HOW CAN MUSICIANS QUIT THEIR DAY JOBS? (PHASE 1) - The most practical advice for your music career you'll hear this year!
Sharing practical steps for how artists can get over the line from ‘weekend warrior’ gigs to living entirely from music.
This is one of the questions I get asked the most:
“I’m sick of grinding away on the treadmill working ‘for the man’ (or treading water on welfare payments) and just not making progress with my passion. How can I quit my ‘day job’ and start doing music as my main income?”
That’s the dream, right?
Living from music?
That’s what you want.
That’s why you’re reading this.
That’s why you were savvy enough to follow my profile.
Perhaps, you occasionally do gigs, but you don’t have enough of them to even come close to consistently cover all of your bills. I mean, rent alone is so friggin’ much these days! Right?
Like many musicians, you might find yourself in a position where you have a normal, comfortable ‘day job,’ perhaps even one you like or at least don’t mind (or you might be in soul-destroying grind of a job) or similarly, 2 or 3 part-time/casual jobs, but it just isn’t your passion or your dream. And on top of that, this other work knackers you out so much that your V8 engine brain feels like it’s firing on only one piston (“Give me my coffeeeeee!”), but instead of having 100% energy to work on your music career you end up flicking through facebook and instagram for hours seeing all these other musicians posts of the amazing places they’re travelling to on tour.
Many musicians run their music career or band, kinda like a part-time job on the side. One that either makes little to no inflow of cash, especially after you’ve paid for strings, fuel and the repair on your buzzing pickup, or it’s financially the equivalent of a part-time job.
If this situation makes you happy, then read no further. You’re enlightened. Please start your own blog on how to embrace mediocrity. Hehe.
Digs aside, if this situation slowly drains the living essence from your soul, stay with me all the way through because there are solutions to your woes and you most definitely can make a living from music.
Here’s a 4 phase (no, not the stage power source) strategy that will put you on the fast lane to success in living from music.
1st Phase:
HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU NEED TO SURVIVE & THRIVE?
(THE SECRET SLS FORMULA)
Whilst it seems like the hardest thing on Earth for a musician, or any artist, to do, it actually isn’t all that difficult. And don’t worry, I’m about to walk you through it.
We often have this arbitrary amount in our minds of how much we need to earn to quit the day job, or how much we think we want or need per month to be comfortably happy and financially free without struggle.
Many people think that amount is something like $10,000 per month for financial freedom, but that amount really depends upon what your responsibilities are, what you spend and also what you’d like to spend (like buying new guitars, pedals, or interfaces, or microphones, etc.).
So how much do you NEED to survive?
We’re talking the basics (no, not Gotye’s band) - The bare minimum for you to get by without getting into debt or being evicted.
And we’re talking specifics, not a vague idea. Vague ideas garner vague results, if any results at all.
So get a pen and paper or laptop out and answer these questions about what you spend per week.
YES, DO IT NOW!
[I know you’re wanting to skip it and go to the next step, but if you want success, don’t. Knowledge equals nothing if it isn’t put into practical action]
If a particular bill is monthly or quarterly, then find your most recent and most expensive bill (better to be over the under) of each particular utility and divide it into weekly chunks:
source
SURVIVAL AMOUNT:
That is your minimum amount per week that you must clear. Ok, so far so good...
But hold on! That doesn’t include luxuries and extravagances I hear you say, so you must also include miscellaneous expenses such as:
LUXURIES AMOUNT:
SAVINGS AMOUNT:
And, if you want to get ahead and excel in life financially, then we must not forget both your savings (minimum 10% of either your pay or your expenses) and career kitty (minimum 10%) either? [eg. $132] $______________
.
Now add the previous total to the savings total: [eg. $661 + $132 = $793 p/w] $______________ p/w
.
So our smart financial SLS equation is:
.
SURVIVAL $ +
LUXURIES $ +
SAVINGS $
= MINIMUM WEEKLY EARNINGS REQUIRED TO GET AHEAD
THAT’S the amount you need to clear per week minimum to live an abundant life.
Ouch! I know, that figure suddenly seems scary for some of you, yet for some of you it seems like a cinch and you had no idea that it was such a small amount.
Either way, you now have a very specific target amount and once you have a target, you can go about planning how you’ll achieve it.
Now, for most of us the amount we earn per week will fluctuate up or down depending upon a myriad of factors, like gig pay amount, etc. I mean, some weeks you’ll have nada and other weeks you’ll have heaps of income, so it often can be more helpful to break it all down (or up) to monthly expenditure as being the target you must reach per month.
.
So multiply your total x 4: [eg. $793 x 4 = $3172 p/m] $______________ p/m
.
If the amount seems a little high for you now, then you must find things to cut down on (no, definitely not the healthy nutritious food!!).
I’m speaking of extraneous things like fast-food, the yacht club (lol) and the NFL tickets (really? Supporting the well funded sports industry instead of the independent music industry that you want to be a part of? Shame on you).
If it means your career will become successful then surely some of these unnecessary luxuries are worth sacrificing, at least for a while until you’re on track.
Avoid living beyond your means.
Basically, the main rule, or philosophy the rich follow religiously that the poor are terrible at is:
ALWAYS SPEND LESS THAN WHAT YOU EARN
Now I know you want to skip past this step and get to the next bit, but if you don’t nut out the above, then all further information is fruitless, vacuous knowledge for you.
Seriously, I’ve been where you’re at.
I know.
.
I use to avoid all this shizzle like the plague. I’d reach for my guitar, instead of the calculator. I’d check Bookface and Instacrack instead of following these simple steps and it got me further from my dreams. Further from my goals.
You don’t want that.
.
You want to excel!
.
You want to succeed!
.
You want the world to hear your music!
.
The best part is that once you’ve completed this vital, yet easy phase, you only have to check in on it once in a blue moon, which means you can pick up your instrument and get back to creating…
PHASE 2 COMING VERY SOON
STAY TUNED!
Nathan Kaye is an independent artist that with 18 years of professional experience touring the world as a multi-instrumental one-man-band and is massively passionate about sharing the secrets of making a living as an artist.
"I believe that the world becomes a far better place when every creative soul is making a living from what they love most, for it is the arts that shifts consciousness and it is the arts that influences and inspires each heart and mind to reach the highest potential."
Copyright © Nathan Kaye All rights reserved worldwide.
YOUR RIGHTS: This book is restricted to your personal use only. It does not come with any other rights.
If you felt the vibe of this article and the information helps you, please do upvote, resteem, follow @nathankaye and comment. I'd really love to hear from you.
Thank you so much for reading this and being uniquely you.
Please make sure you vote for @pfunk, @ausbitbank as witnesses here: https://steemit.com/~witnesses. These dudes do lotsa good.
Thanks so much for commenting below
(because I'm hoping you're about to ).
If you felt the vibe of this article, or it's helped you shift perspective,
please do click upvote, click resteem, click follow and comment.
Let's connect, be friends!
I'd really love to hear from you.
I try my best to check out the blogs of my genuine upvoters as well as those of you who do genuine comments and especially those who follow me…
Also, I'm a proud helpinaut!
Visit @helpie to find out what that means and
to find out if you'd be a proper fit for our discord group!
Helping is the #1 goal!
The first thing about being a musician and living from music to me means to carefully think about quitting your daily job or whatever. If you quit, following things can happen (of course only if you are not believing in yourself, blablabla):
Carefully think about quitting your daily job, that is an honest advice. It is a great promise to fulfill your dreams as an artist just by believing in yourself. Don't oversee that the truth is different from your dream if you are not the one in a million.
Yes, indeed. I wouldn't advise anyone to just quit their 'day job' suddenly. That's not remotely the gist of this series of articles. I hope you read all of what this Phase 1 is advising.
They must plan.
They must precisely know what their financial budgeting is and be disciplined with it.
They must know what their music/music services/music-related products offers to the market/demographic that they most appeal to. Plus having a diverse range of products and services is essential (read my comments under Pechichimena's & Darrenclaxton's comments).
There is no promise and it's got nothing to do with 1 in a million at all. Not remotely.
You can be a music artist, a music teacher, a music engineer, a cover song music performer, a wedding musician, an online music tutorial course creator, a published songwriter, a steemit star, etc...
