8 Ways To Turn Your Beats And Instrumentals Into A Profitable Business

Selling beats and instrumentals online is not an easy task.

Hip-hop instrumentals and pop beats can be easily found online. There are thousands of sites selling beats and it can be frustrating if it does not work out as you have hoped. However, if you try the right strategies, it can become a successful business opportunity.

As a quick note, this is a guest post from the team over at DeviantNoise.com – you can learn more about this topic over there.

Now, here are some of the things you can do to turn your beats and instrumentals into a profitable business.

1. Set Up Your Own Beat Selling Website

If you are good at creating music and tweaking midi controllers, you can start your own beat selling website. If you have the funds, you can hire a webmaster to set it up for you. If you are in a tight budget, you can research on how you can do it yourself.

Once it has been set up, find ways to promote it. You can offer some beats free but reserve the best ones for selling. You cannot expect your beats to sell overnight, but having your own site will be much more profitable in the long run if done right.

2.Sell What Artists Are Buying

This is a basic business concept but many artists fail to apply it. If you want to make some serious cash selling your beats online, you must cater to the demands of artists. Listen to your target audience if you want to succeed in selling beats online. Find out what’s hot in music production. Some artists are willing to pay for some simple beats while others prefer the more complex ones. Know what your audience wants and start seeing sales coming.

3. Sell The License To Your Beats

There are three main categories in selling licenses: Lease licenses, exclusive licenses, and sync licenses.

1. Lease Licenses – These are non-exclusive licenses with a limited sales cap. Your beats can be sold to different buyers as long as nobody buys the exclusive rights to them. It also gives the music artist a certain amount of uses per lease, usually around 2,000 – 5,000. Once it runs out, the artist needs to buy another lease for the same beat. Aspiring artists often use these for mixtapes and promos.
2. Exclusive Licenses – These will give the music artist sole ownership of the beat and unlimited use of it. The beat is sold to only one customer and will be subsequently marked as sold. Since the buyer will get full ownership and can do whatever he pleases to do with the beat, he will have to pay higher for an exclusive license. Beats sold with exclusive rights are often used for an album.
3. Sync Licenses – While lease and exclusive licenses are targeted toward recording artists, sync licenses are for music in film, TV shows, commercials, video games, or YouTube. Get a digital code for your music with a sync license to receive royalties.

If you are planning to make selling beats online as your main source of income, selling licenses will be the backbone of your operation. Set up a PayPal account to receive payments online. You can also arrange payments with customers through Google wallet, Western Union, bank transfers and the like.

4. Team Up With Other Producers

Building up a team of beat makers can be beneficial in many ways. Firstly you will have a diverse catalog of fresh beats and different styles. You can also feed off each other creatively and agree to take a set percentage of the sales you make for other producers. Selling other producers’ beats can greatly increase your market share and divide marketing duties.

5. Create Instrumental Mixtapes

If you make enough songs, there will always be beats that sell less than the rest, and beats that remain completely unsold even if they would be a good fit for some.

The solution? Bundle these beats and make an instrumental mixtape with sync licenses in place. You can put around 10 to 25 old beats on the mixtape, sell it at a low price, and distribute your mixtape with the appropriate digital distributor. This ensures that none of them will go to waste.

Note: Only do this if the beats are good enough to put your name to.

6. Sell MP3 Downloads

Many producers allow free downloads of their beats or do not allow any downloading at all. They are missing a great source of additional revenue. There is a big market for audiences who might enjoy simply listening to your tracks or recording them for personal use without wanting to invest in leasing rights.

If you are worried about the safety of your beats, you can tag your beats to ensure that people will know whom the beat belongs to. Your listeners get to enjoy your beats and you earn some additional income.

7. Get Your Tracks On Internet Radio

Regular radio stations are usually more interested in full songs rather than beats and instrumentals. What you can do though is get your music to stations like Pandora or Spotify where many people enjoy browsing for instrumental tracks.

These sites share their profits among members according to the amount of plays your track receives. If you produce a beats that become popular, getting them to internet radio can be a nice little side-earner. It won't usually earn a huge amount, but it all adds up.

8. Upload Your Tracks To Music Libraries

There is a wide variety of music libraries online, from general sites to industry specific sites. Aside from sites that cater to the needs of recording artists, uploading your beats to music libraries can let you reach a new audience like video creators, website owners, filmmakers, and advertisers.

These websites offer non-exclusive sub-publishing agreement, meaning you will allow these sites to make money with your music in exchange for a profit share, usually between 50%-75%. Just make sure you read and understand the contract before signing with these websites to avoid any disputes later on.

Conclusion

There are a number of ways to make money from beats and instrumentals. After spending a great deal of your time, energy, and money, you would want to rack up your sales and generate profit from the beats you produce.

Do some research and be creative. With the right mindset, you can greatly increase the chances of your own success! To learn more visit DeviantNoise.com.