How To Make Passive Income As A Part-Time Musician

by Posted on

A fellow musician emailed me with some questions, one of which was about how to make passive income as a musician.

This seasoned musician told me he was getting older and wanted to create some passive income for himself.

“Although I was making a good living as a session player, it never occurred to me that it would end,” he wrote. “So I made no preparation for getting old and have backed myself into a corner where I literally have to work until I fall dead over my instrument.”

So I responded with as many ideas as I could think of for making money as a musician, both passive and active. 

And those emails have led to this post. 

Below, I’ve compiled the passive income ideas I shared with him as well as a few I thought of afterward.

Here’s what I’ll cover:

What Is Passive Income?

First, let me start with what passive income isn’t. 

It is not a get-rich-quick scheme.

It’s not free money.

It does not mean you’ll never have to work again.

Passive income is this: you do the work once and can get paid for it an unlimited number of times for the rest of your life. 

Or you could say: it’s money you earn on a regular basis with little effort.

That is if you do it well. 

Why Passive Income Is Perfect For Part-Time Musicians

If you’re a part-time musician, think of how great it would be to have passive income on top of your day job salary.

You could invest that extra money back into your music career. 

And eventually, it could lead to you being a full-time musician.

Nowadays, it seems like this is the cool thing. Just Google “passive income” and you’ll see articles on Forbes, Entrepreneur, and a bunch of financial advice blogs.

That’s because a lot of people have made money with it. Lots of money.

Tom Corley, best-selling co-author of Rich Habits, Poor Habits, studied how millionaires make money. He found that most of them have at least three revenue streams, and many of them have passive income.

Now, you and I didn’t get into music for the money. But it’s still smart to learn from those who have made lots of it.

More money means more time to make music. 

So if you’re wondering how you can make passive income from your music, I go through six different ways below.

Ways To Make Passive Income As A Part-Time Musician

I’ve implemented five of these six ideas to varying degrees of success. But you don’t have to use that many. It’s all about finding the one or two that work for you.

Sync licensing

Sync licensing is when you let someone use your song in their visual art in exchange for money. Usually, this “someone” is a filmmaker, music supervisor, or another party via a licensing company/library.

So, you can get paid for letting someone use your song in any of the following places:

  • TV commercial
  • TV show
  • Film/movie
  • Video game
  • YouTube video
  • Podcast

Whatever song rights you have, you keep. You’re simply giving someone else permission to use your song in their project in exchange for a fee. 

So you make a song once and there’s no limit to how many times you can license it, assuming you only agree to non-exclusive deals. 

Some of my music is in the Music Vine library. And every month, I get paid a little money without me even doing anything.

To learn how to get started, check out my comprehensive sync licensing guide that includes everything beginners need to know.

Patreon

Patronage was hot in the 14th-17th centuries, and now it’s back. 

Thanks to Patreon and other sites that have followed suit, fans can now support artists directly and regularly. In return, artists share exclusive stuff, like unreleased music, VIP meet-and-greets, and a bunch of other rewards.

So if you had a Patreon page, fans would pay you a monthly amount, regardless of how much work you do (depending on what you’ve promised your patrons).

Most of the time, the amount of work Patreon artists do is way less than the amount they receive each month.

This falls under the “regular revenue for little effort” definition of passive income.

I have a Patreon page and I am deeply grateful for my patrons. It means a lot when people are willing to fork over a monthly payment so I can more easily make music. 

Digital merch

Pretty much every performing musician has physical merch, and many of them make most of their money that way.

But what about digital merch? I think a lot of musicians overlook this idea.

This could be a PDF download that shares the inspirations behind your songs (I’m doing this). Or it could be an eBook about the story of your music career. You could even offer downloads of your chord charts and lyrics sheets.

Try offering these types of things in your online store. Your website builder should be able to automatically give your customers a download after the purchase, meaning you don’t have to ship anything or house inventory or even think about it.

If you can get creative with your digital merch, you could potentially make money while you sleep. 

I use Bandzoogle for my website builder and their store is super easy to set up. I highly recommend.

Blogging

If you write songs, you can probably write a blog post. And if you can write a blog post, you might be able to make passive income by running a blog.

Two of the main ways bloggers make money is through affiliate programs and advertisements. 

I partner with affiliates for this blog, but only companies whose services I already use and love. That’s the key with affiliates. Don’t join a referral program if you’re not 100% sold on the company.

As for ads, I don’t use ads. Not on my official music website and not on this blog. I try to keep both of my sites as uncluttered as possible. 

I want you, the reader, to actually enjoy your experience here.

However, if you’re okay running some ads on your blog, go for it. If you have control over what type of ads appear, even better. 

The basic idea is this: you write amazing, helpful, useful blog posts, and you make money even when you’re not writing as people visit your site, buy products from your affiliates, and get served ads. 

The main focus, though, should be creating amazing content. 

If you’re interested in getting started, here are the whys and hows of starting a blog.

Launch an online course

If you could eavesdrop on passive-income experts having a conversation, you’d hear them talking about online courses.

For a lot of musicians and music industry folks, courses are their peanut butter and jelly. This is how online entrepreneurs make money.

If you want to get into this space, you’ll need to have some sort of specialty. You’ll do better if you niche-down your course topic.

Maybe you’ve had success doing something like booking local shows or getting lots of email subscribers. Maybe you’ve gotten some big sync licensing placements. Or maybe you play the theremin.

Whatever the case, you can teach other musicians how to do what you’ve had success doing. I’ve offered a few courses through this blog and they’ve helped a bunch of musicians. 

In my research for this post, I found a pretty cool website/podcast called Passive Income Musician. It’s all about how to teach music through online courses. There’s even a free eBook you can pick up.

If you’re serious about getting started, check out this guide on launching an online course. 

YouTube creator

This is the revenue stream I haven’t gotten into, but I’ve seen a lot of musicians do it. 

You could do anything from giving guitar lessons to doing interesting cover songs to reviewing recording equipment. Make a niche channel about what you love and know about. 

And the way you make money is through ads played before your videos. The more views your video gets, the more ads are served, and the more money you make.

To give you examples, here are some different musician YouTubers and what types of videos they share:

If you want to get started on YouTube, check out their free online course on how to run a successful channel.

A Free Resource To Help You

Here’s where I recommend my own resource. It’s a free music budgeting template, which you’ll need once you start making all that money 🙂

FREE MUSIC BUDGETING TEMPLATE

Grab it for FREE below

Do you make money from any of these things? Let me know how it’s been going in the comments ↓

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *