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Everything on Spotify is instrumental. I have 14 albums on there…. mostly piano based but also some ambient/electronic and cinematic stuff. Pandora is where I make the most…. so far.
Been at this 4 years now. Feeling better as I watch my PRO grow each year. I’m now getting a lot more placements so hoping 2018 is even better!
2014: $16
2015: $250
2016: $1100
2017: $2174I also make money streaming on Spotify, Pandora, etc, and RF/sync sales. For 2017, I made a little over $5000 total from all music income.
Guess the freebie account doesn’t have the Web tab
Could be mistaken, but I don’t think Tunesat covers YouTube. Only TV.
I had about 10 minutes of music used last fall in a 2 hour History Channel special called White Supremacy: Going Under. Backend was nice but unfortunately, it’s probably not something that will air a lot.
I also got a kick out of having a bunch of tension cues used in every episode of a new series on Science called Hacking the Wild.
I make $75-$100/month from streaming but only because I have a number of albums of piano/cinematic/ambient music out there. My production music is not out there for streaming. Also, most of that stream income comes from Pandora plays.
I get royalties for Spotify and other streaming services via my CD Baby account all the time and also on my BMI account each quarter. Not sure what the difference is.
Exactly, I don’t expect to make a living 100% with music. I don’t need to. I would like to at least pay my mortgage with the income!
Maybe 300-400…?
Great thread! I’ve been doing this for about 4 years but had my hands in too many cookie jars at first and didn’t know what I was doing half the time. I wish I could be the next Yanni with elaborate, emotional keyboard-based music that people download by the millions, but have realized that background cues is the name of the game for TV placements and passive backend income. So I re-focused about 2 years ago.
The dream of getting consistent big dollar placements is also unrealistic. Most I have made from a single license is $500. So now I focus mostly on simple cues for TV placements and the libraries that consistently supply them to prod companies.
My first PRO royalty check 3 years ago was $14. My last few have been $600+ so I guess I’m doing something right. Overall, including downloads, streams, etc I make about $300-$400/month from music. My goal is $1000/month. We’ll see how soon I hit that.
It hasn’t helped me yet. I talked to BMI once and they said I had to contact the production company first. I had no idea how to do that or who it was so gave up.
I’m with BMI and just had a UK library suggest I also join PRS so they can do the same thing….
In addition to cues housekeeping chores, I pretty much have made it a goal to compose 1-3 new tracks per week. Depends on the complexity of what they are. A cute dramedy track takes far less time than a full on orchestral piece.