How To Make Money Online Playing Guitar

Is it possible to make money online playing guitar? If so, how are you going to do it? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to fund this hobby that you love so much? How can you be sure all this practice time will pay off someday? These nagging questions may be on the minds of many beginner and even advanced guitarists. This week I took a stray from my usual guitar lesson in an attempt to answer those questions with some money making ideas you may be able to use.

Ways to make money online using your guitar skills

In this article I list quite a few different ways I know of that will allow you to make money on the Internet with guitar related things. The ideas presented here can be adapted and used by just about anyone even if you are not a guitarist. As a bonus I have included a few ways to earn revenue from your guitar experience offline too. These ideas may work better for certain types of people. Some you may already know of and some you may not. Some may require more work than others. Lets get started...

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But first .... Use your old phones to make money for new gear

Before I get into the specific ways to earn money by playing guitar I have to tell you about these super easy apps that let you earn cash by putting your old phones, computers and tablets to work for you. It's super easy to earn passive income you can then later use towards more guitar gear!

Here is a list of ways to make money using your old computers and phones.

* Sign up at Prize Rebel and watch videos (let your old computer or phones run the videos).

* Another great one for passive income using your old devices is Earnably. Watch videos and do other tasks for cash.

You won't get rich using these. I make about $5 a day just letting my old phones run Prize Rebel and Earnably videos. Over time that adds up to free gear!

* Tip For best results set your phone settings so that the screen stays on when not in use (there are apps for this) and turn your display brightness down as well as mute the sound. Need help? Contact me!

Become a freelancer

Becoming a freelancer means doing work for someone else for payment. You can become a guitarist for hire. There are limitless possibilities when it comes to being a hired hand. There's tons of music creators and artists out there that need guitar sounds and samples for their recordings. Video game developers, film makers and amateur video creators like on YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion as well as regular old TV all need music and sounds. As a Freelancer, you can provide your guitar playing skills as a service to those who need it!

Where to sell your services or custom sounds

At Fiverr.com you can sell things as a service provider. The idea is you provide a service for the small fee of $5. So create custom sounds or compose music for people. Audio Jungle is another place you can sell your music and sounds. There are plenty of other places too, just Google for them.

You can freelance offline too

You can freelance to make money offline by hiring yourself out to play for events like:

Weddings
Birthday parties
Office / corporate events
Studio musician.
Play gigs - If you are in a band play at local bars/clubs for weekly or nightly pay. Make sure you have big list of songs appropriate for the audience of the venue.

What you will need to work as a freelancer

You will have to network with people or advertise yourself to find the work. You will need a set of songs to play. You may have to quickly learn specific songs for a particular job. You may need to have the ability to improvise and/or read music notation. You need your own gear and a small home studio for online work. The ability to write custom jingles and music is a valuable skill that can help pay the bills.

Start your own site or blog to make extra income from home

If you are like me you probably don't want your work to get in the way of your music. Why not write about it and earn extra income from it? The best way to do that is by running your own blog. Writing about guitar or music can not only help you keep your head in the game, it may even help or inspire the people who read your work.

What to write about?

Your site/blog can be instructional or about industry news. You could do gear reviews. You could even sell your own unique guitar products or services. The sky is the limit here. Fill the needs of the people. Figure out what you think people want or need the most from your style of blog and give it to them. Do you know how to program? If So how about writing a guitar or music based learning app?

How will you make money from your blog?

There are many ways you can profit from your blog. You can earn revenue through third party advertisements placed on your site. Companies like Google Adsense and Conversant pay you to show their ads. You can also sell your ad space to whoever is interested in buying. Another way to monetize your site is through affiliate marketing. Sign up for companies like Amazon affiliates or a more guitar related site like Jamplay.com that pays you for signup referrals. Many people sell eBooks or other digital items from their site. Do you have a guitar product to sell?

What you need to run your own website or blog

Unless you are already familiar with running websites, this money maker might involve an extra bit of a learning curve for you in order to do it properly. You will need to learn about web hosting, blog software, HTML programming and other related computer based skills or be willing to hire someone to help you. I can help you more on this topic with free advice if you need it. Feel free to contact me with your questions.

Earn money from your YouTube videos

You can earn money from your videos on YouTube. Once you qualify, Google will pay you to run ads on your YouTube videos through their publisher program.

Here are some video ideas you might be interested in:
Gear reviews - Tell people what you think about the gear you just bought. This really helps people decide whether or not to try a product.
Gear unboxing - Lots of people are interested in the quality of shipment on on new items - you can provide this.
Cool guitar licks, tricks, lessons and new gear demos, etc.

