How Many Tracks Do You Need to Earn $100,000 a Year From Music Licensing

One of the most important concepts about music licensing is that it's a numbers game. When I hear other producers saying they are having slow to no sales licensing their music, the first thing I check is their portfolio. Nine times out of ten their problem is they have a small or stagnant library of music.

You can't expect to be successful licensing your music if you are passively making music every once in a while. If you going to work in the music licensing world, then it's your job to make quality music regularly.

Constantly creating new music is one of the keys to success in the licensing game. You need to set a realistic goal for the amount of music you can produce and stick to it. My goal is 2 pieces of music a week and that has worked for me. Licensing music as a marathon not a sprint. It is not a get rich scheme by any means, but once you get the ball rolling it's very rewarding and satisfying.

Now just because it is a numbers game does not mean you should start cutting corners and sacrifice quality for quantity. The quality of your music far outweighs the number of tracks you've produced. You will have a lot more success with 20 quality tracks over 100 mediocre tracks. A great way to start building up your library is to max out on variations on a full length track.

For every full length track there are at least 5 variations you can also create. Create a 60 second version, 30 second version, a seamless loop, a narrative cue (a version without the lead melody) and a 15 second sting. If you stick to creating 2 tracks a week, in a month you will have 8 new tracks with 40 variations.

The golden zone that floats around the producer community is 1000-1500 full length tracks for the average producer to earn a 6 figure income from licensing and royalties. This is totally dependent on the quality of music and the quality of the music libraries and publishers you are affiliated with though.

There are producers out there making $100,000+ with a couple hundred tracks while others have a 1000 tracks and are not having much luck. It's all related to quality and commercial utility. If you are constantly producing great music that is useful for video editors, music supervisors, and commercial uses then your odds of success in music licensing improve dramatically.

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