Thousands of musicians around the world have been impacted by COVID-19. From canceled performances to delays in songwriter royalty distribution, one of the essential groups of people that impact culture is being hung out to dry. There are tons of organizations stepping up to support artists like The Grammy’s Musicares and the Regional Art Commission. But if you’re an artist looking to provide some sense of financial security for you & your family, now is the time to set-up a system to generate income while traditional revenue streams are halted. Here are ten music-related products you can sell during the quarantine.
Bandcamp
1. Sell Music on Bandcamp
Do you have your music distributed to the streaming platforms but unavailable to purchase from a digital store you manage? Sitting on a catalog of unreleased music? Have a home studio? Now is a great time to build a Bandcamp artist page and direct fans to purchase your discography.
Some of the benefits of selling music on Bandcamp include:
- Direct payment to a linked Paypal account within 24-48 hours;
- Reports to Billboard/Soundscan;
- Email collection for newsletters;
- Ability to sell music-related products like merchandise through their store; and
- Artist subscriptions
Bandcamp’s price tag includes the following fees: 15% for music sales, 10% on merch sales plus PayPal’s fee (2.9% + $0.30).
An alternative is to build a store page on your artist website where fans can purchase digital downloads and physical copies of your music.
2. Fan Clubs / Patronage Support
Patreon and OnlyFans are becoming a popular option for artists to share exclusive content with their fans. Amanda Palmer of Kickstarter fame is an excellent example of someone who is leveraging Patreon. You can generate monthly recurring revenue while building a community of die-hard fans.
3. Live-Stream Concerts
If you’re a touring band or artist and had a slew of gigs canceled on you, consider organizing a virtual tour. Realistically, the live event industry will be impacted for some time with predictions of large gatherings not returning until Fall 2021. With trendsetters like Erykah Badu streaming bedroom concerts, what’s stopping you from sourcing an audio engineer, a video specialist, getting your band to jam out for an hour, and split the profit. To get started, consider downloading Open Broadcaster Software and creating a Restream.io account.
4. Virtual Education
Are you an experienced musician, songwriter, audio engineer, or producer that can communicate a step-by-step process? Consider starting a virtual workshop/class series where you can share what you know. Here are a few options for starting a virtual education platform: Patreon, Udemy, Teachable, and Podia.
Printful
5. Dropship Your Merch
Sitting on a merch idea? Don’t have the cash to get merch printed in advance? Or you don’t want to manage the logistics of shipping and handling? Let Printful do all the hard work and get merch in the hands of your fans. Printful offers on-demand printing, drop shipping, and an array of other services. To set-up a drop-ship system with Printful, you will need to integrate it with an existing eCommerce website. If you use Square for payment processing, then you may be familiar with Weebly. The Printful and Weebly integration might be the perfect solution to start dropshipping your merch today.
If you need assistance on how to price your dropshipped merch, read DoDropshipping’s Pricing Strategy guide. It’s an excellent read on the fundamentals of dropshipping and how to efficiently price your products.
6. Voiceover
Do you receive compliments on how good your voice is? One option to consider is voiceover work. This work is always valued in audio-centric mediums like Podcasts, audiobooks, and PSAs. A few places to start marketing and looking for voiceover work are Fiverr, Voices.com, and Upwork.
Adalo
7. Create an app
Turn that simple idea you had in your mind into an app and see if there is a market for it. Don’t feel pressured to run to Silicon Valley for money either. It could be as simple as sending a daily push notification of inspiration or an aggregated information platform? There are some companies that offer app services with no coding experience needed. Consider Thunkable or Adalo.
8. How-To (e)Books
People have a desire to learn something new. That’s a crucible part of the human experience. If you aren’t comfortable in front of a camera or you’re a stronger writer than you are a speaker than publishing a How-To (e)book might be right for you. This is a great suggestion if you are experienced or accomplished in a particular field and/or have authority in a particular field.
9. Incorporating music into wellness
Managing your mental and physical wellness is incredibly important during the quarantine. One way to generate income is to establish brand partnerships with the wellness community. Music producer DJsNeverEndingStory established partnerships with yoga instructors to have his music played during their classes. What would it look like to have your music incorporated in therapy sessions?
10. Cookbooks
My favorite part of the stay-at-home order has been the quality time I spend in the kitchen. This might be a good opportunity to create a cookbook of your favorite meals with a playlist that fits the vibe of each meal. Create an experience that a foodie would enjoy and you will have a trusted fan
If there are any examples of music-related products to sell during quarantine that isn’t listed, feel free to post a comment below.
