There are 4 revenue streams related to an artist business.  They are outlined below with a brief description:

1. Touring – Income made from performing live shows
2. Merchandise – Income made from the sale of merch items other than albums
3. Recordings – Income from recorded music (master licenses, album sales (/artist royalties), etc)
4. Songs – Publishing – Income from written songs (mechanical royalties, sync license, etc)

Now that you have this simple list, look at your career and do 2 things:

1. Determine your primary revenue stream.  If you have money coming in the door, analyze the amounts in each category above to see which channel generates the most money.  This is your primary revenue driver.
2. Go with the momentum.  Focus your attention on the stream that brings you the most income – something is going right there.  It’s easiest to build a business by going with the momentum and then focus on building up other revenue streams behind it.

We learned this lesson the hard way.  One artist we worked with years ago had a big publishing deal but we put all of our energy into trying to create (from the ground up) a live show and a live album while the lucrative publishing deal got none of our attention.  Of course, looking back now it seems so obvious but at the time as young managers we just didn’t get it.  We hadn’t yet developed this simple principle.  Don’t make the same mistake!

Now every artist business we analyze, we first determine their primary revenue driver and then we build a plan around this.  I’d encourage you to look at your business in the same way.  See if your business is pushing each artist in the direction of momentum and if not, adjust accordingly.