PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting I Am Now One of the Highest Paid Songwriters in the World!!!!!

Dave, don't get me wrong...if these "artists" are able to convince starving musicians to pony up $997 for their "secrets" then they certainly have mad marketing skills! Of course this is nothing new! From the beginning of time humans have been trying to convince other humans to give them their money in exchange for the secret to success.

I recall a recent true story I read in Modern Archeology Quarterly...

Thag claimed he was an excellent woolly mammoth hunter. The best in the land! But rather than hunt woolly mammoths Thag decided he preferred to share his super secret woolly mammoth hunting techniques for the low, low price of 997 cowry shells (and stay safely inside his cave.) He told great stories of Scramp, a neighboring hunter (that no one had heard of) and how ol' Scramp was killing 326.7% more woolly mammoths since subscribing to Thag's course. And, a very small number of people, from the local seaside community of Gull Able, signed up for Thag's course. They did not ever report the kind of results Thag promised but Thag insisted they didn't follow his plan properly. When woolly mammoths started to become rare, legend says the locals boiled and ate Thag.

John,

I have been struggling for 3 months to come up with an idea for a novel that I can sell to Netflix that will produce a period piece that will run for Six Seasons.

I was at a loss.

No more.

Thag

Gotta run. Thanks. You are the Wizard man. Everything they say true.

Wait, Netflix is calling. Really gotta go now.

Just be sure to credit Gary Larson for the name. Oh and send me 997 cowry shells.

$225 is not even a fraction of prices some Dad's paid my Son in Law's DJ business for silly nonsense stuff at their daughter's wedding...... He received that much for a Gobo with a Calligraphy letter to shine on a wall... As a serious matter, I'm in David's camp on the legitimacy of this entrepreneur's free advice. First, It's all you need and the math works and second, it follows the advice my brother told me over and again for years. Third, I'm the one that introduced her to the forum.

If someone is marketing $25 worth of product and can't sell a thousand units in a year, ....... as MarioD famously states, YMMV. But if they can, that's $25,000 and is more than your friendly McDonald's server or part time Walmart greeter is pulling in all the while working far more hours.

Do what you're passionate about even if it's whittling wood and luck and fortune may one day come your way. Can anyone say Duck Dynasty?

Yes, Charlie... you are probably right... I was a bit quick with that statement. There were many "bad" records in the old days too, but there are many more songs published today than in the 70s/80s, which makes the amount of recently published "bad" songs quite overwhelming.




I would like to have a listen to the stream from that radio station... what's the name of it?

Also, I have never seen the movie you mentioned so I will check that out too.

Thanks,
Will

Will,

Do a web search on the movie and right after do a web search on the term "Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars". Between the two, you'll learn a lot about how the music business worked until the British Invasion came along.

Charlie,

Put up a link to the radio station stream please.

Hey David,

All kidding aside, I agree with you that this lady has some valuable info to share. Here is another person I follow who has been successful at this...Heather Dale. If you have 10 minutes or so check out her TED Talk "How to find a tribe that loves your art",

https://youtu.be/f7tO-8PIR9s

94.9 The Surf FM Radio

For those requesting the Radio Station Stream, here you go. Enjoy and find you some good BIAB songs to copy.

From the Home Screen , I had to click on the All Time Beach Music Top 40 Button and the Listen Live Button is on the upper left.

Will, I'm sure you will enjoy "That Thing You Do".

JohnJohnJohn,

I've had a good time 'meeting' Heather Dale. Thanks for posting the link. Her ideology closely mirrors Leah McHenry's and Heather gives more detail of her success using a system that is fun and lucrative without fame.

Here is another favorite Micro Niche artist that I've followed for years and unfortunately he passed a few years ago. His niche in songwriting is that he's a great storyteller and plays guitar in Open D tuning. He also developed a large following in teaching basic home recording using Presonus Studio One. His tutorials were the first I ever found on YouTube. He focused on beginners and intermediates and let the advanced "take care of themselves".

Here's my favorite song of his and I think is a good example of how he puts a story together. Simple and effectively I think.

"Melissa" by Guthrie Thomas

This is very cool John, thanks.

Ha, that wasn't what I was expecting to read.

I've read similar stats. It's the same in most aspects of the music industry and even in most professions; a small minority earn most of the money.

I guess that's why it really helps to love making music, if it was done purely for the money I'm sure there would be a lot fewer songwriters.

Congrats at being in the top 1% though David.

In 2017, around 1.51 million acoustic guitars were sold in the United States.

Taken together, 2.6 million acoustic and electric guitars were sold in the U.S. last year, up 300,000 from 2009, according to the National Association of Music Merchants.

A little under 40,000 pianos were sold last year.

All of this was in just one year. Assuming the same sales for the last ten years we have something like 26 million new guitars being put in the hands of a mix of want to be to really good guitar players.

How many of those wanted to write a original song to make money? Who knows. There is also the group who acquired an instrument before that ten year period.

So...take that out world wide and you have hundred of thousands or perhaps millions of people who are trying to write a song.

A few of those people are really good at it and have the right connections with the right stuff at the right time.

Is it possible to make money playing/selling music? Yes, thousands of us have done that. Could you send your kids to university on that money? Some but not many could.

