Monetise Your Music - How To Make Money With Music

Music libraries come in all shapes and sizes, covering all areas of the film and music industry. Here are the main types of libraries, their music business models, and how you can make money from each.

Wherever you’re at in your composing journey, there are libraries where you can submit your music. Sure, if you’re a total beginner it’s not likely that you’ll get tracks featured by any of the absolute top-tier libraries, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make some money from your music.

There’s a whole spread of libraries from ones that focus on music for big blockbuster Hollywood trailers, to ones that are aimed towards hobbyist content creators, like YouTubers.

It should go without saying that to have success with libraries even at what you might consider the “lower end” of the spectrum, your music still needs to be of a really high quality - but with the tips you’ll learn in this video you’ll get a better idea of what each library’s purpose is, and how you can best learn to work with each tier of music library.

I’ve put together a list of many of the music libraries that you can become an artist with or submit your music to - you can download that as a resource on this video. It’s a very comprehensive list covering the main libraries, but of course it doesn’t have all of the libraries on there!

Likewise, I don’t have personal experience with every library, it would be far too much to handle to be involved with every single one, but I urge you to browse through the libraries and see what kind of music they have, and whether any are more in line with the type of stuff you’re creating than others.

In the music industry, you need to be really careful with the different music business models and contracts. This video covers the types of deals you can expect, and how to make money from your music with each type of deal.

There are many different deals when it comes to library music, and there’s no “best” deal. Depending on the type of music you’re creating, the type of library, and your own personal feelings about your music, you have different options that can all work out in your favour…or against you!

One thing is for certain though : you need to know what you’re signing up for. And don’t take someone’s word for it, always read the terms yourself, and make sure you understand everything clearly.

Where does the money come from? This video reveals all! This is how the library music industry helps makes money from your music, and how that money gets back to you.

Knowing where, when, and how your money is coming to you is really important - it not only helps you understand who’s paying you and when you can expect to be paid, but knowing the business models will help you make better choices for the long term, and not just base your decisions on instant gratification.

In this video you are going to learn how to rank in royalty-free music libraries, and exactly what stock music libraries are looking for from you in order to convince them to focus more attention on promoting your music. Do this right, and you'll be in a much stronger position to make money from your music.

If you know how stock music libraries measure the saleability of your work, you’ll not only be able to compose more sellable music, but you’ll also know how to best title, tag, and target your music too.

The number one thing to remember about selling your music through stock music libraries - whether that’s the big, royalty-free online portals, or via exclusive publishing companies - is that your success is, ultimately, their success.

I don’t mean in that in a sentimental or developmental way, I mean it financially - if you’re making money, they’re making money. That's how the music business works!

So you just have to prove to them that what you’re offering will indeed make them money.

In this video we’re going to look at exactly how to work out what type of music you should be composing for stock music libraries.

It would be lovely if you could just write whatever music you felt like, submit it to some libraries, and make your living. Trust me, I know that’s the dream for so many of you.

But in reality, you need to be writing music in certain styles and moods that work for the people looking to buy your music - your clients. At the end of the day, it's a music business!

The real trick is to learn to be inspired by all kinds of music. And that’s hard : particularly in music that is so full of opinions and subjectivity. Telling a heavy metaller that they need to listen to and enjoy the music of Justin Bieber is a tough sell - and I know, because I used to be a devout metalhead. The truth? I still love heavy metal, I’m just also open to every other genre too, and I can find stuff I love in pretty much anything.

So believe me when I say : if you can open your mind and ears to a wider variety of music, and learn to find the joy in any piece of music, you’ll be giving yourself a much easier time when it comes to writing library music.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t find your niche, or figure out your strengths - not at all. In fact, figuring out both of those is so important to both your success and happiness. All I’m saying is that you also need to figure out what people want, and how to you can build that into what you’re creating. Basically, you need to find your place in the music industry.

Once you've done that, you'll not only make money from your music, but you'll also be fulfilled creatively.

We’re going to talk about how to title your tracks, and how to choose the best tags and keywords to make sure you’re showing up in search results.

So you’ve learned how to write on trend music by following global music industry trends, and you’re able to produce your tracks to a high quality quickly. That’s great, but it’s also worthless is people can’t actually find your music when they’re searching with keywords.

A keyword is what someone puts in when they’re using a search engine. So if a filmmaker was creating a corporate training video for a client, they might hop onto AudioJungle and search for “corporate training” or “training video” - or if a music editor for a TV documentary was looking for music to go over a tragic scene they might search with the keywords “sad” or “emotional”

And what you’re hoping to do is to have your music pop up at the top of the search results when someone uses those keywords. The higher you rank, the more money you'll make.

Writing good music isn't the only key to success in the music industry - you also need to know how to tailer your music to best fit with the library music business models.

This video is all about how to compose library music, including my top tips on what makes a successful stock music track.

It’s all well and good knowing how to target your audience, get the right keywords and tags, sort all of the cutdowns and edits of your tracks, and get them uploaded, but you still need to know exactly what makes a stock music track successful.

I’m working off the assumption that already know how to compose a piece of music, and that you’re already capable of writing music that meets a certain style or brief. A big part of creating successful stock music is getting that brief right in the first place, which you’re often doing yourself if you’re working with royalty-free libraries.

So with that said, these tips are more about how to tailor your music to the stock music world, as opposed to how to actually compose a piece from scratch.

In this lesson you’re going to learn about all of the different versions you need to create of a single track, including loops, stings, bumpers, bubbles, and beds. If that sounded like gobbledegook to you, don’t worry, explanations are coming up!

One of the things you need to remember about library music, is that it’s rarely going to be used in its original form in its entirety. If your original composition is two minutes long, but it needs to fit on a video ad that’s only 30 seconds, then it’s obviously going to be cutdown.

If you can provide various cutdown versions of your music, and more parts for someone to work with, you’re making your music more versatile, more usable, and, ultimately, more sellable. So really, these "technicalities" are actually essential for you to earn money from music.

So here's what you need to include!

AudioJungle is one of the biggest royalty-free libraries in the music industry. They accept music in all kinds of genres, and even some at a lower quality than other library music businesses. That makes them a great place to start if you're new to the library music game.

This video takes you through exactly how to register and upload your music to AudioJungle.

Good music is one thing, but how about a good thumbnail? Here's the easiest way to create eye-catching thumbnails for your library music tracks. And the best part? It's free!

In this video I’m going to take you through the five steps to take things to the next level and begin working with more exclusive music publishers.

As we’ve talked about, the best way to make a living from library music is to diversify where you income comes from, and signing with an exclusive publisher is a great way to start building up your recurring performance royalties, that you don’t really get from royalty-free libraries. This is your first step towards turning your hobby into a fully fledge music business with a full-time income.

Remember, with a healthy catalogue of library music tracks signed to a good publisher and getting regular placements, you could be making over $100,000 a year from performance royalties alone. That's a seriously good way of making money from your music!

But how do you actually get to work with these libraries? How do you make the right contacts in the music industry?

Well, sadly, it’s not as easy as visiting their website and registering, like you do with AudioJungle or Pond5. It’s not even as easy as clicking on the “contact us” link and emailing your showreel - although it would be great if it was!

The easiest way to start working with any of these libraries is either through a referral from another composer, or from personal outreach to a decision maker - that is, someone who can actually sign you up, not just someone on the customer service helpline.