There are so many ways to earn a living from music, and most musicians shouldn't put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, but ALL musicians can most definitely earn a living from music and eventually quit the day jobs they don't love.
And the transition doesn't take that long, but it requires great focus & self-discipline (otherwise stick to the day job).
I have friends who don't even have a great deal of talent earning a living from music. They aren't rock stars, but this series of articles isn't about becoming a pop or rock star, nor is it promising such things. They mix it up like Pechi above. They do a bit of teaching, a bit of gigging, etc.. It all adds up.
So yes, I agree with all of your points. The downfalls can be avoided and far easier than most think, but as you astutely say - you must believe in yourself 100%. Plus you must budget your finances and niche...
Thanks so much for your well-considered comments here, mate. Much appreciated.
:)
Really great comment and you are making things quite clear. You are focussing on the financial aspect in your article and I don't see my points on an opposite view. The amount of money per month that you suggest is even not that low and everyone has to really know that you will probably have to struggle even earning your income for your basic needs. The problem is that when it comes to making decisions they are made emotionally most likely, esp. for musicians and artists. So logical aspects like thoroughly calculating your finances don't play any role for some and some end up ruining their and (what is more unexcuseable) their families life. I don't want to speak against emotional decision in general because emotions can tell truth where even science and logic can't. But a high degree of awareness and disciplin is needed undoubtely and many are not thinking about that. That's why I wanted to add a list showing possible consequences of a badly chosen decision. Thanks for the conversation @nathankaye!
This advice will be learn to everyone.it's a knowledgeable post.keep it up and keep sharing.go on your way.
Thanks so much @ausharya!
Blessings
:)
This is good advice mate ! being an independent musician myself who has ''quit his day job'' from periods of time ( long ones actually) I can relate to this , though being your own boss and independent most of the time it is actually more work than ''being hired and having a salary'' . It is stressful , money is not regular and we end up being ''musical octupuses'' , In my case , I find myself editing , producing , teaching , performing , recording , transcribing AND now building up my Steemit blog which I find to be a good platform for music promotion and build-up if you are here for the long run , so yes, it is demanding and it's reaaally important to have enough DRIVE to do it , to reach for that extra mile.
Financially speaking I also have a basic chart of expenses ( a little simpler than yours) but it is CRUCIAL if you want to be able to sustain a living , keep the spending modest and please please please save for the low months , in my case January , February and March are almost dead so I need to separate some money monthly so I can survive through those without going into debt .
looking forward to the next part :)
Cheers.
Yes, diversification of income streams (from music) is the most sensible approach.
With this particular phase 1 of dealing directly with finances, which most musicians, artists, and well, a lot of people in general, don't place proper focus on.
In the times when my music career was really kicking along and I was earning a decent amount, and I employed these financial techniques, things went really well for me and my career kept a steady upward trajectory. But the times when I just let money come and go I later found that too much of my life was left to chance and that's when I'd experience the worst hardships and struggle.
We must prepare for the low waves whilst we're building the high waves... (Waves of Life theory applied here again).
Thanks so much, bro!
:)
Bloody brilliant as ever mate! I'm so yearning and desperate to realise this dream and make it a reality. I have a 12 month plan to work PT at my day job and PT at music. I'll hopefully get there. It has a lot to do with - musical talent and creativity, about the following that we acquire along the way, and probably the most important of all for me personally, is online presence.
That, at the moment, is making me some £££.
Gigs here in the UK for independent original artists like myself, pay very little. You're lucky to get £40 or £50 for an hours set of original songs.
I do feel as though my online fan base will sustain some kind of PT income for me, which can be built on over the coming months.
I wish us all the very best of luck in our revolutionary, decentralised musical journey's!
Cheers again mate.
Daz 🎸
Sweet as mate! I glad you got something from Phase 1.
Yes, it's important to get super clear and set goals, and vital to keep visualising your dream daily and as specifically as you can with as much emotional energy invested as you can muster.
