Topic: I'm trying to create a 100% Bitcoin powered music career. Any tips? (Read 1070 times)

Every reply on this post has been incredibly helpful. You're right, I shouldn't restrict myself to bitcoin and I am getting ahead of myself. Since I posted this, I've refocused on the music itself and that's where I'll stay for a while.

Also, I didn't intend to beg for bitcoin with this post. My apologies for any offense. I'll be more careful.

My new goal: To represent bitcoin throughout my music career.

Time to change my forum signature!

That's true.. there are musicians who are over payed in each concert because they do it as business,
but there are still musicians who just want to express themselves without earning big amount, just an appreciation is enough, or a donation, in real life, there are good musicians who are doing their videos just to appreciate their music and they fund it  from their own pocket and keep it or if someone wants a copy of it they give it either free or its up to you if you would treat them, and I think the very good example of musicians who really have great talents are those who are busking and just accepting whatever we could...

Nowadays, putting music in the internet would not really profit a musician, piracy kills their business..

Many musicians don’t make it because they underestimate and ignore these requirements. They fall victim to only caring about the music — a musicians’ lack of business savvy ends up being their downfall. At the end of the day, even the most talented and virtuosic musician will never be able to make money in a poorly managed music career.

Market yourself to the Vimeo crowd. High end Video production - needs good soundscapes.
Also find a sub reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/wiki/musicsubreddits
And take other currencies. Even other alt coins maybe

What's the point of restricting yourself to Bitcoin? You'd be denying yourself well over 99% of potential buyers.

Video games, shows, films, ads. They all need music and they're likely to pay a shit ton more than the dirty public too. Don't discount those avenues.

If you have a promising career in music, then you should take Bitcoin, and visa, master and American Express, also euro, usd and yen. No need limited yourself to one. Best wishes to u, music is a hard career.

what type of music you play?
maybe send a demo or a cover of something.... it could be more easier share a tips!

I think that it is too early for anyone to start a Bitcoin powered anything. Bitcoin is just not used enough.

I am an artist myself actually and plan to release my work once the crypto industry matures some more as well. My advice is just to focus on being a good artist. As an MC, you have to develop your self. Become a person that people want to listen to, you need to have a message, beyond the message you need to have heart and passion. Find what inspires you, discover your artistic process. Do not understatement the effort required to be a great MC. You have to devote yourself to it, for life, you have to live Hiphop, be Hiphop. Practice just like learning an instrument, you have to practice for many years to be good and gain skill while at the same time having the heart, message and inspiration.

Develop yourself as an artist first instead of trying to live off your art straight away, that can have the tendency to corrupt the art, in other words, find other sources of income, while still allowing yourself the time to develop yourself.

Study music, learn what real music is, the history of music, many genres. Be real, express yourself.

I have sent you a PM anyway, I can reveal more about myself in private that way. It was nice sharing this message with everyone though.

1) Begging for Bitcoin on this forum is considered rude.
2) Make Bitcoin part of your marketing strategy. Better yet, make it about having an edgy, innovative way to take payments for edgy, innovative music. Whatever phrasing works for best effect.
3) Have a Youtube channel. Accept Bitcoin tips. (Changetip is useful here because people can tip you the price of a cookie or a beer, but be sure to withdraw or use your earnings on a regular basis.)
4) Have a blog/website where listeners can find out more about you, download your music and maybe find out where you're going to be performing in the near future. There's some Wordpress plugins that enable a blogstore that accepts Bitcoin and altcoins.

Well I think the best option that would have the highest chance is using YouTube. Do vlogs (daily/weekly) and show how talented you are and surely the user base keeps on growing as long as what you provide is quality. Then after some times start putting 10 or 20 seconds of each of your original tracks and at the same time put some links to either your website or 3rd party website in which they get to pay you BTCitcoin in exchange for the Album itself. It will take some time to get there, but surely will be worth every hard work.

The only thing you should take care of is to make great music. Success will come if you have talent. Now, I would suggest to forget the whole idea of selling songs. Everybody in the cryptocurrency world is good with computers. We all know how to download music (and movies) for free, and we do. You only need a very basic website, you may not even need one. Being all social networks may be enough. Upload videos of all your performances on Youtube, and add at the end that you'll do concert for BTC.

Put some tracks on youtube. If they allow you to post your Bitcoin addy, then do that.

Don't knock the commercial side of the music business. Offer to write background music for websites, and say you will accept payment in Bitcoin.

Build a website with Electrum integration... Or at least a wordpress blog with those plugins that accept xpub keys. Or either sell your album through PayIvy or some platform like that.

the thing about the music industry is that ages ago someone only needed to sell 1million albums to become a millionaire.(albums use to be $10+ and artists got $1 per album)
now it requires 20million albums to become a millionaire.($2 an album and 5cents artist income per album)
most artists now make the majority of their income on Tour doing concerts

so you need to work out what kind of funds you want to receive. and how EG
if it takes 3 months to make an album with a 3 month break. then work out how much income you would want to receive over 6 months.
then work out a fair value per song/album you want to sell. and then multiply it to work out how many people need to buy your song/album to get that income.
then you will know how much PR, advertising and raising your profile to achieve those numbers.
once you know the numbers you can then set goals and tasks to get to that target.

if you get to the popularity targets, then you can start earning more money doing concerts, EG instead of a $5 door entry fee to a bar where you get 50cents per patron in a 100 seat bar($50 a night).. you can charge $50 per entry in a 20,000 seat venue where you get $5 per entry ($100,000 a night)

having a website is great but also having a 6month-5year plan of action with numbers and targets will help you know the direction to go and keep you ontrack to become successful by knowing upfront what to expect

as for the question about payment platforms. tr not to avoid them completely. but do avoid the management platforms like youtube/itunes. because they take a LARGE cut.

things like coinbase, bitpay and stripe only take 1%. which is acceptable.. rather than 70%+ that management platforms take

That is something I had thought about. Hopefully that'll get sorted out before I'm making embarassing amounts of satoshis

Why do you say I should avoid payment platforms? Dodge the fees? If I do decide to sell for Bitcoin instead of rely on donations, I'll need some sort of gateway to trigger the digital download.

Thank you! I'll check that out.

You should avoid all those payment platforms or whatever they call it (like Coinbase, Bitpay and all that crap) just accept Bitcoins directly with your own personal address generated in your personal wallet.

There is a problem with this tho: People will know how much money you are making... this is something that needs work ASAP and I believe gmaxwell is very aware of this problem that's why we will have Confidential Transactions as soon as possible.
We also need something like BIP47 to be able to receive payments on a public address that is attached to your real name in an anonymous way.

Maybe this will come handy in your case. I used is a while ago but then i stopped, dont really know why.

Cryptocointalk: AudioCoin - A Digital Currency For The Music Industry

Bitcointalk: [ANN - Updated] AudioCoin ADC - Where Music Meets The Blockchain

Wish you best.

Once it's time for shows I'll definitely do that! I'll look into Arthur Yoria, thank you!