199,- or something like that. These are just examples, you’ll have to decide your own packages and prices.
2. YouTube and Soundcloud Monetization
You can also put your tracks on YouTube and put adds on them. Then you will get paid for the adds on your track. So if you get millions of views you can get paid. Also if other people use your music in their YouTube videos you can get paid too. TuneCore.com can help you with that. Sign up to them and pay them a one time fee of $10,- per song and they will search YouTube to see if anybody is using your song in their YouTube videos and monetize this.
In my experience the average rate you’ll get on YouTube adds is around $1,- per 1000 views. So if your track/video gets a million views you will probably get somewhere around $1000,-. You can also try to get deals for adds with companies directly then you’ll get paid more per click. Websites like HipHopOne.tv can help you with this.
Nowadays there are also ways to monetize your SoundCloud. To be honest I haven’t really looked into that too much so I can’t tell you too much about that but definitely do a Google search on that.
3. Sell your own Instrumental albums
Instead of waiting on artists or movie and game companies to buy your beats you can also put out your own projects. Make an instrumental album and sell it in iTunes, Amazon, BandCamp etc. Websites like TuneCore.com can get your music in all digital music stores worldwide for 50 bucks for an album. Then you still have to promote it yourself so I suggest do your own music videos, make great artwork, try to get it on blogs and website etc.
4. Make deals with artists
Next to getting an upfront fee from an artist for your track, which I think you should always get, and royalties and publishing, you can also make other deals with artists for you to get paid for your beats. Let’s say an artist got a small upfront budget to pay you but got a lot of shows lined up, you can make a deal with him where you get paid a percentage of each show if he is performing with your beats. Or maybe you can even join his tour as his DJ.
Another example is that maybe you work with an artist that sells a lot of merchandise and gives all his music away online for free to promote this merchandise. In this case make a deal with him where you get a percentage of the merchandise. Just think outside of the box and create your own revenue streams, be creative! But whatever you and the artist agree on always make sure to put this in a written agreement signed by the both of you.
I know there are many more ways to make money with your music but these where 4 ways that I wanted to share with you.
by Shroom
BeatPlugBlog.com
ProducedByShroom.com
Subscribe to my mailinglist and receive Free Samples