It's a shame the gigs don't pay a great deal there. That's not how I experienced the UK the times I played there, so things have tightened over there too since I last played there, but then I also probably got paid more because I was an Aussie touring the UK and had Glastonbury fest under my belt. But then, I have always been hardline about how much they must pay me or I'll draw the crowd to their nearby competitor's venue. Their choice and I let them know in a diplomatic, friendly way. It rarely needs to even go there, I've found, but most venue bookers/managers/agents some how respect that kind of resolve because they too often deal with either wishy-washy musicians or desperate musicians who'll accept anything or arrogant ones that have no follow through.
I still think that doing real-life gigs is important for a musician's career. It sharpens the performance tools and skills, it creates more fans and you can sell CDs and other merch directly to people on top of the pay you're getting from the venue.
Heck, I've got friends who earn a killing doing professional busking playing their own music through a busking PA in key zones.
As Pechi mentioned above, diversification of income is key in any business and so is budget awareness.
I agree that Steemit presents a new exciting potential income stream for musicians.
If we take Kevin Kelly's '1000 true fans' understanding (1000 true fans spending $100 per year = $100,000 per year) whilst incorporating Bob Burg's 'Go-Giver' approach of providing value for others, mixed in with Pareto's '80/20 principal' (where 20% of your fans will provide 80% of your revenue) then online music business can become a very abundant income stream as an artist.
Steemit can provide a good portion of that concept, I reckon.
Anyway, huge blessings to ya mate! Thanks for reading and commenting.
:)
A lot to digest there mate!
Maybe I've been selling myself short at gigs?
I'll be getting a game plan together and get some monetary correlation between 'Performing' and selling music! cross-curricular if you like?
Have a good day, evening, morning my time travelling friend!
PS. You know what though mate? I'd love to do a tour with you in the future! co-headliners and smash it up!!!!
Haha... Definitely, a lot to digest. I do tend to get carried away, but there's some gems in there worth looking into.
Well, it is common that musicians sell themselves short with fees at gigs, but also things change and not always for the better. Musician's fees have dropped in Australia too so I suspect that'd be the case for the UK, but don't dismiss it outright as an income source. And try to find a way to leverage your fees up (by demonstrating financial &/or marketing value to the venue).
It's important to get a game plan so that's awesome! There's definitely cross-curricular elements.
Touring together in the future would be heapsa fun, especially with a cheeky larrikin like you and has a potential, buds.
OMG this advice is so spot on for anyone looking to get out of the Rat Race no matter what industry you are working in. Good for you trying to educate other artists on how to use their creativity to fund their lifestyles instead of working at a job that they hate. Budgeting can be so scary if you've never done it before so the way that you broke it down is very easy to follow while keeping things simple so its not so scary. GREAT POST!
Ivy
Ha! I only just noticed this! Sorry.
Yes, this advice is applicable to all people wanting to get ahead.
Budgeting is something we tend to avoid the most, yet we can benefit from immensely.
Blessings to you Ivy
What a great post! Love this Nathan. You are providing that KNOWLEDGE which is much needed in this world. I get constantly asked how I can live the life of their dreams (to an extent, or at least from their eyes) and it didn't happen from one day to the next. It takes hard work and dedication like you said. Awesome stuff! Keep 'em coming!
Sweet as @breakoutthecrazy!
Thank you so much!
Yes, indeed, having a career in the arts means getting your mind focussing and respecting the practical business side of things. Too often I hear muso's say things like, "But I'm an artist, I'm no good at maths."
Doesn't matter what we label ourselves, if we don't have a grasp of maths to some degree, we won't thrive in this particular society, which means that it's highly unlikely that our art will reach many people because we'd have to do other occupations to pay the bills.
Get the business side of art sorted and then make vastly more art.
Win-win!
I always feel a little offended for aspiring musicians who have to combine their creativity with regular full-time work. It usually interferes with development, because the musician doesn't have much time to make music, but his music doesn't yet bring him income. In such cases, I think platforms like DistroKid are ideal. It's cool to get paid for the fact that listeners stream music and listen to it, as well as be able to go to world famous platforms like Tiktok, Spotify and so on.
You know, I read how Music Business works, and immediately moved into this area. Although I had a dream to become a singer, I have a voice and data that would allow me to quickly rise to the top, but unfortunately I don't like how everything is arranged there, I also don't like that I won't choose myself when I will perform, and this will be a full-fledged job where I can't refuse.