In the light of Covid, making a profit out of your personal art can prove to be very difficult. With the possibility of live in-person shows becoming almost non-existent, musicians have had to adapt to the new ways in order to make a living. The ways in which musicians are making a profit nowadays is by monetizing online live performances and practicing old ways of making profit such as selling merchandise, and teaching how to play instruments etc. Other challenges musicians may face during Covid is the inability to work with others whether it be band mates, executives, and other important people that make up their career. Sure, there are ways to still interact such as Zoom but, I have personally taken guitar lessons over the video communications program and it is nothing like doing the real thing in person. You experience cut outs, interruptions, and depending on your hardware, the sound and video quality can be dreadful. Spotify for Artists’ blog, “How Artists Are Making the Most of Merch During the Pandemic” does a great job at talking about how artists are doing taking the merchandise approach for their success. For example, websites such as Merchbar allows ~35,000 artists to offer over 1 million products to chose from that fans can buy to support their favorite artist. Although not everyone on the platform sells their merchandise for profit; but as to raise money for social causes that are happening in our current world. Another website, Bandzoogle is used by artists to sell their tickets for virtual performances providing a stream link and password once the ticket is purchased. Patreon is probably the most well-known website where artists can easily make money online through their fans. The membership platform makes it so that fans can donate to their favorite artists/creators and in return you provide your patreon’s exclusive content/service whether it be a behind the scenes of your art work, shows, what you do during the day, new music etc. These websites are great examples of how you can support artists directly where they can gather a majority, if not all of the proceeds from their work. Streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal are perfect examples of where artists make almost nothing out of their music, unless you have a large following. For example, for every one stream you get on Spotify, you only make roughly $0.00437. In order to earn a minimum wage, you would have to get a minimum of ~340,000 streams which makes it almost impossible for smaller musicians to make a living strictly off of streaming services. Musicians are currently trying to push for more earnings for their work but, it is unclear if we will see any change. Spotify made revenue alone of last year surpassed roughly $8 billion so there is a big question whether or not it is being fair to it’s artists. Without these platforms, it would be very hard to survive as a creator during these hard times but, there is much room for improvement.
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