How many of you buy photos or have even heard of the website, iStockphoto.com? Well…the stock audio market is pretty much the same – license music tracks for a one off small fee. It is “royalty free”, meaning (obviously) you won’t receive any back-end royalties from it. Due to this, you would think that you would be rewarded by this with a greater one off payment – but you would be wrong
The “Royalty Free/Stock Audio” market can be a small stream of income for you, and it can be enough to pay your bills in those months where an income is scarce (quite a deal for a professional composer OR composer on his way there).

Before I go any further, I just want to make you aware of some of the terms that will be used:

Exclusive: You sell your music exclusively on that website, and cannot sell it anywhere else if you sell it there.

Non-exclusive: You can sell your music on any and every website at the same time.

Royalty Free: You will not receive any back-end performance royalties if your music is used for TV.

Selling Online
Selling music online in the stock music market, can be easy or hard, profitable or unprofitable, great for your career, or not so great for it. It all depends on what you are selling, the quantity of it, and where you are selling it. Ok – so thats very vague, but I’m being vague for a reason – I know quite a few people who sell music online in the stock music market, and the difference in income they receive from it is huge. Some people have a portfolio of tracks that is close to 400-500 tracks, and some have about 80-100 and both could make the exact same each month from it.

What I have learnt over the past 2 years or so that I’ve been selling music online in the royalty free market, is that quality resides over quantity, and generic works better than specific. Allow me to explain.

My first point is pretty obvious I suppose really – quality nearly always resides over quantity when it comes to selling anything, no matter what the product. However, I know a composer who has about 470 tracks on a particular website, and I have about 40 tracks on the same website. Neither of us market our tracks on the site, but yet in the 2 years that we have both been members on the site, I have made about three times the sales that he has. My point here is that, I have some good quality tracks on the website, that stand out from the crowd a little more than his do, and thus they get bought more often. Filling the website with your tracks won’t make people buy more of them – you’ll just get people who are sick of searching for tracks, and having to trail through hundreds of search results, which are laden with your tracks.

This brings us to my second point – “generic” over “specific”. Say you have 5 tracks that are very generic and could be used for lets say a film, ad, tv, presentation or website, and another person has 5 tracks that only really suit a corporate presentation, who do you think will get more sales? In my experience (which again could be wrong), tracks which can be used for multiple purposes will have a larger potential market than tracks which can only be used for one purpose.

The Websites
Before we go any further, I just want to say that all of this is just my opinion and experience. Its not the “ultimate truth”. It is all built on my experiences from selling on a number of websites, and your experiences could vary to mine (in fact they most likely will!). Also, just because I didn’t do well on any particular websites, doesn’t mean that you won’t either – my portfolio of tracks will be totally different to yours, so try them all out!

Audiojungle
My personal opinion: Micro-pricing for music sales – $10 is average track sale, but if you are non-exclusive, then you will only earn $2.50 per track! They don’t email you when a track is sold, which other sites do, but you can still track your sales easily on the site when you login. Great community, and nice feedback on each track everytime you upload by the reviewer. Three types of licenses do allow you to earn more per track, which is a nice addition (1x, 3x 50x)

Price your own tracks? No
Account-driven or demo/review-driven? Open an account – uploads are reviewed
Accepting submissions from outside composers? Yes
Payout and split arrangement? 25/75 non exclusive, 30/70 exclusive (increases if you sell more)
Any backend royalties? No
Option to be Exclusive/Non-exclusive? Yes

Revostock
My personal opinion: Really easy upload process – upload via ftp, then put description on each track. Have a weekly newsletter which sends out the top tracks of the week to all subscibers, getting your music more views if its on it. Good track pricing – ie. $10- $15 and nice payout out 45% per track. Mail you when a track is sold which is nice to see in your inbox. Also 3 types of licenses to increase your income.

Allow uploads? Yes
Price your own tracks? No
Account-driven or demo/review-driven? You have to submit a demo and be accepted
Accepting submissions from outside composers? Yes
Payout and split arrangement? Payment split is 45/55 for non-exclusive, 60/40 for exclusive.
Any backend royalties? No
Non-exclusive? Yes

Productiontrax
My Personal opinion: I have only ever sold one track on here but I do know a few composers who have had some sales on it, for commercial licenses, and made a nice amount of money from it. Well worth trying and seeing how you get on.

Allow uploads? Yes
Price your own tracks? No
Account-driven or demo/review-driven? Anyone can sign up for an account
Accepting submissions from outside composers? Yes
Payout and split arrangement? 65% of the sales go to the composers, whether a track is exclusive or not.
Any backend royalties? No
Non-exclusive? Yes

Audiosparx
My Personal Opinion: I have only ever sold one track on Audiosparx. Its a huge library, so I think it may be harder to get your music noticed on it, in comparison to other similar sites. It has a huge amount of flexibility, in terms of pricing, licenses, ways of uploading, marketing etc. so could be valuable if you are willing to put in a lot of work into it.