If your YouTube videos are good enough quality, it's quite possible that you will attract the attention of big name brands who may offer you free items in exchange for reviews or endorsing their brand.

Things you will need to make videos

You'll need a good quality camera but even your iPhone will work. A pleasant speaking voice is good to have too. You might also need some up front funds to buy more gear if you do unboxing videos or gear reviews.

Give guitar lessons online

It's possible to make a living by giving guitar lessons. You can teach from home or online with your own website / blog. You can offer pay to view pre-recorded video lessons or live one on one lessons through Skype and Facetime.
You can publish your instructional videos to YouTube and with enough views you can qualify to earn revenue from advertisements in your videos (see above). Udemy.com also allows you to publish lessons and sell access to them.

You can give guitar lessons offline too

Become an instructor at a local music store or teach from home. You can also be a traveling instructor where you visit your students in their home.

What you will need

You will need to have lesson plans at varying skill levels to use as your guide. If you need a way to make study materials you can use any of my chord and scale generators for this if you wish.
You will need good bookkeeping skills to keep track of your student's payments and appointments.
Good time management skills, a friendly and helpful personality and patience all work together to help you become a successful self employed guitar instructor.

Self publish books on music instruction and sell them

Self publish your own instructional books that you can sell on Amazon or from your own website. This goes good with teaching guitar online because you can turn your lesson plans and videos into eBooks you can sell.

Some things you will need

Obviously you will have to have enough knowledge to write about your chosen subject area (you may be doing this already). You'll need a way to make nice graphics and you'll need to know about book formatting which is easy to learn if you know a little bit about HTML. If not be willing to hire someone to help you (I know how, contact me for help or advice) . You can self publish your books using Amazon's self publishing platform called CreateSpace. CreateSpace lets you publish paperback books as well as Kindle books. After publishing you can then sell your books on Amazon.

Advertising and finding customers

Don't under estimate the power of networking. To be seen you have to get out there. One of the best ways of getting out there is working with other musicians. Help them at their gigs or just show up for support. Make friends with them. You will be amazed at the opportunities that will arise from building a network of friends. With that said stay connected and build relationships on social media sites like Facebook and Linkedin too.

Word of mouth goes a long way to marketing yourself and advertise your services. So just being good at what you do will get people talking. But here is a list of other advertising ideas you can use to help you get customers.

Print business cards to give away.
Get custom printed guitar picks with your name on them and give them away.
Give discounts when people refer customers to you.
Giving away freebies can increase repeat business.
Join a Facebook group for your local area and post your services.
Write guest blog posts that link back (backlinks see below) to you and are published on other people's blogs.

How to get backlinks to your blog

What are backlinks? A backlink is simply a link back to your site. Backlinks keep your site visible to other people sort of like mini advertisements and provide you with a steady flow of traffic. Backlinks also help Google decide how helpful your site is and to determine your ranking in the search engines. If you are running your own website or blog you'll need to get backlinks. The best way to do that is by writing quality content that is worth linking to.

Never ever buy backlinks. Google knows if you acquire them naturally or not and severely punishes sites that buy them with the intent of beating the system...so don't do it! Just write quality, meaningful articles and let it happen naturally.

Sell your used guitars and gear

This is a no brainer...selling your old gear can, at the very least, help you buy new gear. People are always interested buying older used guitars. Why not get some cash back for the guitars you don't play anymore? If you have pretty good knowledge of what sells, you may be able to buy used gear from other people and resell it for a profit.

Places to sell your old gear.

Ebay is probably the most well known place to sell your used gear. Some guitar forums have a for sale category. Facebook has the market place and tons local yard sale groups where you can sell your stuff. Reverb.com is another used gear site where anyone can list their items.

Ideas to make money offline

Below are a few offline ways you might be able to earn a living using your guitar skills and experience.

Guitar Repair and setups

If you know how to set up or repair guitars you might be able to find work setting up the gear for a local band, repair shop or music store.

Play guitar in the streets - Busking

Busking is the act of playing on the streets with your guitar case open for people to donate money into. This can be an easy way to make good money. However you have to make sure it's legal in your area.

It takes a lot of guts and a little bit of nerve to plop down on street corner and start playing. It might help to have a friend or two with you for support. Be prepared to have a good set of songs or instrumentals ready to play. Have a set of at least 10 songs in case you start drawing a crowd.

Summary

Whether you are retired, a college student needing extra cash for school, a struggling musician or just someone needing new gear, you may be able to turn a profit by implementing some of these money making ideas. It takes time, dedication and a little work to make money but it's rewarding and you will love doing it. Many people use their guitar knowledge and music skills to make money online everyday and you can too!