If you’re like many jazz artists, it is precisely the part after recording, mixing and mastering your new album that gives you a headache. Selling your music makes many people feel uncomfortable. Why though?
The Truth About Selling
Selling has a negative connotation for many artists. That used to include myself. A favorite subject for my musician-friends and myself was to discuss how a band used to be so much better before their commercial breakthrough. Before the money started flowing in. Credibility and being an underground artist seemed to go hand-in-hand. Did they SELL out?
However, to earn a sustainable living as an artist you need to think about money. And more, you have to do that if you care about your art. Why? Because without money, financial stress will take over your creative bandwidth. The result: less music being made and released. Financial stress kills art, it doesn’t create it.
I think there are three misconceptions about selling many people have.
Selling is only about yourself. About increasing your own income.
Selling is solely about informing people about your products with a focus on ‘Always Be Closing’ .
Selling is something isolated from the rest of your life.
What is selling?
Selling is not hyping your album and yelling about it to everyone. A great read on this subject is Dan Pinks’ book ‘To Sell Is Human’. His definition of selling is:
“To sell well is to convince someone else to part with resources—not to deprive that person, but to leave him better off in the end.”
To leave him better off in the end… That’s for me the most important message here. It is not about you. Nor is it solely about the transaction. It is about creating value for somebody else.
Selling is not limited to only products, or commodities in another word. You can also sell people an idea, a feeling, an experience, a solution or a different way of being. Isn’t that what parents or teachers do? Or you, when you try to convince your boyfriend that this romantic movie is really worth his time? You sell the idea of the experience together, what the movie is about and how it will benefit him (cg. happy girlfriend).
Forget the old sales ABC
The old sales ABC is ‘Always Be Closing’. This adage is what we visualize when we think about the cliché car salesman. Sleezy, untrusthworthy, and only out for his own benefit. It had a focus on the transaction. In the Social Media realm for musicians it translates roughly in Facebook posts like “Buy our new album!”, “Checkout this new videoclip” or “Stream our new EP here!”. All sentences that focus on primarily your needs and on the transaction.
It’s definitely clear what you want but does it work? Is it what the person on the receiving end of this sales pitch needs? In marketing this approach is called push-marketing. You push your art, product or service through your marketing channels to your fan with a focus on sales.
That doesn’t work anymore.
People don’t want more noise. They don’t need more advertisements urging them to buy something. Do you? No. What do you want? Inspiration perhaps? A deeper connection with another human being? A feeling of belonging? More beauty in your life? I do, and would welcome all of those. So, how can you sell me that instead?
Selling is about telling stories
In 2020 you sell by telling stories. Stories about improvement and about how it will make your audience feel when they come to your show or listen to your new album. Personal stories about what inspires you, your experience recording or on-stage. Stories about why playing with your hero was so life-changing. People want to feel they’re dealing with another human being who has their best interest in mind. This way you can sell with authenticity. You can be yourself when selling. In fact, you should be yourself when selling. Because that’s what both makes you and the receiver feel better! Selling is about establishing a relationship. It’s the long-term you’re thinking about. It’s a marathon not a sprint. You sell by providing your fans again and again with valuable and relatable content. You don’t close the sale, they will do that if they value what you have to offer or the relationship with you enough.
Selling is about the other person intrinsically wanting to purchase the service or product from you. To be able to do just that, you as an artist have to be able to describe your music and/or service with an eye for its benefits. The value it provides to others. About what it makes the listeners feel or think. About the nature of experiencing your music.
The benefit of thinking about the value you create for other people is that it takes the focus away from making money. Focussing on creating great value for others is what really propels your career, and yes, as a result, your income forward. That’s what selling is all about. It’s a Win-Win.
People like us do things like this
Of course, your music is not for everyone – taste differs – but it is for people like you. People that share your worldview, values and music taste. Marketing guru Seth Godin’s slogan is, ‘people like us do things like this’. People like ‘insert description of your true fan’ listen to this kind of music.
People that need hope in their lives. People that need happiness, melancholy, want to dance, drift away, people that want to belong to a certain group. Can you pinpoint the need that your music fulfills for them?
