Living out your dream and making money can seem like a very difficult endeavor but the reality is that no matter what you do there are ways to fund your dream and make them happen. As we see the rise in popularity of many independent and smaller music acts you might be inspired to finally push your band to try to get a proper music career. If you’re struggling to get started you could probably use some tips and tricks to get the funds to kickstart your music career. So, let’s take a look at some ways you could potentially get the proper funds to finally get a studio session to record or finally go on tour for the first time. You will see that there are many more options than you might have anticipated at that same time being a bit of a shrewd businessman is the way to go to get your band started.
The Business side of things
Having a proper business understanding of things is important whether you’re looking to develop a landscaping company or learn how to start a self storage business and even more so if you are trying to get funding for a creative endeavor. In every single instance presented before you need initial capital to be able to kick-start your business to finally make money. You might be thinking to yourself that a band is not a business, but the reality is that the musical industry is a business. While you might be able to fund part of your musical endeavors by simply working a side job the reality is that sometimes you will require a large injection of cash to be able to travel for it or cover some unexpected spending like the breaking of a musical instrument or needing to repair your touring vehicle. The best way to do so is to get people to sponsor you and one way to do so is to share the profits when doing a show in a certain venue. Generally, the best way to make sure that you have constant income is to do shows everywhere you can, and getting him manager to be able to book you as many shows as possible is probably the best option.
Marketing and Engagement
You might be thinking that some of the elements in this section are also part of the business, but the reality is that they are mostly a part of engaging with your fan base and potential listeners. Nowadays if you’re a musical artist you still need to have a social media presence to be able to engage with your fans both by promoting your music and by developing a certain following on them. If you want good examples, you can simply look at our fervent fans of Korean popular music and Taylor Swift fans for example. These are of course fringe examples, but you can also look at artists like Chappel Roan who essentially started her career off TikTok. These platforms are great because they not only allow you to communicate information about your musical endeavors with your fans, but they also allow you to promote your upcoming shows and you’re merchandising. Merchandise is a great thing for two reasons. Not only do they allow you to make a direct income from engaging with your fans, but they also become ways to advertise yourself through your fans.
If you get those two parts of running your band like a business down, you will see a positive change when it comes to your general band income. One thing that many people do not talk about when talking about pursuing your musical career is the fact that it costs a lot of money to be able to not only go on tour but also record your music in studios to be able to distribute it properly on the proper channels. Thankfully nowadays you might be able to record at home and still get pretty good quality but it’s important to know that if you plan on distributing your music on platforms like Apple Music and Spotify you shouldn’t expect a lot of return on those. The profits made from every listen on these platforms are marginal. This is why selling physical copies on your website or trying to sell your album through a band camp is still probably the best way to get proper revenue from your music.
