Can you make money from making beats

Writing beats full-time is a dream job for many producers. Working from your home studio or while mobile is a gratifying experience, and it’s exciting making money from the art that you create. This guide will explain how to make a living selling beats online and lay out the challenges you’ll encounter along the way. In the world of beat making, you need to focus on quantity. If it’s taking you an entire week to finish one beat, don’t quit your day job. The sheer volume is what you need to focus on when starting, and it’s what will start getting you paid.

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Very few people can say they’ve made six figures while only working about 20 hours a week. Even fewer people can say they accidentally had a No. A beat is the rhythmic and melodic backbone to a song that much of modern music is built from. It’s what rappers rap over and songwriters compose over. In an age where becoming a recording artist requires little more than a decent laptop and a quiet closet, the demand for crowd-pleasing beats is high, giving music producers a brand-new opportunity to turn their passion for music into profit. Wesley is one of these producers. His career as a beat maker started organically in , experimenting with recording equipment out of fascination and posting his work on the internet. Wesley found a home for this passion for music in online beat-selling marketplaces Airbit and SoundClick. He’s not alone. Little did he know the finished song would be catapulted into the public ear only a few months later. Isn’t this one of your beats? This song is blowing up here.

How to make money selling beats.

The song skyrocketed to No. Wesley was able to negotiate publishing royalties for the song after its success. The producer, a Dutch year-old who goes by YoungKio, signed to Universal Music Group soon after the song’s success. At that point, I realized that beat-making was going to be my lifelong passion.

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Escape the Do what you love. Spend your days in the studio creating music. Take the day off and make your own hours. In that case, you can turn your beat making skills into a profitable business.

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There are thousands of producers out there submitting their material to placement opportunities on a daily basis. We may as well use some of that time to make some On BeatBrokerz. A lot of producers neglect selling mp3 downloads to their beats, opting instead to give out free downloads, or not to allow any downloading at all. A lot of producers have recently taken to the idea of packaging and selling their own drum sounds for other musicians, and rightly so! Yet most producers seem to know little about the business side of beat making beyond putting a PayPal button on a SoundClick page. This store helps selling more than any other store due its convenient layout and the facility of using many checkout options. We spend a lot of time on our phone. Personally I would only give beats to people who have good lyrics with substance

What we’ll cover in this guide

InboxDollars pays you to watch videos, search, shop, take surveys, and. Get your answers by asking. Thanks Eli. I just got into beat making I was looking into a school that teaches you everything about beat making. So, even if you can successfully tap a small percentage of that market, you could earn a nice figure. Sync licenses are usually limited to a specified number of broadcasts, for example 1 DVD release title. You do have to jump through some hoops to get your music onto radio stations or streaming sites but if your beats prove popular this could be a nice little side-earner. Exclusive licenses, on the frpm hand, are full ownership licenses, usually with an unlimited sales cap. Most parents have closets full of once-worn kids clothes, hoping one day Get yourself a PayPal account, set up a beat-selling website and start promoting!

The learning curve

There are a lot of different ways to turn a beat catalog into income. Yet most producers seem to moeny little about the business side of beat making beyond putting a PayPal button on a SoundClick page. So here are my personal Top 10 ways for producers to make money with beats, backed up with some image proof and compiled after almost a decade selling beats professionally! This is the easiest and still the best way to make money with your bats.

Once you have a decently sized catalog of quality beats, you can register and set up your own website for cheap, or sign up to a VIP artist service like Music Centro that will allow you to set up your own beat-selling home page. Some people also hustle their beats on music communities like SoundCloud and include email information for purchases, or more specified beat websites like BeatStars. Generally you will need to have a PayPal fdom in order to receive payments online, though you can also arrange payments with customers through services such as Google wallet, bank transactions or Western Union.

Most producers sell licenses according to three main categories: Czn licenses, Exclusive licenses and Sync licenses. Lease licenses are non-exclusive licenses with a limited sales cap. This means that your buyer can only sell a limited number of digital downloads or physical albums usually around Your beat can be leased to an unlimited amount of buyers as you retain the rights to your beat. Exclusive licenses, on the other hand, are full ownership licenses, usually with an unlimited sales cap.