Selling is about figuring out who needs your music and, therefore, would buy your album, because it leaves them better off. Is going to a restaurant really only about the food on your plate? No, it is about the whole experience and how it makes you and your guests feel. The same with music. It is so much more than just a commodity.
Do you agree? Then don’t treat it that way. Average stuff for average people is difficult to sell. Luckily, you made something remarkable. Something people can’t wait to talk about with other music lovers. Something people would love to buy from you.
Did you tell them about it?
Pieter Schoonderwoerd
Your Jazz Career
Find an empowering ebook on developing your artistic vision and writing a compelling artist biography here.
I’ve been coaching and educating jazz artists for years to achieve their creative and professional ambitions. If you are interested in a personal coaching session, you can read more about it here.
Right now, COVID-19 is threatening the livelihoods of thousands of artists around the world. Together, we need to tackle this existential challenge head-on. Its time to re-think the music industry business model and to come up with models that empower the makers of the music we all love. We need to think differently. Think bold. Think big. Or, just maybe, we need to think smaller. More intimate and more personal.
To tackle one problem at a time. Let’s start with live-streaming your music.
The Minimum Viable Audience
Today I woke up with the Minimum Viable Audience (MVA) concept repeating in my head like a brainworm, to use an Oliver Sacks term. I wrote about this concept extensively in my previous blog post so that’s probably why. However, all this subconscious pondering did result in a new insight.
To first summarize MVA in the words of its inventor Seth Godin, it is “the smallest group that could possibly sustain you in your work…” For you, a musician, what is the smallest possible audience? Yes, an audience of one. However, is an audience of one person financially sustainable? Well, of course not, unless it’s Bill Gates. But many one-persons become a crowd. I call this concept One-Ticket-Concerts.
At the heart of this approach are the needs of music lovers. And more specifically, the needs of true fans of your music.
The value of live-music
Why do you go to a live concert? To speak for myself, I go to be inspired. To hear the songs that I love, but also to be surprised. To be in the moment. I love knowing that I’m part of an experience that is only happening exactly in this specific space and time. Right now. That’s what makes live-music so great. It is limited in its capacity and therefore a unique experience that creates a (sometimes even spiritual) bond between the people on- and off the stage.
Does this sounds too complex to re-create in any meaningful way online? If possible, under what kind of conditions? What do your fans need for it to truly matter to them? I have some suggestions.
Make it exclusive and personal
Let’s bring the smallest viable audience and the magic of a true live-experience together into an irresistible value proposition for music lovers around the world.
How can you both monetize your live-stream and simultaneously create a better experience for your fans? In my opinion, you need to integrate two things: exclusivity and a deeply personal approach centred on the needs of your fans.
First of all, you need to offer a feeling of exclusivity. Many artists offer online concerts for hundreds or thousands of people. That may work in a venue or festival, but online it increases the feeling of anonymity.
Secondly, you need to make it personal. How can you connect more deeply online and make the viewer/fan feel that the concert is truly just for them?
The additional benefit, and vital for monetizing your live-stream service, is that a live-stream attended by few fans increases the perceived responsibility of those present. A mass live-streamed lowers the chance of people actually supporting the artist. ‘Why should I donate/pay for this concert?‘ people might ask themselves when they see hundreds of others attending the live-stream. By making it an exclusive, personal and engaging experience, fans will value it much higher.
There is the key to make a sustainable living from your live-stream. Offer your fans maximum value for money. Offer them One-Ticket-Concerts.
One-Ticket-Concerts
Instead, of hundreds of fans watching for free, you could offer premium paid concerts for one person at a time. You could perform for an audience of one. Does this sound bat crazy? Well, so is the current situation. Yet it is happening. So could these mini-concerts.
Put yourself in the shoes of your fans for a minute. These one-ticket-concerts pack a lot of value for music lovers. It’s extremely exclusive. Or in other words, scarce. It’s right here right now in the moment. It’s super personal. You and me. It’s true interaction between artist and fan. A great way to build your tribe one fan at a time. Even when done online, it has the potential of being a life-changing event for people. Isn’t that what art is all about?
One-ticket-concerts offer fans one-on-one time with their fav artists. Fans can make a song request. Finally, ask that question they had in their mind for years on end. Express their gratitude for your music. And so on. It’s magic on a screen.
