Turn Your Lyrics Into Merch EASILY w/ Musixmatch Pro

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Lyrics Are Merch Gold

Lyrics are one of the things that bond fans to musicians the most. When an artist finally says that line, that is exactly how you feel. We all know that bond you to them. But let's also get real. There are so many times that the bar you wrote, which you know is going to hit fans in the feels, gets ignored. That's annoying. But one of the other annoyances of being a musician — and there are many — is that you're not getting paid enough.

What if I told you there was an easy-to-use solution where you can take your song lyrics, make money from that amazing line you wrote, and create walking advertisements for your music that your fans wear and promote?

Merch Is One of the Fastest Growing Revenue Segments in Music

When musicians ask me the easiest way to make money in music, it's merch, and it has been for a long time. According to MIDiA Research — one of the only outlets nerdy enough to study this stuff — in 2024, merch sales totaled $4.1 billion in revenue for all recorded music, which was 6.4% of all revenue in music. And that number is projected to grow to $7 billion by 2032. That means it's pretty damn important, and it's one of the fastest-growing revenue segments where artists can make more money in the next few years.

What's changed the game is print-on-demand becoming much more affordable in recent years. That means they only print the shirts as they're ordered, instead of printing a whole batch and having them sit around not selling. A decade ago, the prices for this were insane — you would think you were on Punk'd. Now, print-on-demand has competitive rates where you put no money down and are able to make money from the first sale.

Why Lyrics Specifically

As someone who's constantly in artists' merch stores — and doing a thing no one realizes you can do, clicking the popular tab — I study what sells and pass that information on to my consulting clients, since I help them maximize sales so they can have money to pay me. And time and time again, I see that bar that everyone screams the loudest at the concert being the one that moves numbers merch-wise. That makes sense since the fans have a connection to it.

And let's be real about what merch often is — a fan buys it hoping someone will see them wearing it who also connects with your music, and they'll get to talking and become best friends, maybe fall in love. Or more likely, they'll be really weird and awkward and never speak again. I've met some of y'all.

How to Do It with Musixmatch Pro

The sponsor of this newsletter — and one I'm always thrilled to promote since they're an affordable way to do so many of the tasks musicians need to do — is Musixmatch Pro. If you've been reading for a while, you know them from getting your lyrics on Spotify, Instagram Stories, and Google, helping you create animated artwork for Apple Music Album Motion, and creating lyric videos and social media assets to promote your music. Their latest feature takes a line from your lyrics and puts it on merch.

Here's how it works. Log in to Musixmatch Pro and head to the Merch tab on the left side of the menu. First, choose the song you want to make merch for — and make sure you own the publishing rights to your lyrics. If you sold your publishing, hold off on this. But 99.9% of you reading this will be fine.

Choose your design style, pick a color mood either pulled from the cover art or from their available palettes, then highlight up to 25 lyrics and hit continue. It generates your design — I made a good-looking one in under five minutes.

From there, you can customize the print size, placement (pocket, full front, or either side), rounded corners, whether it shows the song title or artist name, and you can add a back design with additional lyrics or your cover art.

Once you're happy, you can order a test print, buy in bulk, or download a mockup to put on social and generate pre-sales. You confirm you hold the rights, and you're good to go. And soon they'll make it so you can sell directly from Musixmatch Pro — so that's coming too.

You keep all the revenue.

Enjoying this? Forward it to a music friend you’d like to be closer to and start a discussion!

One More Thing

Once you have shirts, you can sell them at shows, mail them out to people who buy online, or give one away to the sound person at the show, which is one of the best advertisements of all time and makes those sound people love you.

Use code JESSE15 at Musixmatch Pro to support the newsletter and get the current best deal.