Guidance with music career

[user1478639495]

Hello all, hoping for some great advice and direction hopefully. I’m helping my cousin with her music career. Long story short, she’s been well established for years (20 odd) the problem is she has zero business or money skills, none whatsoever after all these years she’s earns nothing from it. She’s soft as a marshmallow let’s people walk all over her, has worked with people that have been awful and tarnished her name, she charges rubbish rates she doesn’t charge for extra mileage (she would do a 6 hours round drive and not charge anymore) that’s just the tip of the iceberg berg. So I am trying for the second. Time to try and help her. She good at what she does and I want to help her and get her sorted in life, so my question is, does anyone know what websites I can go to to ask questions about everything music/business related within that industry, I need to find out what people charge for things, how they charge themselves out, what they charge for extra travel. The list goes on, I need every pieces of knowledge going so I can really help her. Any advice or pointers greatfully received!

What specific area of music does she do? Wedding singer? DJ? Session musician? All very different rates!

The Musicians Union is a good start and membership would also give her some benefits such as insurance.

The have suggested rates for gigs, teaching, playing for theatre/school shows etc and advice on record keeping.

My son does not drive so he charges for train fayres for longer distance gigs. When I used to drive him he charged 45p per mile.

She is a saxophonist and does do DJ’ing as well but I’m not counting this as she’s very new to it and doesn’t practice enough so I’m not even going there with that yet 😂

Thank you so much I’ll take a look. I’ve just found an old email of her costing for a client, broke it all down and it works out at £30 per hour. She’s quoted someone £350 for a 2 hours gig (wedding) it was a round trip of 5 and a half hours that’s 7 hours right there, not including practice time set up and down time, fuel, admin time….it doesn’t seem enough to me but then as I say it’s not my industry so it could be me that’s out of touch with it all but it’s doesn’t seem worth all that effort to me for her skill set and the amount of hassle and planning involved in it all?