Monetizing and pricing your One-Ticket-Concerts
You can increase the perceived value of your concerts by introducing effort. Make fans reserve/book a spot in your calendar. That increases their commitment. And after that, either let your fans pay for it in advance (Paypal, Mollie) or through donation apps during/after the concert. It offers a way for your fans to buy a ticket, have a unique performance to look forward to AND support their favourite artists directly.
Your price for these mini-concerts depends on your notoriety, the pockets of your fans and the show length. If you’re Chick Corea, I would probably pay +€100 for a solo concert with just me as the audience. What a once in a lifetime experience that would be! Are you a young starting musician, maybe ask €15 for a 15-minute concert.
Let’s do the math.
Imagine you ask €30 for a private online 15-minute concert. Taking into account set-up/connection time, three concerts per hour makes €90. So, three hours (9 concerts) will earn you €270 as a day pay. For those concerts, you didn’t have to travel, book accommodation, eat outdoors, or wait around a venue for hours. How often you should/can offer these one-ticket concerts depends on your brand value, free time, etcetera. It doesn’t make you Jeff Bezos, but then again, who wants to be him anyway? We want to make a living, add beauty to the world, and continue to do what we love, right?
So why not give this concept a go? Be creative. Build loops with other instruments (Jacob Collier or Nate Wood anyone?). Share new ideas. Improvise on fan requests on the spot. Inspire them. Surprise them. Talk to them. It will be unforgettable experiences for both of you. Good luck!
Pieter Schoonderwoerd
Your Jazz Career
Find an empowering ebook on developing your artistic vision and writing a compelling artist biography here.
I’ve been coaching and educating jazz artists for years to achieve their creative and professional ambitions. If you are interested in a personal coaching session, you can read more about it here.
This blog post on Your Jazz Career is part three of a series called ‘The Antidote’ which aims to strengthen your music career against sudden crises. In this article, I discuss six ways to maximize your income. Something unexpected will always happen. It prompts the question: how do you minimize the impact of these disruptive changes?
We all need an antidote for uncertain times.
Introduction
Understanding your income streams and seeing all possibilities for financial growth is vital for developing a sustainable career strategy. Especially now, when one major income stream – live-performance – has literally disappeared and, according to Harvard professor Marc Lipsitch, periodic lockdowns might extend well into mid-2022… How do you become less dependable on one source of income like performing? You could start by analyzing the different career paths available for jazz artists and researching the possible income streams related to those. To give you a head-start, I have formulated six paths in this article.
Let’s dive straight in and make your jazz career more crisis resistant!
6 Income Streams for Jazz Artists
I strongly believe that you cannot make sound career decisions without knowing your options. When I was teaching music entrepreneurship, students would often ask me what else was possible besides performing and teaching. Well… A lot! And, also a lot more within those two categories then you might assume on a first glance. Below the six categories you could use to expand your music career.
Performing (studio session-musician & live music session-musician)
Transfer of knowledge (teaching, writing/talking about music)
Social & ReputationalAssets (Fan data, your network, your brand, awards)
Fundraising income (crowdfunding, grants, subsidies, sponsorships)
Onlineincome: YouTube (4 ways to earn money with YouTube)
First off, as an artist, you don’t have to do everything. Let that be clear. Great work requires focus and time. So choose your career paths with care. In addition, realize that you have a full career span of 40+ years to diversify and learn. Don’t do it all at once in 2020.
Secondly, a lot depends on your personality. Your purpose as an artist and your strengths make some choices more logical than others. So, let these concepts resonate and read up on those categories that you find interesting. Take it from there.
1. Intellectual Property: Composer & Arranger
Adding the roles of being a (freelance) composer and arranger to your bag of skills is a great way to further maximize income. As a freelance composer, you do ‘work for hire’. It is a service business where your musical composition and/or recording should meet the needs and demands of your customers. Your clients could be video-game companies, film producers & directors, marketing content agencies, orchestras and conductors, among others.
How do you find your clients? After you have created your online portfolio (website, Soundcloud, etc.), you’ll have to be pro-active. Visit conferences, festivals in your line of work, join meet-ups, join specific online forums, try to meet the professionals you want to work with. In addition, it is a good idea to send your music portfolio to music libraries and publishers.
