How much does an artist make off of each sold album?

That depends strictly on the contract that was signed when the recording was made, so there is a great deal of varience. Generally speaking about $1.25 per sale of an album and .03 per sale of a single. However the songwriter gets .03 every time a song that they wrote is played on the radio - the singer gets nothing. The amount of per album money is greatly determined by the singer/band. If they are at the very top of the list - (The Beatles in the 1960's)

• they can pretty much name their price - within reason. in the

1980's Michael Jackson signed a contract to get $2.45 per album and "Thriller" sold 40,000,000 albums - that alone was $98,000,000!!!!!! It varies for every artist - the artist tries to get as much as possible the record company does the same! The only thing that gives the artist ANY leverage - is previous sales!!