Time just seems to fly by and it’s already been six months since the last time I made an income report. I have uploaded my new music to a bunch of new stock music library’s and the result is more sales.

I’m now listed at 13 music libraries and most of them have 20 or more of my tracks listed.

The results

I now have a total of 25 tracks online. Here are my total sales since I started composing and selling stock music in February 2012:

Pond5 has sold 15 tracks – $313
RevoStock has sold 20 tracks – $283
Productiontrax has sold 14 tracks – $448
TuneFruit has sold 1 track – $50
Youlicense has sold 2 tracks – $40
TheMusicAse has sold 2 tracks – $46
YookaMusic has sold 1 track – $33

In total $1213 in sales

Keep your portfolio fresh to ensure sales

It’s very important to keep uploading new music if you want to make sales. When I’m active and upload new music its very clear that the sales picks up. Being listed at the front page in the “new tracks” section is quite important.

It makes sense that buyers prefer fresh tracks, but some of my oldest tracks are selling just fine – the key is to get more views. There is however no easy way to get more views or at least I have not found it yet, please enlighten me if you have 🙂

Find clever ways to promote your music

I have seen one composer who finds a beautiful video, adds his music and then post it on YouTube with a link to his stock music portfolio . This leads to lots of sales and is a great way of getting attention. Others just keep hammering out awesome tracks, are good at finding small niches with a lot of demand for their music or great at networking and thereby get placements for their music.

In a year I have made $700 from my 25 tracks

Since February last year I have made $700 from my 25 tracks. Not an impressive number and I don’t even want to think of my hourly rate ;-). To really make a difference in sales I would have to treat my music as a business which I in no way have done in the last year. I had a ton of fun working on my music project, but from a business perspective this sure is an uphill battle.

The tough part is the time you have to spent to create the product – in this case composing music. I typically spend 5-10 hours on a track. I might get faster over time, but creating good music takes time no matter how skilled you are. The good thing is that you can keep selling your tracks over and over, but the time spent on creating a big portfolio quickly adds up.

If I look only at the money perspective I should:

  • Compose a new track every 2nd day
  • Compose mostly for the corporate genre
  • Compose some simple piano tracks
  • Make some short logo effects

But to be honest that would not be much fun and for me that’s quite important when it comes to this project. Will I ever make a full time living from composing library music? I’m beginning to doubt it, but who knows what the future might bring.

One thing I am sure of is that I will keep on composing music. It’s one best things I know and I want to make sure it stays that way. Making some extra cash is just an added bonus. Maybe I will spend the $700 I made in a year on a vacation or some new samples – either way is awesome  🙂

Have fun making music!