They are therefore sold to only 1 customer bfats the beat is subsequently marked beatw sold. The final license type, which is ignored by the majority of producers, is beate Sync license. While Lease and Exclusive licenses are targeted at beags artists, Sync licenses are froom media professionals and broadcasters such as websites, movies, TV or video games. Sync licenses are usually limited to a specified number of broadcasts, for example 1 DVD release title.

They are commonly priced between Lease and Exclusive licenses, depending on the intended use. Even if your plan is to go after album placements, your first priority should always be setting up your Internet presence. Get yourself a PayPal account, set up a beat-selling website and start promoting! Bear in mind I have been selling beats for a maklng time, but the sky really is the limit for you! Not only can you feed off each other creatively and provide your customers with a constant stream of fresh material, you can also agree to take a set percentage of the sales you make for your fellow producers.

If you put together a strong team with a diverse range of beat styles you can greatly increase your market share and divide marketing duties. Everyone benefits! A lot of producers neglect selling mp3 downloads to their beats, opting instead to give out free downloads, or not to allow any downloading at all. Essentially this is free money as you can make it maaking to your customers that the mp3 downloads are intended for non-profit use. There is a big market of music fans and casual artists who might enjoy just listening to your beats or recording on them for demo or personal use without wanting to invest the 20 odd bucks for a commercial Lease license.

If you are worried about the safety of your beats you can always tag them and tell customers that untagged versions are only sent out with Lease or Exclusive licenses. Mp3s can be sold through a number of online vendors such as iTunes or Amazon, though personally I favour the SoundClick mp3 store for this, as it attracts a lot of Hip Hop specific listeners.

Similar to selling monney, it is well worth your time releasing beat tapes or compilations of your instrumentals, perhaps even the odd exclusive release with unpublished beats. This can generate a lot of excitement amongst your fans and lead to your music being discovered by whole new frmo groups on sites like CDBaby. The site is very crom — as well as selling your albums through their own website they will distribute your songs to all their digital partners such as iTunes, Amazon, MySpace Music or Rhapsody.

Becoming a YouTube partner and subsequently having sponsored advertisements displayed in your videos is more of a long-term strategy, as beat will take bwats a while to get. Once you have racked up a certain amount of views and subscribers, you can apply to become a partner on YouTube. If successful, YouTube will give you the ability to monetize your videos, which basically means you will have Google ads displayed before, during or after your videos.

You will need to have signed up to an AdSense account and will earn a percentage of all ad revenue generated in this way, as displayed below:. If you regularly update your YouTube channel with interesting content and get a lot of traffic, this can potentially be a big earner! Getting a placement in a TV show, film or video game can be an arduous process. There are thousands of producers beeats there submitting their material to placement opportunities on a daily basis.

However, if you baets network and build relationships with media professionals, companies and agencies you will eventually persevere and the spoils will be worth the toil! TV stations in the US in particular pay out large sums just for short music segments in their programming. Getting your beats on to a regular radio station can be pretty hard, as by and large stations are only interested in full songs.

However, internet radio stations are a different matter. A lot of people enjoy browsing stations like Pandora or streaming websites like Spotify for instrumental music and here is where it gets interesting: Pandora and Spotify both share out their profits amongst members according to the ebats of plays your music receives.

You do have to jump through some hoops to get your music onto radio stations or streaming sites but if your beats prove popular this could msking a nice little side-earner. Maaking lot of makijg have recently taken to the idea of packaging and selling their own drum sounds for other musicians, and rightly so!

There is a vast amount of producers out there hunting for new and better drum samples and if you have already built up a reputation with your beats, chances are there will be someone out there ready to jump at the chance of emulating your sound.

Putting together froom drum kit can be fairly ffrom consuming, but if done correctly it can be a worthy investment. You can sell your kit on your own website, or even better, find the most popular drum kit websites out there and partner with them to retail your products.

