A lot of artist grow up with a fairy tale notion of the music business. You tend to think it’s all about playing shows and being the next big thing on everyone’s radar and eventually getting a pass into the inner circle of stardom and fame. A lot of young artist spend their late teens and early twenties playing in tiny shows in near empty rooms. Most of them upload their music onto the music platform sound cloud with the hopes of being discovered.
Most artist have not really thought about how they can exploit the world of streaming as their major source of revenue until their circumstances changes. You see today even the biggest acts making a lot of money from streaming alone and Indy artists should be able to take a share of this cake. At some point Spotify paid very little for every stream and so many artist are too engaged in various other activities to even properly look at the metrics on streaming. To the surprise of many, months after uploading their content, they begin to see some royalties trickling in. this adds up to a substantial sum if your music played well on the platform.
Streaming should be one of the largest streams of income for a lot of Indy artists if they learn to exploit it properly. Services such as Spotify are not the enemy, they are the allies you should work closely with. Understandably enough, artist should be paid a lot more for their craft, but you need to play the numbers game and work with what you get and hope that your fan base continues to build up. If you got a penny for every stream and you run into a couple hundred thousand streams that really adds up into something.
Don’t get it wrong though. Spotify won’t help you build your career and it is not their job to do so. All they’d o is provide you with a platform where you can be discovered by potential fans and producers. It is your responsibility and that of your team to build your own career and try to convert all the listeners on the platform into your own loyal fans.
Behind every success story is countless of hours of dedication and hard work consistently towards one goal, and that is to be heard and appreciated. There are no guarantees in this business and you must understand that it is mostly up to you to push your content forward. The new model that the music industry is forming into is one that has a place for everyone and although it might be more difficult than it used to be to stand out, you still have a chance.
