We love and create music.

Although the yearly income for your average musician isn’t that appealing, we still have to pay our bills.

These are not get rich quick schemes (or any thing of that nature) but there are ways to make more money (legitimately and passively) online from selling your music.

Below I will share my favorites.

Note: All links below are affiliate or referral links and we earn commissions if you click and join a service listed below.

iTunes Affiliate Program

By signing up with Linkshare and joining the iTunes Affiliate Program, you can make additional income (passively).

Assuming your music is available on iTunes, you can add an additional 5% to that .67 cents you make per download by using your iTunes affiliate link.

Amazon Associates

Same concept as above. Assuming your music is also on Amazon, why not earn more by using an affiliate link to your songs in Amazon’s store?

You can also earn commission by linking to products. So if you use a specific type of headphones and you blog a review about them, use an Amazon affiliate link to earn a commission.

Otherwise you are throwing away money that could be made with zero effort.

Sponsored Tweets

Sponsored Tweets (by IZEA) allows you to earn a certain amount of money per Tweet to your followers.

You can go Pro for 1.99 per month as well as earn from referrals.

Bonus Tip

You might not have thought of this one…yet.

You can extend your band’s website to include a membership area where you offer premium content to fans in exchange for a fee.

Example:

Fans pay $5 month to gain access to your entire catalog of music directly from your band’s website.

You might also offer up a Google+ Hangout once a month just to chill and catch up with fans. Maybe play a new song you are working on.

Their subscription allows them to log-in at their leisure to consume and download your music. And you are in control of what they have access to (because it is your website).

As part of the benefits, you also give them exclusive access to your newest songs and allow them to pre-order your upcoming album at a discount for being a member of your site.

The only problem is knowing how to build this type of site…

We can help you or at least point you in the right direction.

If you use WordPress to power your website, I highly (highly) recommend Premise by Copyblogger Media.

Questions or comments? Drop ’em below.