6 ideas to start your side hustle as a musician

evibee
6 min readMay 21, 2022

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In modern times, musicians sometimes get lost along the way, and it depends on the person whether he will be successful or lost for the rest of his days. So even if you are a random guy here looking for extra money to earn by building a passive income business, you have come to the right place. Here we are going to learn six ideas to start your side hustle for musicians that can practically all be done within the comfort of your own space. What could be better, right?

The ideas we are going to cover this time will help to complement and expand your music career, your brand, or your band, whilst potentially earning you some extra cash as well.

TL;DR

  • Start a Blog;
  • Start a YouTube Channel;
  • Join the Amazon Affiliate program;
  • Get Paid to Review Music;
  • Sell Your Stuff.
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Side Hustle №1 # Start a Blog

If you have always fancied yourself as a bit of a writer, starting a blog could eventually earn you some extra cash. Your blog could include:

  • regular product reviews;
  • opinion pieces;
  • a journal of your musical exploits;
  • review articles of other artists;
  • events or clubs’ checklists;
  • musical hints and techniques.

You can add anything else that you want to write about. By building your blog and growing your audience, you increase the potential for sponsorships, paid promotion, advertisements, and affiliate marketing.

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Side Hustle №2 # Start a YouTube Channel

If starting a blog is not your thing, idea number two might be to start a YouTube channel. Don’t be afraid, you can start a YouTube channel with minimal video editing knowledge and only a smartphone at your disposal. Just remember that it will be at least a year before you begin to earn any money from monetizing your account. You cannot start earning money from your channel right away, it is a process. You will need a minimum of 4 000 hours of watch time as well as a minimum of 1 000 subscribers. The channel can even be an extension of your new blog, your band video blog (vlog), jokes, tricks, challenges, or other music-related videos. It can even be used for demos of products or reviews. There are hundreds of thousands of music channels on YouTube for you to gain inspiration to start your own thing.

Side Hustle №3 # Amazon Affiliate Program

Idea number three would be to become an Amazon affiliate. Joining the Amazon affiliate program is relatively straightforward and free. Becoming an Amazon affiliate gives you the opportunity to generate links to products you are personally reviewing or endorsing, which you can then list in your blogs, YouTube videos, and social media posts at no extra cost to the customer. If an individual makes a purchase using your link, you gain a small percentage of the sale.

Affiliate marketing is a good way of generating a small income. This type of income is also known as passive income. This is the holy grail of side hustles: creating a product or service, launching it, and not having to do anything else. Affiliate marketing reaches out further than Amazon itself, and you can literally contact businesses, product owners, and online retailers to see if they run affiliate programs themselves.

Side Hustle №4 # Drop Shipping

Another idea for passive income for musicians is dropshipping. Dropshipping is the easiest way to start a side hustle, where once your product sells, the manufacturer or supplier sends the item directly to the customer with no involvement from your side. There is no need to pay for stock upfront or to store the items by yourself. Once you have created your ID, you can then use sites such as Teespring or Printful to apply those digital designs onto mugs, hoodies, posters, and anything else. These sites allow you to set the price, based on the profit you would like to potentially make, and the whole supply chain is taken care of by somebody else. You can then host these products on platforms such as Etsy, Bigcommerce, and Shopify. If you have already got a website, these can be included there too.

To increase your chances of selling dropshipping products, you will need to direct your existing audience there. You can combine different platforms, such as your blog, your YouTube channel, and other social media channels, to increase the chance of generating overall sales.

Side Hustle №5 # Get Paid to Review Music

Idea number five: getting paid to review music. You may wish to hone your critiquing skills by reviewing music for money. The pay is extremely low. For this side hustle, websites such as Slice The Pie will pay you for each song that you review. Increase your star rating and you will see payments increase. In other words, the more effort you put in, the more money you are likely to earn. Typical earnings are between 10 and 20 cents per review, and you will need to earn at least 10 dollars, which takes a bunch of time before you can get your hands on the cash via PayPal.

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Side Hustle №6 # Sell Your Own Stuff

Finally, idea number six — sell your stuff! This might not be a revolutionary idea, but if you are surrounded by dusty instruments or physical media you haven’t watched or listened to in years, maybe it is time to clear out and get some extra cash for it. There are so many ways and places to sell your stuff that you can use simple Google search to find these marketplaces. For musical instruments, you can list them on Reverb, Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace, or eBay. There are always buyers for CDs, DVDs, computer games, cassettes or VHS tapes, vinyl, books, and even minidiscs. Use eBay or specialized sellers for your higher-value items. You can try to reach any media lover on dedicated sites such as musicMagpie, where you can list your physical media items knowing that you are targeting the right possible buyer. If you are keen on getting the best price, look around. Don’t forget that your goal is to clear space and earn a quick dollar or pound.

Conclusion

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different ways to earn extra money as a musician. Your side hustle should be comfortable, easy, and as cheap as possible to begin with, or free at best. As a musician, you are a creative person, so it should not be very hard to find the perfect and easy solution for you. With the earned money, you can uplift your music career or you can reinvest earned money into a side hustle to earn even more. Just don’t forget that nothing happens overnight, so stay consistent and stay focused.

Want to make something beautiful? Visit our Digital Music Marketing Agency or Follow our Twitter channel and get to know on what we can and will do to pursue your career!

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evibee

Creative PR & Communication agency specialising in music marketing. Read our story…