How to Make More (or, a lot of) Money

Win the lottery. Get a different career.

No, don’t do that – I’m kidding.

But sadly, that’s what a lot of audio professionals think they need to do, or they should’ve done, in order to get away from living paycheck to paycheck or worse.

That’s not true.

You can make a very good living as someone who works with audio – and you don’t need to get super famous to do it. In fact – I’m willing to bet that “fame” is a detriment at some point.

But it all starts with you.

Context

First of all – you’re not dumb. Just because you’re currently getting paid peanuts, or you’re not making any money, it doesn’t mean you’re dumb.

Usually, it means you’re ignorant. You just lack information. When you lack information, you’re usually scared as well.

This is how I was when I started – and honestly – I had no idea that was even true until later in my career.

I had no idea what humans most humans made for a living.

I had no idea how much audio professionals made in the context of other jobs (should I charge more than the average income, or less?)

I had no idea how much other audio professionals made period, or at my level.

So, stupidly, I was making $10,000-$20,000 a year. For context – in 2017 the mean household income in the US was $60,336. Being kind and assuming “household” means 2 income earners – and therefore the per person median is around $30,000 – I was still lower than average.

And folks – I lived in Seattle at the time. In reality I was probably making around Seattle’s current minimum wage of $15, or less.

Minimum wage, friends. Not even “well it’s not great, but at least it’s not burger flipping” territory.

Why?

Because I needed a little context. I was completely ignorant.

You don’t need to know what everyone is charging – but you should know what a livable income is in your area. Then you can strive to smash that into the ground by providing ridiculous value and charging for it.

Thankfully, I did that. I’m not ignorant anymore. I’ve even been told by a client that “I’m expensive” – to which I happily thought to myself, that’s right I am! They were happy to pay me on time too!

Moving Up

So we’re in the belief that you’re not stupid – but you may be ignorant.

Well, let’s jump one step further and assume you’re not ignorant. Let’s say that you already make a living at a game studio and it isn’t bad – you’re not swimming in piles of cash – but it’s not bad.

Let’s assume you’re on a contract and you make somewhere between $25-$35 an hour.

I bet I just got the attention of a lot of you.

So I’ve got good news first – these numbers aren’t bad.

With a little Google-fu, at $25 an hour you’re making roughly $50,000 a year. At $35 an hour, you’re making roughly $70,000 a year. That’s nothing to be crazy upset about if we’re still using the US census number that US mean household income is $60,000. If we assume that requires two people, you’re above average. If we assume that number requires one person – you’re right around the average.

But I have four thoughts about this…

Making that amount of money is good – but it doesn’t feel like you’re making enough. Often you still can’t just spend on whatever you want. You might be in debt from before you made that much. That still doesn’t leave a lot to save for retirement, either.
Assuming you live in a major metropolitan area (where most game jobs are) – you’re still making considerably less. The Seattle Times wrote that the median (exact middle, not average) household income in Seattle in 2015 was $80,000. “Household income” here is likely skewed on the one person per household side – most families live outside of Seattle proper. Plus, software engineers.
If you ever desire to have a family, you’re going to be living lean eventually. Perhaps even with two incomes.
Honestly – I just want to make more money than average – and I think plenty of you do, too.

How?

The first shift – from ignorance to our average wage required two things:

A mindset shift
Information

You have to realize what’s “acceptable” or “average” to start expecting that – as a living human – you can and probably should be making that kind of money.

But what if you want to make more money than that?

We don’t have to be talking about crazy money – we could be talking about just making enough to be out of debt and never have to think about what you’re spending apart from big purchases (house, car, etc.)

Or… we could be thinking about making multiple six figures.

Either way, the basic principles are similar. It just depends on how far you want to go, and how crazy you get with it.

And no – honestly – I don’t make multiple six figures myself right now. I’m not lying to you. But I have friends who do and friends who are close to it – and my goal here is to share with you what I’m learning from them.

So what do you do?

Provide exceptional value.

Be unique – a market of one.

Get comfortable with the idea of making more.

Three sentences – for the most part, that’s it.

“But Adam, it can’t be that easy!”

Well, you’re right and you’re wrong. If you doing those things comes naturally to you and makes sense – it will be fairly effortless for you to make stupid piles of money.

But, if you feel blown away and thankful that you’re making $30 an hour – you would probably feel uncomfortable if someone even offered you $75.

You might take it – but you would feel weird and perhaps guilty, especially if you weren’t doing a lot of extra work.

Let me leave you with a simple story that will begin to explain how this works live, in real time.

At the beginning of this website – I sold two things. A free eBook, and a handful of Lua scripts.

I wasn’t at all comfortable with charging for the eBook, so I gave it away for free at first. I “built my email list” that way (partially true – I got my first 100 subscribers with it). I’m more comfortable charging for it now, so I do.

That first Lua product, however, was my first foray into asking for money online. It made me less than $1,000 – but suddenly I knew the difference between free and charging a little. I began to understand that people were willing to pay a bit for my work. I got comfortable with that notion (and I was providing value).

Another book came along, and more people came out of the woodwork. More people asked how they could support me. I got comfortable with the idea of spending a little money as an investment (I paid a few hundred dollars for an artist to make that cover). I started becoming known for helping people, programming, and my opinions (starting to make a market of one).

Recently, I put out my first video course. This one was really weird. I knew I couldn’t charge bottom dollar for it – I didn’t want to put it on Udemy. I didn’t know what people would accept monetarily – but there’s also literally no other course like it on the internet. Nothing with the same information, absolutely nothing (market of one, providing value). Plus – people preordered it! I knew an audience for the information existed.

So I got comfortable with charging more, and I did charge more. I’ve now made enough to pay off a $3,000+ in-depth programming course, with some money left over to put into the next project.

I will repeat this, and figure out ways to scale my work – forever.

Over time, I’m telling you a story. That story tells you – my customer – that I’m skilled, knowledgeable, and that I’m still growing.

First you need to discover me, and know who I am. Then you need to like me, vibe with me. Then you need to trust that I’ll give you your money’s worth.

At that point, you’ll start exchanging the things I can give you – for money.

You can do this too.

Don’t just put sound libraries on the Unity asset store. Don’t just blog or do a demo video about footsteps.

Find the weird, unique things that you do – and share those. You know how you find those things?

What do other people ask you how to do?

Maybe you know AutoHotKey really well and have automated the hell out of Pro Tools.

Maybe you’re a master at freelance business.

Maybe you know every single intricacy of Wwise or FMOD – so much that people regularly ask you about the extremely esoteric things that you know.

Maybe you understand spatial audio concepts, sound for VR/AR/MR, marketing, intellectual property law, how to easily create custom vinyl and collectibles, anything.

With all of those examples – I’m describing high performing friends of mine. People who make plenty of money, and also know audio really well.

They all stack skills. It’s always audio and a unique concept to make it more interesting (and yes, that can even be related to audio gear or something).

But it’s never just “I know Wwise and FMOD”.

Or, “I have a Pro Tools Certification”.

It’s always –

I know audio very well.

I have a unique skill set – you know me and what I do by name.

I’m comfortable with making more money than other people.

For most of us – it takes time. I’m coming up on the two year anniversary of writing every single week.

What are you willing to start now – that with years of consistency in building relationships and uniqueness – will net you some of your wildest dreams?

Start writing your story – don’t be scared – I believe in you.