Songwriter Makes Extra Money Giving Podcasts a Beat

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

In today's story, a songwriter makes an extra $800 a month giving podcasts a beat. The global podcast market continues to explode in the U.S. alone approximately 73 million people, or something like 26% of the adult population, listen to podcasts at least once a month. Now, you, of course, as a podcast listener, know this. I continue to be surprised at how many people I meet who have no idea what a podcast is or how to access them.

And I'm always like, you know what? This is not blockchain. This is not Chinese translation. If you have a smartphone of any kind, especially an iPhone, but really any smartphone, it's not that hard to jump into it. Anyway, if you were just joining in, this is Side Hustle School.

I'm your host, Chris Guillebeau. Every day, I'm telling you a story of somebody who has a job of some kind and finds a way to create an additional source of income. So in this story today, when a friend needs help writing music for his podcast, this full-time music producer and performer tunes up his Side Hustle strings. Now, I'll also talk briefly about the music that we use for Side Hustle School. A lot of people have asked me if we could make a Spotify playlist because they're like, "These tunes are so cool.

I want to listen to them all the time. I want to wake up and go to bed and meditate to Side Hustle School-themed music." And I'm like, "Yeah, I totally get that. I understand completely, and I would love to, but actually we can't. We can't make a Spotify playlist." And I'll tell you why in the wrap-up. It's actually relevant to this story.

That's why I mention it, not just because it would be awesome to listen to the music all day long, but also because this is a way that some people are getting paid. And I also have a couple of suggestions for today's songwriting side hustler as well. So stay tuned. Here is a quick thank you to our sponsor. As the old saying goes, "Without music, life would be flat." Justin Clomp understands this better than most.

A recording artist, songwriter, and music producer, he has a day job many people dream of. After living that dream, producing albums as well as performing across the country from Portland to New York and beyond, he is truly his own conductor. But it isn't all upbeat. The truth of the music industry is that for every Justin Bieber selling out stadiums, there are thousands of others like Justin Clomp making a modest living. While the former makes millions, for the latter, a side hustle can be a great way to bring in some extra money.

So in early 2017, Justin spotted an opportunity. Like a hit song, it began with a strong hook. A friend of his had a colleague about to create his own podcast. That colleague needed someone to compose the music and do sound design for the episodes. The friend, knowing that Justin had been writing music for over 10 years, mentioned it to him to see if he'd be interested.

They began working together a week later. Justin was happy because it was that chance to make some extra income, but it also provided a way to use his musical talents in a new medium. He loved working with a podcast creator to bring his vision to life. Helping him tell the story in the podcast medium was a great challenge. It was also fun to work collaboratively, since much of the time Justin works alone.

Halfway through working on the project, Justin realized there was a market need here that he could help fill. Podcasting had seen explosive growth in the past few years, and he had the skills to help podcast creators tell their stories. But if he was going to take this seriously, he would need a website. So he made one using Squarespace, and paid a friend to create a logo. Justin called it PodcastMusicAndSound.com, and he would provide production, sound design, and original music.

Since he already had all the sound equipment he'd need, his only costs were the creation of that website, the logo, and hosting, which came to a total of $200. With the first client wrapped up, the website launched, and equipment at the ready, it was time to turn up the volume. But he needed more clients. This is where starting a side hustle in a similar industry to your main gig can be beneficial, at least for some people some of the time. Justin had contacts.

Now that he had a website and was open for business, he put the word out. Little by little, more clients arrived, usually through referral and recommendation. Each client that he served helped him refine his process, and he'd set up an initial consult. There he would ask what the podcaster was hoping to make the listener feel, and what mood they were looking for. He also asked for specific references of music that they like, or particular instruments they want used.

With that, Justin goes back and sends them a rough concept idea a short time later. And it's just a matter of a few revisions working together to make sure the client can get exactly what they want. Once finished, the client is sent a master recording. Podcast Music & Sound is currently generating Justin around $800 a month. He bills by customizing each order to each client, so there are no set prices.

He works up a cost sheet for each task involved, and then builds a budget based on what the client needs. Now this side hustle is far from being Justin's swan song. In fact, he's already started a second one. After launching Podcast Music & Sound, he decided to start the Library of Music to expand his offerings of original music and music licensing to include TV, film, advertising, and video games. It will act as a sort of stock music resource for content producers.

On top of that, Justin is also releasing two new original songs — this is back for his day job — as well as finishing production on albums for emerging country artists in the coming year. Clearly, he loves to keep busy in the music industry. Perhaps he lives by the immortal words of Neil Young, "It's better to burn out than to fade away." Alright, so two things — first an explanation about music licensing, and then a comment or suggestion for Justin. That would be Justin Club, not Justin Bieber. I don't have any suggestions for Justin Bieber, except take care of your pet monkey.

Don't leave him in a hotel room in Germany. Not a good idea. So a number of people actually have asked about the music for Side Hustle School. I'm really grateful to our producer AC Valdez, who's the curator of all that. He goes through and selects it all, and he works with a licensing service, so a service provided by people like Justin, who are creating original music that podcasters or other people may be making a video game or independent film or whatever it is, can then license and use.

So the bad news is we can't just take that music and put it on Spotify, nor is it publicly available on Spotify. It's available for licensing. But the good news is that we are supporting Side Hustlers through this project. So in other words, they are getting paid for this. And this is also why if you listen to other podcasts, you don't just hear like regular commercial tracks, you know, as part of the podcast intro or as part of the theme music.

You might occasionally hear like a snippet if there's a reference in the episode, but you can't just take Beyonce, for example, and you know, say that Beyonce is now doing the music for Side Hustle School. Obviously if we could, then it would be all Beyonce all the time. But since we can't, that's why AC goes through and curates and selects all the different tracks from a variety of artists. All right, so here's my suggestion for Justin. When you are providing a service that is relatively low cost, more of a set package would help.

So I understand that he wants to do this customization and that some clients needs are different than others. But when it comes to designing sound and writing music for podcasts, I'm going to suggest that a lot of people's needs are similar. Like if you're going to start a podcast, you're going to need theme music, you're gonna need an intro and an outro, maybe you need something else. You know, there could be some variance, but a lot of those needs are similar. So I would put it in a package.

And if you put it in a package and say like, here's the package, you know, package one, package two, package three, that also allows you to present a range of options, which is almost always a good idea. It allows you to gently upsell, to gently cross sell, nothing too aggressive, but you can probably make more money just by providing more options and the customer will be happier. So that is my suggestion. Justin, of course, take it or leave it, do whatever is best for you. And as always, listeners, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better.

Today's show notes, including links to Justin's service, as well as some music licensing links in general. If you want to read more about this, just come to sidehustleschool.com/689. That is for episode 689. Well, we are just cruising along and got so much more to come. In fact, tomorrow I think we have a special adults only episode of Side Hustle School.

So stay tuned. Can't wait for that. Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School. [Music]