In general, income streams include mechanical royalties, public performance royalties, commissions (by another entity to create an original work for them), and synch licenses. For the latter, for example, you can license your music directly with an Instore Media Play company such as Mood Media or ScreenPlay. When you go to your local warehouse and hear music, it is licensed by one of these kinds of companies. That means an artist composed that music and took those previous steps. So can you.
Current composers such as Bob Brookmeyer, Maria Schneider, John Clayton and Jim McNeely show you a myriad of ways of earning a living from composing. They publish music books, conduct jazz orchestras, receive commissions, earn royalties, and give masterclasses. Study a few composers that you admire from different age groups. What kind of creative work do they put out? What are the related sources of income for these creative works?
In addition, offer your services to prospectivre clients on platforms such as Soundbetter or Fiverr. To connect you and your compositions or beats (idea?) with a publisher use platforms as Kobalt Music or Soundgine. Lastly, to sell your sheet music, you can use ScoreExchange.com.
What is going to be your next step?
Intellectual Property: Recording Artist
Most jazz artist perform live and release albums. Either as a bandleader or as a sideman. There are several ways of earning money as a recording artist. Sources of income related to commercial use of your sound recording are:
Digital sales (Bandcamp, MP3s through Amazon, Google Plays).
Merch (CD, Vinyl) sales at live shows – it can add up to 10-25% of that live-shows earnings.
Streaming services (Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, Deezer).
Digital performance royalties (Internet radio) – are you registered at the corresponding PRO?
Master use license for synchs, ringtones, etc.
Point 1 to 4 requires active promotion on your side. Do you have a plan for each of these different sources of income? From a good merch table and announcements on stage, to a Spotify playlist strategy. Pick a topic that’s relevant now, and try to improve the marketing aspect of it.
Streaming services are currently completely taking over and therefore vital to understand. How much do you already know about Spotify?
Streaming for Jazz Artists
In pop music, attention has shifted from an album approach to a focus on releasing singles due to the impact of playlists on streaming services. For jazz artists, the case in point is the State of Jazz playlist on Spotify. However, Spotify pays artists around $0,0049 per stream. (Read the amazing guide by Jeff Price on Spotify royalties for free here.) That means you will need at least 1.000 streams to buy yourself a flat white. It can add up, but for jazz artists, it should not be the main revenue focus. Unless… when you manage to get on popular Spotify Playlists and promote your gigs on it too. For tips for musicians to get more out of Spotify, I highly recommend the blog Work Hard Playlist Hard.
2. Being a performer
Already since the piracy era of the 2000s, performing (touring) has been the most important source of income for musicians. Either as a bandleader, side-man or salaried-player. In addition, most jazz musicians I know prefer to spend most of their time playing live music. Jazz is social music.
However, since performing is so dominant, especially for jazz artists, you really need a good strategy to maximize your income from it.
Some questions to consider. Do you play in one project only? Or three very similar ones? Do you play one specific kind of Jazz? Or do you move through all colours of the genre? And beyond jazz? What kind of venues do you play? For what kind of people? Are you using your full range of expression and artistic interests?
These are all questions to consider when formulating and setting goals for your specific performance career.
A Gig Overview
Let’s start with a gig-overview. What kinds of gigs are there? I’m sure I’m missing something, but these are the ones I could come up with.
Your own music gig (bar, jazz club, large music venue, festival)
Session-musician gig (other bandleaders, orchestras, big bands, theatre productions)
Tribute band gig (Tribute to Billie Holiday – a match for city theatres)
The Wedding/Corporate Gig (familiar repertoire, easy listening, entertaining)
Educational gigs (kids, teens, students – “What is Improvisation?”)
Theme gigs (Christmas, New Year, 70’s)
Support Act (low fee, potential new audience & network)
Showcase gigs (all about the network and potential new fans)
Other: Military, Cruiseships
Online gigs (hard to turn into a profit, more centred around community building, fanbase growth)
Busking on the streets (not right now though)
Which of these have you never done but would you find interesting? Do you know people that are active in that scene? Reach out.
