One of the questions you may be asking yourself is “How do I make any money from my music?” It’s a fair question and there are various ways you can monetize your music.

One of the first things I suggest you do is get yourself registered with the PRS / MCPS Alliance. This is the organisation that collects the royalties due to songwriters and composers when their works are played or performed in public. This is a major stream of income for songwriters and composers and if you don’t do anything else today then do this… get registered.

Click here to visit the PRS / MCPS website and join up. There is no upfront fee however the £10 plus VAT joining fee will be deducted from your first royalty payment. Not bad considering you could be coining in tens of thousands each month…. I’m serious.

This doesn’t stop you signing to a publisher either. A publishing deal would be a great coup because they push your music to sync which means the possibility of getting your music on adverts, tv themes, films and much more. These all generate a residual income which is the lifeblood of the songwriter / composer.

Other ways of making money is of course selling your music online with iTunes or other networks. The money you receive per download varies depending on the network and of course the distributor.

We recommend EmuBands who are based in Glasgow. They are ever efficient, extremely helpful and you can get a Single distributed for around £40 with chart entry elligibility and and Album for £50 with the same chart elligibility. EmuBands also don’t take a commission from your sales which a lot of other distributors do so just watch for that when choosing one if you decide to ignore our advice. EmuBands also now distribute to Spotify.

You can of course sell hard copies of your tracks and also merchandise. This requires some sort of Supply and Demand stream so don’t worry too much about this until the time comes, and when it comes you will know.

As a foot note however I will remind you to sign up to the PRS / MCPS before you do anything else because it can take about a month or two for them to process your application before you can start loading your works into their system.

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