How We Help Artists Make Money

The goal of Hitmakerz is to help you create a sustainable career in the arts. This basically means, we wanna help you make enough money to cover your living expenses while working as a full-time artist. If you become a global music superstar and make millions of dollars, that’s awesome, but for now, our goal is simply to help you reach this basic level of income.

The way we do this is by helping you access project funding for various projects and then manage those projects for you. Projects can include things like album production, marketing campaigns, music videos, performances, tours, etc.

Since the project funding usually comes from taxpayers, the people who give out the project funding (the patrons) have to make sure that the money is spent responsibly. This is why project funding is usually not allowed to be paid directly to artists, instead, the project funding must be spent on projects that indirectly help you generate enough money to cover your expenses. 

For example, if you receive project funding to produce an album, you won’t receive any money directly, but you can use the album to perform concerts (and earn performance/touring fees), get radio play (and earn royalties), get new fans who will buy your merchandise (and earn profits), etc. A few notable exceptions include the possibility of getting per diems for projects that include travel, as well as artist-in-residence projects where an artist is paid money directly to spend their time working on art instead of their day job.

Hitmakerz wants to focus on managing projects and let you focus on making the art. But sometimes, patrons expect artists to be very organized and “hands on”, and they insist on transferring project funding directly to the artists instead of the label. In these cases, the money must be transferred to the label immediately to avoid mismanagement. (It’s happened before, and it’s not fun at all.)

The way Hitmakerz makes money is by invoicing you for the work we do. Technically, you’re our boss. You apply for the project funding under your name, and then pay us for the services we’ve agreed upon beforehand. These services include project management, production, marketing, and administrative services. You also agree to pay us a percentage of songwriting royalties in exchange for our publishing services, as well a percentage of the master royalties in exchange for our management services. The details are outlined in our Label Services Agreement (LSA).

If the project goes over budget (which often happens), you don’t need to pay us the difference. Instead, Hitmakerz simply absorbs the cost overruns, and adds it to your account. Once the music starts selling and earning royalties, these profits are used to slowly pay off the account. Hitmakerz takes all the financial risk, so you don’t have to suddenly pay more money. 

All of these agreements expire after a few years after any debts has been paid off, and once the agreement is over, we make sure that you keep ownership of your masters, which is a super big deal (most labels don’t do this).

On very rare occasions, Hitmakerz may provide cash advances to artists. This is usually only in emergency situations, and is honestly only done because we care about your welfare. To be clear, these advances are not part of our duties as a label since we’re not a bank. Furthermore, these advances are not money that you’ve earned yet – they are loans which must be paid back, either directly in cash, or indirectly from future royalties earned by your music.

Don’t think about Hitmakerz as a bossy label telling you what to do. Instead, think of us as your partner and team who takes your vision and helps you make it real. We’re here to support you and try to help you reach your goals. You’re our boss and our partner, and our relationship is based on mutual trust and respect. 

We’re always thinking of ways to help you succeed, even if it means making less money for the company. We work extremely hard for you – often times behind the scenes – to help increase your chances of success. We’re not here to pay you, in fact, you’re the one who’s paying us. Our goal is simply to help you create art projects that can get you paid in the future. Our goal is to help you create a sustainable career in the arts.