Nick Thayer breaks down how much money he made from one of his digital EP releases

[Sigma]

These are the total sales for his "Like Boom" EP, including individual track sales, spread across Beatport, iTunes etc.: -

Like Boom - 2600
Facepalm - 2932
Totalitaria - 1125
Haters Gonna Hate - 652
Top Of The World - 710
What Props Ya Got - 614
Rise Up - 658
Like Boom Nick Thayer Rmx - 1953
Facepalm Rmx - 969
What Props Rmx - 509

Total sales - 12,722.

His EP was #2 in Beatport's overall chart for 13 weeks.

After paying sample clearance fees and paying the vocalists that performed on his EP, he worked out that at $2 per sale (which is actually overly-generous), he made $3673.50.

Then out of that came his management fee, which is 15%. Pro mastering cost $150-$200 per track. EP artwork cost $1,000. $300-$500 was spent on publicity.

So in the end, an EP that he spent the best part of a year making actually cost him money to release.

On his blog he also breaks down the cost of touring, and even though he gets paid $1,000-$1,500 per show, after doing 9 shows spread over 3 weeks and taking out the associated fees and costs, he was left with a total of $800.

He didn't post this to say "oh, poor me!" BTW. He just posted it so people knew how much someone like him made, as I think a lot of people assume that if you're in the top 3 of the Beatport chart for months on end and you're playing shows for $1,500 per night, that you must be making a healthy living.

Check his blog out here: -

http://thayernick.tumblr.com/post/80563891112/do-you-wanna-know-just-how-much-money-i-make

[Adzm00]

Everyone should know you don't make money from releasing music.

I am curious about his Tour though.

[Adzm00]

Surely he shouldn't be paying for travel.

[alencr]

At least I know that I won't need to pay for artwork becaise I will just make my own! :)

[Manu]

not much has changed then. I heard some stories of bands who were paid advance fees, then when you take the expenses off (recording, sound engineer time, touring, hotels, living expenses etc) they ended up owing money to the record company.

[DJ Matt]

whoa...dudes are charging 1000 dollars for designing something....

thats the business i want to be in..

[IznremiX]

His booking fee of 1000-1500 (minus the travel which he pays for himself) seems incredibly low for someone of his level. Dudes been releasing on Skrillex's label!

[KLH]

Here's the piece that stuck out to me:


Like Boom (50% to sample clearance, 25% share to three vocalists)

FIFTY PERCENT???!!?!?!? That's outrageous. Why bother sampling then? You're literally giving away your profit potential. Ridiculous.

[Adzm00]

Here's the piece that stuck out to me:



FIFTY PERCENT???!!?!?!? That's outrageous. Why bother sampling then? You're literally giving away your profit potential. Ridiculous.



I thought that too. Although depends on the samples I guess, not as bad as paying for your travel and accom.

[Funkyfader]

he gets paid $1,000-$1,500 per show
the problem lies here..
as its been said you dont make money by selling music but from the live shows they earn you..

[CountElectrfique]

1500$ as a booking fee for his level is kinda low, OWSLA and stuff. I pay twice as much for booking an artist released on Never Say Die , and he is on of the newer additions to the roster.

[Adzm00]

1500$ as a booking fee for his level is kinda low, OWSLA and stuff. I pay twice as much for booking an artist released on Never Say Die , and he is on of the newer additions to the roster.

Yeah, it is pretty low.

Here the artists that are big but not huge will get £3-6k, so around 9,000 USD per gig.

[Interracial Tea]

$1500 is incredibly low. I've seen guys who are arguably on the same level as Nick Thayer (popularity wise) who earn way more than that in a night.

[disparate]

$1500 is incredibly low. I've seen guys who are arguably on the same level as Nick Thayer (popularity wise) who earn way more than that in a night.

Yeah, $1000-1500 is the sort of fee we pay upcoming and/or fairly underground house/techno DJs, would've thought EDM dudes on Skrillex's label would be earning a bit more.

[DJArmani]

With the concentration of EDM DJ's now I wonder how much money they all make. The profits must be spread across like a pinch of butter on bread, lol. If someone like Nick Thayer (pretty popular) makes that as an average. Wonder how much someone lesser known like DJ Sliink, or Tujamo makes. The real money these days I'm guessing is if you become known in your city. These guys on the radio get paid by the radio, are in clubs multiple nights a week, along with any other events they have during the day.

[pete]

In all that calc he's not stating the amount of the small charges, and we all know small things add up to make big things.
As for the touring, he's quoting 1500 a night but he's doing mid-week shows as well probably in small towns, or wherever possible.
So it probably averages out.

This breakdown shows me nothing new.
If I ever plan on producing ... it will be on my own terms, and certainly not for the money. Which will leave me less motivated than the other guy, but I have a lot of faith in good music always coming through with the goods.

And from personal experience working in the music industry - I've seen a hell of a lot worse situations than this guy. Probably involving a favourite artist of yours...

[disparate]

With the concentration of EDM DJ's now I wonder how much money they all make. The profits must be spread across like a pinch of butter on bread, lol. If someone like Nick Thayer (pretty popular) makes that as an average. Wonder how much someone lesser known like DJ Sliink, or Tujamo makes. The real money these days I'm guessing is if you become known in your city. These guys on the radio get paid by the radio, are in clubs multiple nights a week, along with any other events they have during the day.

