The Debate is ongoing. Is there any chance for DIY artist to actually earn a living making music? Or are there just too many options out there for consumers for any one artist to really shine through?

Well, that depends on where the focus is. I often find myself explaining to clients, there are 2 containers of money for them to try and grab from. While it is possible to grab from both, the clever artist will focus on one. Which one is the trick!

One container, is the same size as a soda bottle. Inside that bottle is a million dollars, waiting for someone to snatch it up. The other is the size of a waste basket. Inside that sits a few hundred thousand dollars, also, just waiting to be claimed. So which do you grab. Before you answer, remember this….there are hundreds of thousands of artist trying to make the same choice.  So the real question becomes which are you more likely to have a chance at?

Human nature will lead most artist to want the bottle, because with it, comes superstar fame and fortune. The wastebasket on the other hand, provides a smaller, usually more faithful type following, with a modest income. However, with hundreds of thousands of hands, all reaching into that little opening of the bottle, those artist will be lucky to grab even one bill from within, while those reaching in the wastebasket, even if in the thousands, can all reach in at once, and ALL come out with a decent amount. Enough to maybe even quit their day jobs.

A few years ago, when asked the secret to his success, film icon Dustin Hoffman, described that his sole focus when moving to New York was to become a steady working actor in off Broadway productions. While his counterparts were all fighting for extra roles in the major productions, or battling each other for coveted TV/Commercial roles, Hoffman focused on obtaining decent main roles in less popular productions. As long as he could pay his small apartment rent, and put food on his table, all while doing what he loved, he was happy.

Part of the reason Hoffman was such a great success (the other part being his great talent) was he had almost no competition to fight through for attention. Sure there were other very talented actors who were doing off broadway shows, but less off them than available roles, so many of them could work and earn a living. He successfully reached for the waste basket money, and from there, he was propelled into the bottle, coming out one of the most successful actors of his generation.

And Hoffman is not alone in this strategy. Insane Clown Posse, while never achieving much mainstream success, have been able to maintain a very healthy career over the past decade plus through their touring and merchandising. Or, punk rock pioneers Black Flag, who toured the country without the help of any “major labels”, and helped spark the career of Henry Rollins.

While many artist focus on the success of artist like Linkin Park, Black Eyed Peas, Eminem, and other mainstream successes, they miss the fundamentals of what even many of these superstars did early in their career. Which leads us to our list:

KnowTheBiz.com’s Top 5 Rules To Making Money Doing Music.

1. Shows, Shows, ShowsAlthough this seems obvious enough, performances are critical in earning a living as an artist. Even in the prime of the music industry, an artists performance income was their main income. And once a week at the same local bar is not going to cut it. Remember the basic rules of sales we all learned in 9th grade…Supply & Demand. If you are in too much supply to one little area, the demand will decrease. Spread your shows out, or at least switch which side of town you perform on.
2. Get OnlineIf you’ve been doing this long enough, you remember the days of printing up flyers, posters, stickers, sampler CD’s, and anything else you could think of to promote your music. Then you had to go out yourself and pass all that stuff out. Even living in major markets with millions of people, it was time consuming, took lots of money, and you would only actually get to a fraction of those people. Now, with the aid of the internet, you can reach millions of people, in just a few days, with almost no money. The weeks it took to successfully connect with a few hundred people can now be done in a few hours with a few well placed key strokes. It is a utility that can not be overlooked!
3. Get OfflineThe internet has become a priceless tool in marketing yourself to the public. But it is still just that, a tool. Having 10,000 friends, 2,000 followers, and 20,000 views is GREAT!!! But it’s useless if you cannot connect with those people. NOTHING, not even the internet, can replace personal contact. Use these online tools to find new potential fans, and then get those new fans to come support you at shows. Imagine if you could get those 10,000 friends to come see you perform for just $3 each!!!!! You do the math!
4. Get A WebsiteIn the age of Instagram, Twitter, Spotify and YouTube, you may think you’re online presence is covered. It’s not. Not only are you giving away the most important part of your fanbase away (their direct contact data), you are missing out on direct sales of music, show tickets, and merchandising. You don’t need an expansive site with dozens of pages. A simple one page site may do the trick. But you NEED your own site, with a domain name that matches your name. Go look up your favorite successful artist. Type their name with the word “website” afterwards. See if it only brings you to a facebook page. Or do you find something more? You can snatch a template website up for less than $100, or create a great looking custom website (recommended) for just a few hundred dollars. Don’t wait. Finish this article, then go get working on your site.
5. Merchandising, Merchandising, Merchandising!!!The days of having to actually spend your money on T-Shirts to sell are over. Part of Rule 2 is to have your OWN website, not just a Facebook fan page. Why? Well one reason is because of your own online store. Once you have your fans coming to your site, you point them to your online store where they can buy your bands shirts, hats, socks, and just about anything else you can imagine. There are online services like www.cafepress.com, www.spreadshirt.com, and dozens of others, where you just upload the graphics to the site, place a little code on your site, and they will process your orders, print the merchandise, ship it out, and send you your cut! No further work required from you, besides of course to get out their and get those fans to your site!

An artist who understands that to be a full time working entertainer means you really have to work full time (or more), and can be happy paying the bills doing what they love, has a remarkably better chance of success than those who only want the fame and instant fortune they associate with success. And many times, the artist who do have that superstar fame and success are also the ones who spent years (many established artists, average ten years as a serious artist before “success” is realized) building their careers utilizing these rules.