Can anyone who is "unknown" write a hit song on demand to be played by someone who is "unknown". No, no one knows what will become a hit based solely on the music.

You do have a pretty good chance of writing a hit song if you have written some in the past and the artist is current and in his prime. Yes, Bernie Taupin comes to mind. What was that piano players name??...lol

On the other hand I remember this guy...

Lawrence Wayne "Wild Man" Fischer (November 6, 1944 – June 16, 2011) was an American street performer known for offering erratic, acapella performances of "new kinds of songs" for a nickel or a dime each on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood.[1] Most of his life was spent homeless or institutionalized, and he later became regarded as "the godfather of outsider music"

Sorry, I lived in LA much too long...lol

Billy

I agree with Shaun in this whole discussion. If music making for money is like taking part in a lottery with a winningchance of 0,000001%, you better spend your money in a real lottery. BUT... if you like making music, concentrating on that will probably gives more satisfaction than 'winning' some bugs while doing a lot of concessions to your music.

Unless of course your name is David, the richest songwriter BiaB ever had. ;-)

If I want to become a successful songwriter in the Netherlands, I have to write lyrics in Dutch and make Hip Hop music. Both I realy don't want. Stupid? I hope one day my songs become that niche. If not... bad luck, but still happy (enough.

Thanks,
Hans Berkhout

Hans,

It's true man.

When I saw my streaming sales on Spotify last month, I bought a third home in your neighborhood.

Why don't you come over and we can all get rich.

Do you know Max Martin by any chance???

Did she have production costs, printing the CDs through a service or are they home computer burns? Are there CD sleeves with art work? How much does each mug and shirt cost to produce?

The first 2 questions are variables, but home burned CDs vs CDBaby burned with artwork sounds kind of cheesy to me. And those mugs and shorts aren't $0 to her unless she also does ceramics and screen printing.

Only point being that it isn't 1000 x $25. Reality is $25 less expenses. So it's likely more like 1000 X $13-$15.

Wish her well with her dream though.

Yes, she is talking about gross income and of course there are expenses. As you allude, expenses are malleable and somewhat controllable. Her point is exactly as stated; 1,000 units at $25 is a gross amount of $25,000. The $25 product can be a single item or consist of multiple items to generate the $25 sum. It's just an example but it's to show how uncomplicated it is to generate income from music without being a star. Even if she fails to reach her goal of 1,000 and only makes sales of just over half that amount, 636 units at $25, the $15,900 will match the gross income of a McDonalds Production Manager's gross national average salary of $15,896. The point is one can make an income off music the same as they can making hamburgers.

This is true in the same way saying any kid can grow up to be president is true. Granted, making 15k in music will be an easier accomplishment but it is still highly unlikely the vast majority can pull it off. And for sake of argument let's say you do manage to do it once, what about next year and the year after, etc.? Unfortunately there are far more people willing to pay for a Big Mac week after week, year after year than will ever buy your $25 music package even once. I admit it might be possible but it is more like lottery than working at MickeyD's! At least the clown pays regularly and on time and if you don't work out there is another one 10 feet down the road!

<<< This is true in the same way saying any kid can grow up to be president is true.>>> No, not the same at all. Since the creation of the US, there have been only 44 people achieve the status of President. (Grover Cleveland was President twice and Trump is number 45) In 2016 there were a total of 26 candidates on the ballot. 24 had no chance of winning. The opportunity to run for president only comes up every four years. The opportunity to run on any presidential election has limits and requirements that not every kid will grow up to the circumstance of meeting the presidential candidate requirements. The odds of a musician creating and releasing a record that becomes a hit song are astronomically better than any random child growing up to be president.


My late brother (a successful musician and producer) made his living his entire adult life in the music business. He made it clear to me that one only has to manage to have a huge hit once to ensure a lifetime income that the person can live off of. Plenty of people actually earn enough money in music to live comfortably but are unable to manage money in a way to keep it and spread it out over a lifetime.

<<< far more people willing to pay for a Big Mac week after week, year after year than will ever buy your $25 music package even once. >>> True. You also have to sell 6 big macs for every CD. It's impossible to find a 10 year old big mac for sale at any price. However, it's not unusual at all to find a 10 year old CD, Vinyl album, or even older still available to purchase today. The Beatles Sgt Peppers album released in 1967 is still widely available at all of the music media outlets. That's 52 consecutive years it has been available world wide to purchase if you wanted to. If you kept your CD current with whatever media format for audio is, your CD content could be available for purchase for 50 + years too. There are literally hundreds of thousands of recordings released over the last 50 years and more still available. Is it common? Not for the less commercially viable releases but not unheard of either.

I'm as ordinary person as exists here on the forum and I sold a song that had set dormant for 44 years to a record producer that's received two Grammy nominations since 2009. To be honest, the sell price was more than the entire album sales did back in the day. The bottom line is your CD has zero chance if you don't put it out there but it does have a greater chance of earning you substantial income than your child has of one day becoming president....

And neither is any more likely than winning the lottery!

Now J3, how quickly they forget.

Just go back a few years man.

Remember, remember...the poppies will put you to sleep, you will wake up, turn on the t.v., and...

BAM.

It could happen to you dude!!!!!