For listening to music, Spotify offers a wonderful sea to explore. Pandora too. However, many a musician has noted that the giant company Spotify gives a mere pittance to those who supply the content. What if you ignored Spotify instead of complaining about your 0.005 cents?
If you can bear the hipster-ness of some of these suggestions, please read on. Here’s ways to boost your revenue as an indie musician:
- Copy your own CDs or cassettes and sell them in person. Â Handmade covers, anyone? This works for original music only, not covers!
- Make a small booklet of photos of your band or act—or photos you’ve taken at shows or photos you’ve taken that go with your music.
- Make a small booklet of your lyrics.
- Showcase your music online with Bandcamp, which is a platform to sell music directly to fans. The best part: you get a fair share of it.
- Still want people to discover your music online (one of the big benefits of Spotify)? Reverbnation, a place to post your music and build a profile, offers some cool search features (who knows you might find some music you like, too!)
- Start booking a signature concert. It’s not just a show, it’s a themed concert with stories, insights and music all around one big idea. This is bookable at community events, private events, conferences, libraries, senior centers, you name it. It’s a signature concert that only you can perform: making your competition moot (this idea is from Bree Noble, founder of Female Musician Academy and Profitable Musician).
- Patreon: this platform offers a way for people to pay a monthly contribution to receive email updates and have access to archives or any other links or content you share.
Photo credit: CARTIST on UnSplash.