Music

How much money do hit songwriters make?

by Nicole Villeneuve

Rolling Stone has a breakdown of how some of the major hit songwriters make their money through royalties, and how much of it they’re likely to get.

It’s no secret that songwriters get royalties off their hits. Every time a track or record sells, they say, all the songwriters receive a total of 9.1 cents in mechanical-royalty payments. So, Adele’s “Someone Like You”? It made $882,700 between album and track sales, and that gets split between Adele and co-writer Dan Wilson (of Semisonic fame—dude’s made a fortune writing hits). Someone like Taylor Swift, who wrote her Speak Now album by herself made $399,035. And that Foster the People guy, Mark Foster, made $406,861 off his one chance at stardom.

Read the full thing here.