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Liner Notes

by Robonzo

I'm a musician and host of The Unstarving Musician podcast. Liner Notes is my biweekly newsletter that shares some of the best insights garnered from the many conversations featured on the Unstarving Musician. Topics covered include, songwriting, touring, sync licensing, recording, house concerts, marketing, and more.

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Featured Post

Liner Notes | Revenue Stream Reality Check: Where Your Music Income Should Actually Come From

If I asked you to rank the revenue streams that grow fastest for independent musicians, what would you say? Streaming? Touring? Both wrong. According to music business educator Amani Roberts — a Berklee-educated DJ, USA Today bestselling author, and college professor who’s coached artists through this exact exercise — the two income sources with the most growth potential are private events and direct fan-to-artist platforms. Many, if not most, musicians do not prioritize either one. I...

25 days ago • 4 min read

Happy Friday! What if the best business decision you could make is accepting your music is “unmarketable”? Not in the sense that nobody wants it. But in the sense that it’s never going to compete for Spotify playlist placement alongside mainstream artists. Singer-songwriter Abe Partridge makes genuinely niche music–psychedelic surf rock, genre bending stuff, and a unique brand of acoustic Americana. Beautiful if you’re into it. But it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. So here’s what he does with...

about 1 month ago • 3 min read

Streaming pays you $0.004 per play. A direct sale through Bandcamp nets you around $8 on a $10 album. To earn that same $8 from streaming, you need 20,000 plays. Most independent artists release everywhere immediately, training their actual fans—the people who would happily pay $10-15—to stream for pennies instead. Ezra Vancil took a different approach. He sold his last album exclusively to his email list for a year before releasing it on streaming services. His new double album employs a...

about 1 month ago • 5 min read