Let’s be real. It’s getting increasingly more difficult these days to be able to let go of your 9 to 5 or odd job to do this music thing full time. If you’re a do-it-yourself artist, there’s a good chance that you’re recording your own projects, doing your own graphic work, booking yourself, promoting, marketing, and even editing your own indie videos. Maybe your’re doing some of these if not all of them. If you’ve become good at any one of them, you’ve just developed a valuable skill that many other artists need. And these are skills that can provide you with some extra income or replace a sucky job that not related to the music business at all.
It’s true that taking on these extra tasks, leaves less time for creating music, but by doing them, you save money and learn a set of skills that expands your entrepreneurial possibilities. Some artists who have recording setups at home, are now earning extra cash by recording the projects of other artists. Design your own mixtape cover or promotional flyer? Well there are a bunch of artists who’d rather not deal with the headache of learning photoshop or who don’t know a graphic designer. Also, having the skill to do good grassroots promotion and marketing, can serve you well beyond your years of being an artist.
Using myself as an example, what I’ve learned about blogging just a couple of years ago, has earned me some extra income by helping other artists set up and manage blogs. I’ve even helped those in other businesses with building a web presence. That wasn’t my mission upon starting this. I was just serving my own interests at the time. But people started noticing some of the things I was doing, and wanted me to help them with their own visions. The things you do for yourself become a display of your talents. And in this era of the independent artist, everyone is going to need some of your knowledge and talents to get their careers off the ground. Hell, I’m still running into artists who don’t know how to use Twitter.
And who knows how far this can take you. A lot of very successful startups like Pandora and CD Baby were started by former or active musicians who better understood the needs of artists. Whether you’re doing all of these things on your own, or if you’ve assembled a team to take on some of these tasks, you are developing potentially profitable services that can not only serve the needs of you and your crew, but others as well.