Allow uploads? Yes
Price your own tracks? Yes
Account-driven or demo/review-driven? Free to register, but any music uploaded has to be reviewed first
Accepting submissions from outside composers? Yes
Payout and split arrangement? 50/50
Any backend royalties? “For musicians, we help and guide you in the process end-to-end to help you earn performance royalties for the broadcast production use of your music”
Non-exclusive? Yes

Musicloops
My Personal opinion: Great site – easy to upload and I’ve made a lot of money from this website. Payments are always on time, the library on here is of a good enough size for your music to be found, and its easy to upload. You get an email every time a track sells, which is nice to see, and I’ve had absolutely no problems with this site. Well worth joining in my opinion.

Allow uploads? Yes
Price your own tracks? Yes
Account-driven or demo/review-driven? Submit a demo
Accepting submissions from outside composers? Yes
Payout and split arrangement? 50/50
Any backend royalties? “Yes, but we do not require that the customer report the use to performing rights agencies”
Non-exclusive? Yes

Partnersinrhyme
My Personal Opinion: Brilliant site. Sells music collections, so if your music is good enough, and a unique genre, you may be able to sell a collection of your music on here. Well worth having your tracks on. I’ve made the most money out of this site, and its a great site to be on if you get the opportunity.

Allow uploads? No
Price your own tracks? No (composers have input on what prices might be though)
Account-driven or demo/review-driven? Submit a demo
Accepting submissions from outside composers? Yes, via demo online or CD
Payout and split arrangement? 50/50
Any backend royalties? “Yes, but we do not require that the customer report the use to performing rights agencies”
Non-exclusive? Yes

YouLicense

My personal opinion: I’ve uploaded tracks to their site, and have sold one or two mp3 tracks for a few bucks. They have a fresh approach, and are exactly what a lot of composers I know, are looking for. You get to choose what licenses you can offer on your tracks, and there is a cool opportunites page, with listings of people that are looking for you to submit your tracks to them for projects. Another brilliant thing which they have is the youlicense widget which you can add to your site – you can check out mine here – it lets you sell your music via your own website, without having to embed an mp3 store on your site. Great ideas from this site.

Allow uploads? Yes
Price your own tracks? Yes (You get to choose each price for each license)
Account-driven or demo/review-driven? You can just open an account and start uploading
Accepting submissions from outside composers? Yes
Payout and split arrangement? Free Account = You pay 10 cents per track sold and you set the prices; Pro Musician and Business accounts = You pay nothing on MP3 sales
Any backend royalties? Depends on each project
Non-exclusive? Yes

Soundreef
My personal opinion: Cool idea – swapping music for promotion. I’ve never seen it done before, and I think it could work well. I think the site is currently in its early stages (its currently in Beta, and has been for about 6 months now I believe) – but definitively worth checking out.

Allow uploads? Yes
Price your own tracks? Yes (You get to agree on a price per project)
Account-driven or demo/review-driven? Currently in private beta, but you can get numerous invitations online if you search
Accepting submissions from outside composers? Yes
Payout and split arrangement? Composer – 75%/ Site – 25%
Any backend royalties? Depends on each project
Non-exclusive? Yes

Pumpaudio
My personal opinion: Large site owned by Ghetty Images. Have some huge clients, and you could have your music being viewed by some big names out there. I know some people who have had great experience and sales from it. After approximately a year or more now, my music is not in their library yet, so I’m not certain how long you may be waiting. There is quite a lot of upset over their decision to change the composer payout to 30% and many believe it to be very unfair (large corporation vs. musicians etc.) Check it out yourself and see what you think – there is some great opportunity for success.

Allow uploads? Yes
Price your own tracks? Yes
Accepting submissions from outside composers? Yes
Payout and split arrangement? 50/50
Any backend royalties? Yes
Non-exclusive? Yes

In Conclusion
So what conclusions can we draw from this? Well…

• The stock audio market can be a great additional/supplemental income for you as a composer in months when your streams of revenue are low

• It can be beneficial to be exclusive on one or two particular sites, depending on how well you do on them, and what their payout/track pricings are. On the other hand, it could be just as beneficial having your music on all of the websites in a non-exlusive deal

• Putting up a track on stock audio websites that has taken you two weeks to create, compared to putting up a track that took you a few hours to create, might not be worthwhile if both will sell for the same low price – choose which tracks to sell for the low price, and keep the good ones to license for higher paying projects

• The stock audio market can be a great marketing tool for you as a composer. I, myself, have had numerous business opportunities and contacts come from selling my music on royalty free libraries, and it has been a very worthwhile venture in terms of extra cash, new contacts, and marketing.

There are literally hundreds of these type of websites out there – the above list is a short list of some I have tried out.

Don’t take my word as the “Be All and End All” of opinions. Try them out yourself and you might have a different experiences.

Also, if any SCOREcasters out there have had experiences with any services *not* listed here, let’s hear about them in the COMMENTS!