I was under the impression the EDM guys were making shitloads, like high in the 5 figure range per night.

I would honestly feel happy to know that the "second tier" ones (i.e. not Tiesto, Skrillex, Afrojack etc) were only making a grand a night but it's hard to see that being the case. A grand a night is the sort of sum that a lot of the quality underground guys making music other than EDM, who most of this forum won't have even heard of, are making - in fact the more established ones are making more, your average big American house DJs (let's say Sneak or even Levon, Omar, etc) are making several thousand a night

[TCMuc]

I think the part about his release shows the sad truth.


The touring part, however, basically shows this poor guy is bad at math and/or negotiating...


His booking fee of 1000-1500 (minus the travel which he pays for himself) seems incredibly low for someone of his level. Dudes been releasing on Skrillex's label!

Especially if you consider it's TOTAL, so he has to pay for all his travelling/accomodation/etc. himself, which is why he ends up with that little money left.

Typically, for a touring DJ who had some quite successful releases, you would expect them to get $1500 PLUS travel and accomodation... The main reason for putting together a tour in a certain country used to be so the cost for long distance flights (Australia <-> USA, in this case) could be split among several promoters to make the gigs more affordable.
According to his blog he isn't only paying for the long distance flights, but also for the national flights between gigs and his accomodation.


Someone please give this poor guy a proper manager before he ends up playing popular EDM hits on a set of Korg Volcas and some battery powered speakers on a street corner to pay for his food....



The real money these days I'm guessing is if you become known in your city. These guys on the radio get paid by the radio, are in clubs multiple nights a week, along with any other events they have during the day.


I guess you're guessing wrong...

There's not much money to be made from DJing these days. These guys may have multiple gigs per week, but these gigs are typically not paid very well. Someone who's know only on a local level will probably play 3-5 gigs a week and make the same money Nick Thayer gets for one gig ($1500).

And even though having 5 paying gigs per week may sound like heaven to any newbie who's only ever played some bar gigs for bar tabs, it can get annoying really quick and then start to feel just like any ohter job and not like the thing you used to love doing..
Especially since out of that 5 gigs, at least 2 or three will mean playing music you don't like for people you'd rather punch in the face....



whoa...dudes are charging 1000 dollars for designing something....

thats the business i want to be in..


Dude, you are (at least trying to be) in a business where people can get paid $1500 (and more) to play music for a couple of hours... ;)

It seems funny how on the internet (and maybe especially in DJ forums... ;)) people seem to think graphic design is something that is extremely cheap and everything above $50 for a logo or cover is expensive... (It gets even more funny if the the ones who think this end up to be the same ones who complain about other people taking their gigs by undercutting them....)


Since I know some designers I'll break this down for you a little.

Here's what a professional designer will do if you hire him to make a cover for your release:

- arrange a meeting/call with you to figure out what you have in mind
- start working and come up with a number of (typically three) different drafts
- send you the drafts and have another call/meeting to discuss them
- start to elaborate one of the drafts based your feedback
- send you a pre-final version of the cover
- have another call/meeting to discuss this version
- make minor changes based on your feeback
- send you the revised version and have another call for discussing it
- repeat the last two steps typically 2 two 4 times
- finalize the design
- adapt the design to various formats (previewplayer in online stores, banner for blog/homepage, maybe print-ready hi-res version for physical release)

This whole process will typicall take about 1,5 to 2 days. Taking that self employed people typically spend at least 20% of their time (i.e. one day per week) with stuff they don't get paid for (admin, travelling to meetings, meeting possible future clients and other sales activities), a designer will be able to finish about two logos (or other, similarily paid work) per week.

This would mean 2k a week, 8k a month and finally almost 100k per year. Sounds a lot, right? Only in reality, you wouldn't be making 2k every week, 8k every month and thus not 100k every year...

- you'll be on vacation or sick some time of the year
- you won't be booked all the time; typically the share of your time that is actually "billable" (i.e. can be charged to a client) is somewhere between 60% and 80% of the time that's left after all that admin and sales stuff is done
- to make sure you have enough jobs to pay you bills you'll have to accept jobs that don't pay that well

Most of the designers I know who would charge something like $1000 (or rather €1000) for a logo are making anything between 30k and 60k per year. Which is totally enough to pay your bills and lead a decent life, but seeing they're working as much as everybody else with a 9 to 5 job and it actually requires about 3 years of professional training like many other jobs, it's by no means extraordinary much and none them is in danger of getting rich from his work anytime soon...

[disparate]

Great post from TCMuc, clearly someone who knows a bit about the industry (and related industries like design).

Lots of people, even (or especially?) people who've messed about in Photoshop/Illustrator a bit, don't seem to have much understanding of the value of design and the fact that designers are trying to make a living too.

And yes, the costs of flights, accommodation and a meal are nearly always at the promoter's expense in any sort of legitimate setup, a DJ shouldn't really be expected to be paying these costs themselves if they have big releases to their name etc; if the promoter has a successful night then they should be able to cover these expenses while making a profit.