There are four models for selling your expertise, and they map to roles in the music industry:
The Music Performer
You get paid to perform. At first, you look for opportunities to perform on stage. Sometimes for free, then for a small fee. As you get more popular, you command greater fees. Someone like Seth Godin is so successful that he becomes the attraction at any event where he’s speaking. Maybe you get famous enough that you have the following to host your own event. You also sell products and merch. This is Rory Sutherland. You’ll write and customise keynotes, rehearse, and travel. You’ll spend much of your time in green rooms, hotels, and of course, on stage.
The Music Producer
You, and maybe your team, get paid to work closely with a select number of people to help them make great music. You write about the music and the act of making music. Sometimes you get paid to speak, sometimes not. Maybe the book is a money spinner, maybe it’s not. The goal of both is to attract the small number of musicians who have the budget and desire to work with a producer. You’re not teaching them to play piano, because they can already play. You’re helping them make something great. This is Nancy Duarte. A coach runs a similar model, the difference being: a producer works on the music, and a coach works on the musician. You’ll spend most of your time in the studio collaborating with and advising artists, and the rest writing about what happens in the studio.
The Music teacher
You get paid to teach music, often to beginners. Lots of people want to learn, and few will pay the high fees a professional musician would. So, you need volume. You use your expertise to create entertaining 101 content that pulls in hundreds of thousands of views and converts a small percentage into buyers. This is Chris Do and The Futur. You’ll spend most of your time making content that teaches people for free, from a distance, and building products for the few who’ll buy.
The Music Writer
You build a media business around music. You make money by selling editorial, sponsorships, and events. You interview musicians and write about all aspects of the industry. Music expertise matters, but so does your craft in delivering entertaining media, whatever form that takes. This is Debbie Millman. You'll spend most of your time researching, writing, and interviewing. The rest goes to organising sponsorship deals and planning events.
How do you want to spend your days?
Not what you want to do with your expertise, but what do you get a kick out of?
If you live for speaking on stage, why build a business that requires you to spend 80% of your time in client engagements?
If you want to build a newsletter business, why promote consulting work that would eat up the time you need to make a great newsletter? You can use consulting work to fund the newsletter whilst you’re building it, but keep it out of the newsletter.
Each model can be lucrative if you execute appropriately, but you diminish your chances of succeeding with any if you try to build more than one simultaneously, at least until one is fully established with an audience and steady demand.
There’s overlap between the commercial opportunities in models. Chris Do built such a following as a teacher that he attracted performance opportunities and ended up running both models.
First, though, start with one.