One question I was eager to figure out when I first left the safety of Music College was how am I going to earn money as a composer?

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So I thought today, I would walk you through four ways that you could generate an income from your music. There are of course many ways to earn an income as a composer, but I've detailed below the ways that have worked for me over the last 13 years.

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I've tried to simplify as much as possible - the film/music business can be incredibly complicated sometimes! I will start off by saying that it was recommended to me to not have 'all of my eggs in one basket' and to try to diversify my composing income as much as possible. This has served me well, so I would recommend the same for you.

💲 Composer's Assistant

Having spent the last 5 years at music college (4 years as an undergraduate at The Royal College of Music in London followed by one year at USC in Los Angeles), the first opportunity I had to make some money with my music skills was as an assistant to composer Christopher Young.

This bought me a regular weekly wage (which I had never had before) at the same time as having the opportunity to learn from a master composer, along with the excitement of being part of the music team on a real film! The weekly wage was enough to cover my rent in Los Angeles, as well as my additional day to day living costs. I worked a lot of hours for the weekly wage (100+ hours a week), but it was (mostly) fun and a brilliant learning experience.

There are countless examples of composers who start off as assistants (or even interns) working for well known composers before becoming successful composers in their own right. Examples include Harry Gregson Williams & John Powell, who both started working under Hans Zimmer, or Chris Bacon, who was James Newton Howard's assistant.

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💲 Creative fee for Films/TV/Videogame Project

You can typically negotiate a 'creative' fee for any specific project that you are a composer for (providing that project has a budget!). Composers will generally enter what is called a 'Work For Hire' agreement or contract, where you agree to provide music for a Film, TV series or Videogame, in return for a fee. These fees can very wildly, from a few hundred dollars for a whole film, up to figures of multiple millions for the top A list composers. Search google for 'The Village Leaked Budget' where James Newton Howard's composing fee of $1.3million for the movie The Village (in 2004!) is documented.

Game Composers will typically negotiate based on a rate per minute of delivered music, again ranging from hundreds of dollars a minute, to multiple thousands of dollars per minute of delivered music.

Note that a 'Work for Hire' agreement typically means that composers relinquish the ownership of their music to the project, in return for the creative fee. I've experienced extremely different creative fees in my career, from the low hundreds of $ for a full feature film, up to 5 figures.

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💲 Library/Production Music

Perhaps my favourite type of composing income is from writing library/production music tracks. Income from this broadly falls into two categories:

License fees

When you upload various tracks of your music into libraries such as Audio Jungle and Pond5, Filmmakers typically then go searching for music on these sites. If they choose/buy your music, you are entitled to a percentage of the License fee that was paid for the track. A good fee ratio is 50%, but nowadays I've seen splits such as 60/40 (Publisher/Composer) or even lower. A lot of these music libraries are 'royalty free', meaning most of the time, you don't receive performance royalties when your music is broadcast, just a percentage of the initial license fee.

Some of my library music tracks have earned thousands of dollars per track, while some have only earned me $20! Overall, I've found the average comes in at around $600 a track though. Libraries such as Audio Jungle and Pond5 have worked well for me in the past.

Buyouts

Another model for library music is the use of a Buyout. In this case a composer writes a track that gets accepted by a publisher/music library. The publisher then pays the composer a flat fee (in my experience this has been between $500-$800 per track), in return for the ownership of the music. The publishers are then free to sell this music over and over, recouping their initial costs from the Buyout. If you are able to write a good number of quality tracks that get accepted by a publisher, then buyout fees can start to add up. Any performance royalties that are earned from the music (say when the music is part of a project which gets broadcast on Television), are then typically split between the publisher and composer. Libraries that offer buyouts of music include PremiumBeat and Shutterstock Music.

💲 Royalties

Finally perhaps the most 'passive' income in a composer's arsenal are Royalties. For projects such as Films/TV or higher end library music (not including music held in royalty free libraries!), royalties can be earned every time a project which uses your music is broadcast or streamed. Royalties are collected through a Performing Rights Organisation (PRO) such as PRS, BMI and ASCAP, before typically being paid to a composer every 3 months or so. A document called a Cue Sheet has to be filed with the PRO, (typically by the production company of the project) which will then enable the PRO to collect royalties on your behalf.

​My own royalty cheques have varied substantially, from sometimes $50 every 3 months at the start of my career, to multiple thousands. I've learned to not rely on these as they can be so up and down, but I definitely look forward to each payment date, to see what I've earned!