And secondly, how do you actually earn money at all these gigs? You basically have six options: a performance fee, a salary as a member of an orchestra/ensemble, a transport costs refund, your merchandise sales, tour support (subsidies, record label), and your Performance Rights royalties (send in your setlist).
Are you aware of these six options? And what can you do to maximize your income from each of these?
3. Transfer of knowledge
One of the traditional income sources for jazz artists and still very important today is teaching. In general, the options are either to teach parttime or fulltime in five ways:
Private teaching: in a studio, at a music store, or at home.
Institutions: music school, in Secondary Education, university, or at a higher music education institution (conservatory).
Events: summer camps, after-school programs, for cultural organisations, creativity workshops, charity (nursing homes), speaker fees.
Masterclasses: as your professional reputation increases so will the demand for masterclasses by you. Highlight these as a service on your website and provide them either online or in ‘real-life’ at music institutions, colleges and so on.
Online: offer courses on Udemy or your services at Fiverr. Use Skype, Zoom or Google HangOut to teach long-distance. Additionally, subscription-based services are increasing in popularity. These usually pre-recorded lessons are offered online with a monthly or yearly subscription. For example, see www.skillshare.com.
Besides teaching your main-instrument. What other knowledge could you turn into a paid service or YouTube video offering? Your knowledge of musical styles (teach music history)? Your knowledge of gear, music marketing, music theory, recording, … How can you maximize your income from teaching in a broader sense?
4. Social & Reputational Assets
An important source of (future) income are your Social Assets. The music business is a people business. Your network and the (online) data about your audiences are powerful assets. Understanding the needs and worldview of your fans will make your marketing and product-development a lot more effective. Also, your network of fellow creatives and your music industry network of promoters and booking agents, is the soil from which new opportunities arise. Invest in both regurly by being proactive and social. Visit conferences as Jazzahead, socialize with the programmers/staff at venues/festivals, send frequent newsletter updates about your creative work and accomplishments. It all adds up.
As a musician, you are also a brand – the public perception of who you are as an artist. An artist like Sun Ra – with his branding ‘from outer space’ – is an inspiring and effective example of how this can work for jazz artists. Branding is a core source of income, with revenues from branded merchandise (T-Shirts, Posters), Patronage support and fan funding (Kickstarter), Grants, YouTube Partner programs, product endorsements (corporate sponsorships) and more. Visualising your artistic identity in a clear and outspoken way will open up new sources of income and grow your audience. Need the next step? Research how (jazz) artists that you admire do their branding.
5. Fundraising for Jazz Artists
An opportunity many artists use to maximize their income, and, more importantly, to get great projects realized, is fundraising. There are different ways to do this, like organizing a crowdfunding campaign, applying for government funding & grants, organizing benefit concerts, and actively aiming for sponsorships (product endorsements). I cannot list all world-wide funds here. So instead, I will list a few interesting platforms to get you orientated on what’s out there.
Patreon (Patreon enables everyone to be a patron of the arts by providing a crowdfunding platform for people to support and engage with artists of all types.)
When looking at your online assets as an artist, the main ones are logical: your website, Bandcamp, mailing list, social media channels and perhaps your blog/podcast. From social media, YouTube is potentially the most interesting. So to highlight one online platform here in more detail. There are four ways to make money with YouTube. You can receive:
1) Royalties for the sound recording owner (Audio/Master) collected by your distributor (CDBaby/Tunecore/etc).
2) Royalties for the content owner (Visual) collected by your Admin Co. (Admin Publisher company for example – like SongTrust, CDBaby Pro).
3) Performance royalties for the public broadcast of the song (PA royalties) collected by your PRO.
4) Mechanical royalties for the interactive stream of the song (Composition/Publishing) collected by your Publishing Admin Co.)
If you are interested in making videos and promoting your music through a platform like YouTube, then these four are great ways to maximize your income.
Those are six ways to maximize your income as a jazz artist. I hope a few of these possibilities resonate with you. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!
Stay strong. Stay creative!
Pieter Schoonderwoerd
Your Jazz Career
Find an empowering ebook on developing your artistic vision and writing a compelling artist biography here.
I’ve been coaching jazz artists for three years to achieve their creative and professional ambitions. If you are interested in a personal coaching session, you can read more about it here.