As they have a ready-made sales platform, audience and marketing strategy, they will be better positioned to sell your products than you are. Personally I have always sold by kits through websites like ProducerLoops. There are a big number of music libraries and stock music websites online, ranging from general sites to industry-specific sites for film music, ad music or video game music.

When you upload your beats to these sites you will usually have to bfats into a non-exclusive sub-publishing agreement, which basically means you are signing over the right for those websites to make money with your music in exchange for a profit share. However, a lot of producers make a good amount of money licensing their beats through websites like Pump Audio or Audiojungle. The customers of these sites are usually video creators, advertisers or website owners, so by uploading your music to these sites you can reach a new audience outside of the recording artists targeted by your fellow beat makers.

Just make sure you read any contract you sign with these websites very carefully, as some of them are known to be fairly ebats. You are certainly not limited to selling licenses through a website or hustling your beats to artists for placements.

You could run song contests for artists with a paid submission for example, write an e-book, or get paid for product placements on your website. Home Articles. How to make money selling beats. Sell licenses to your beats This is the easiest and still the best way to make money with your beats. Sell mp3 downloads A lot of producers neglect selling mp3 downloads to their beats, opting instead to give out free downloads, or not to allow any downloading at all.

Make beat tapes Similar to selling mp3s, it is well worth your time releasing beat tapes or compilations amking your instrumentals, perhaps even the odd exclusive release with unpublished beats.

Become a YouTube partner Becoming a YouTube partner and subsequently having sponsored can you make money from making beats displayed in your videos is more of a long-term strategy, as it will take you a while to get. You will need to have signed up to an AdSense account and will earn a percentage of jaking ad revenue generated in this way, as displayed below: If you makw update your YouTube channel with interesting content and get a lot of traffic, this can potentially be a big earner!

Get your beats on internet radio Getting your beats on to a regular radio station can be pretty hard, as by and large stations are only interested in full songs. Make a drum kit A lot of producers have recently taken to the idea of packaging and selling their own drum sounds for other musicians, and rightly so!

Submit your beats to naking libraries There are a big number majing music libraries and stock music websites online, ranging from general sites to industry-specific sites for film music, ad music or video csn music. Male creative! Search this site:. Tags in Category. Last Videos.

There are a lot of different ways to turn a beat catalog into income. Yet most producers seem to know little about the business side of beat making beyond putting a PayPal button onto a SoundClick page. So here are my personal Top 10 ways for producers to make money with beats, backed up with some image proof and compiled after almost a decade selling beats professionally! This is the easiest and still the best way to make money with your beats.

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Once you have a decently sized catalog of quality beats, you can register and set up your own website for cheap, or sign up to a VIP artist service like My Flash Store van will allow you to set up your own beat-selling home page. Some people also hustle their beats on music communities like SoundCloud and include email information for purchases, or more specified beat websites like BeatStars. Generally you will need to have a PayPal account in order to receive payments online, though you can also arrange payments with customers through services such as Makung wallet, bank transactions or Western Union. Most producers sell licenses according to three main categories: Lease licensesExclusive licenses and Sync licenses. Lease licenses are non-exclusive licenses with a limited sales cap. This means that your buyer can only sell a limited number of digital downloads or physical albums usually around Your beat can be leased to an unlimited amount of buyers as you retain the rights to your beat. Exclusive licenses, on the other hand, are full ownership licensesusually with an unlimited sales cap. They are therefore sold to only 1 customer and the beat is subsequently marked as sold. The final license type, which is ignored by the majority of producers, is a Sync license. While Lease and Exclusive licenses are targeted at recording artists, Sync licenses are for media professionals and broadcasters such as websites, movies, TV or can you make money from making beats games. Sync licenses are usually limited to a specified number of broadcasts, for example 1 DVD release title. They are commonly priced between Lease and Exclusive licenses, depending beat the intended use. Even if your plan yoou to go after album placements, your first priority should always be setting up your Internet presence.