Can I Make Money Performing In Second Life?

Mankind Tracer/Seth Regan @ The Rose Theatre

I was looking at the stats on my blog and it tells me where the traffic comes from. One thing I noticed was was a key word search about "do live musicians get paid in Second Life". I thought this would make for a good blog post.

The truthful answer to that question is... it depends on a lot of factors.

If you are just coming in to perform to have fun and not worried about money, then this post is not about you.

There are musicians who make money in Second Life (SL)... should you quit your day job and start performing exclusively in SL? ... no, absolutely not. If you are a talented musician, and I will emphasis IF, then you could make some supplemental income by performing in Second Life and expand your fan base to a global audience.

There are some key questions you should ask yourself before considering performing in Second Life as a money making venture:

• Are you talented?

Be realistic, do not listen to your mother, she will likely love anything you do and do not listen to your close friends because they will not always be the most honest either. 

• How much money do you expect to spend and make in SL performing?

There are some costs to getting started performing in SL. You will need clothes, skin, hair, an instrument or hand mic of you don't play an instrument. You will need to rent a stream to broadcast your performance. You will need real life equipment like a good performance grade mic, a mixer and a monitor or headset to be able to hear yourself. 

When you are first starting out performing in SL, you will likely need to play at some tips only venues until you build up a fan base. Just like in real life, no one will pay you unless you can bring an audience with you. So plan to make only tips for the first several months.

• How much time do you plan on spending just learning the ropes?

When you are new to SL you will need to learn things like where to get a tip jar, how to get dressed, how to adjust your equipment, how to create landmarks, how to talk to people locally and privately. If you are lucky you can find a friend or a mentor that will give you a crash course in these things and other basics.

• Do you need management in SL?

Unless you plan to put in hours of leg work getting to know the various ways of promoting yourself with in SL and networking with venue owners, then you need a manager who already knows people and how to promote you. You need someone you can trust with your reputation and someone who is willing to commit to developing your SL career.

What this all boils down to is expect to invest in a Second Life music career like you would a real life music career. There is time and money to consider and if you do and are talented then you can make some supplemental income. Second Life is not a game, it is a 3D social network and you can use it to help build a fan base globally and help sell some CDs as long as you are realistic about it.

If you are interested in performing in Second Life and need some guidance, please feel free to email me. When you email, please include you tube links so I can get a feel for your music, a phone number or skype name and any other info you wish to include: brandy@maltasmanagement.com