The Secret: How do you make money from music?

I thought this morning I want to share something about music business or the business of music. Well, to be honest, it is quite apparent. It is a common sense to some. You should know this before getting into music business. Briefly, it will relate to the artist revenue streams for musicians and composers. Better to be more specific so that you may choose how you want to get involved. 

Do you think selling CDs or the number of online songs downloaded contributing the most of your income?

If you said yes, you are wrong. 

For your information, live shows are the biggest income contributor. Live shows are mostly touring concerts and festivals. These live shows could contribute at least 30-40% margin which is quite lucrative. Well, you won’t get that much from your normal investment savings. You can ask Bono how much they collected for their U2 Vertigo tour with 131 shows. $389 million!

You have to make Jay-Z as a case study. He is one of the most successful artist cum music entrepreneur in the States. He might sell at least 3 million records, but his incomes are coming from other than music - merchandising 'Rocawear'. You may use the same case with Russell Simmons, Dr. Dre and Sean 'P Diddy' Comb. They own record companies and merchandising such as perfumes - 'Unforgivable' by Sean Comb. 

Even One Direction is currently in production of their own 'Our Moment' perfume brand.  

In Malaysia and Indonesia, we have Agnes Monica's Reve, Siti Nurhaliza's SimplySiti, Ungu's Style-In and many more. 

In short, there are several areas that you could strategic targets in order to make money from music including (in order of the biggest contributor):

1.      Live shows

2.      Merchandise / Endorsement deals

3.      Licensing – TV, film scoring and video games

4.      Royalties – performance, sales and sync fees

5.      Commissions

So fellows, release the albums; be famous and get in business of music!!