Hi All!

Surprised this has never been brought up here before.

I am looking for any tips on getting my music published. I am speaking as an experienced musician, but, no clue on the road to getting my work published. I know that that there are thousands of you out there in this same situation. So, I create this thread..

Ok, I have music, now what?

Areas of interests:

What can I publish?
Who and what is there to publish with? Where do I start?
I have cover songs I want to release... what and who, how much will that cost? who do I contact to find out if I can release that?
Friends collaborated, but, now I can't find them..
I have my own songs, how do I copyright that?

I am looking for all the questions that would happen to throw a wrench on someones quest into making music professionally.


thanks!
Cheers Gene..

Hi Music-AMG, Getting published / signed isn't as intimidating as some people make it out to be but there are definitely scenarios you will want to be consult a proper lawyer about.

For a basic over-view on how to get published, I recommend picking up "All you need to know about the music business" seen here: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1501104896/ref=...R8084AF5CZ92E09

Its a basic overview about the in's and out's of the music business, how publishing works, how labels work, royalties, etc. Definately a great intro read!

Thanks for that. I am hoping to divulge that topic in here. I wanted to make it public on what it takes to get published. Hopefully, for people like me, that have the talent, and have no clue on where to go. Kind of tired on spending money to make money.. Time for a return, ya know.

The book Joe recommended might be helpful. My personal opinion is a book like this in its 9th edition likely contains lots of outdated information about music biz but maybe it has been updated enough to give you answers or a good start on them!

The topic is probably way too big for a single forum thread. Many things you asked have been discussed here before if you search the forums. Try to search on copyright for example. Lots of good discussion on that.

My last comment would be to keep your day job! I know that sounds cynical but "making it" in the music business these days is extremely difficult. A lot like winning the lottery!

You probably have a decent shot at making a meager living by touring and playing LOTS of venues every week if you are really good. Hard work but if you love it then all is well!

You probably will not make much off CD sales or online sales. Even the top artists complain at how they are getting ripped off by streaming services and they are getting millions of plays!

Nowadays you must be really great and be in the right place at the right time to even get a shot.

I thought this was a good article related to your topic
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kellee-maize/how-i-made-it-in-the-musi_b_5024003.html


Regarding the mention of creative commons licensing, I want to add some personal experience:

In the same sense that great music software like BIAB enables an unprecedented number of people to create awesome music... similar software for film making and animation has resulted in an explosion of video. That spins into a need for royalty free music, and lately I have seen a LOT of indie film makers and hobbyists using music they've found on youtube that has been made available for free use under creative commons licensing arrangements.

Following the name through youtube searches, it becomes obvious pretty quickly that a cool song will get used in a lot of videos pretty quickly! If each one of those videos mentions YOU in the music credits... that's a whole new group of people who now know about you, many of whom will put you in THEIR videos etc etc.

In the same way that people who got in on the ground floor of something new benefited more than those who jumped onto the bandwagon at a later time, be aware that this marriage between creative commons music and film isn't new, but it *IS* just now taking off. It's still a good time to get involved.

Cinematic style music is probably the easiest to move, but there is always a place in movies for love songs.

my 2 cents. FWIW, I participated in an animation video contest last week. Pretty much all the music in all the videos was creative commons.

Interesting thread this.

I am looking at raising some money for my local school. I have a free Soundcloud account and that's about all for now. Ideally I would like to sell one of my songs on iTunes/Amazon so that parents (and hopefully others once word spreads) will buy the song for a small amount with all the profits going to the school. I don't expect it to make much money so would like to minimize overheads.

I have looked at Tonecore and CDBaby but it seems like a bit of a minefield for anyone who is new to it.
Also, when you Google it there seems to be quite a bit of negative press for these sites.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Rec

OK... start at the beginning. Yeah, this has been discussed here before but it's always good to review and discuss again. Published... the strict definition means releasing your music for others to hear. However, I assume you are not talking about that and mean how to get it into the hands of artists and others for commercial use where you get paid.

First...ask yourself.... SPECIFICALLY.... what area in the publishing realm are you seeking to get into? Pitching to artists? Getting music into films and TV shows? Or, something else? You have to have a target in order to hit something and you simply can not "shotgun it" and hope to have success. Even shotgunners miss. Just ask them.

SO... you say you have music. OK... have you posted your BEST examples of the music HERE so you can get feedback on it? This is an excellent sounding board. People here will tell you if the song is ready for primetime or if it needs more work. (But you probably need to ask specifically for feedback along that line) I'd love to hear some of your work.

Pick an area and concentrate on that. If it's artists, be sure your music is of the caliber needed for an artist. And be specific as to the artist when you are pitching a song. Don't pitch a sappy love song to someone like Luke Bryant and don't pitch a hard drinking song to someone like Carrie Underwood. It probably won't be taken well. Cracking the major artist circuit with your songs is one hard hill to climb. They have access to the best of the best writers because there's lots of money involved. There's a few others here who have written and worked to try to get into that arena and ...well.... it's hard, even for the very talented. It helps if you can move to the big city and hand out on the bars with the up and coming artists and writers.

Occasionally, someone gets a hit through a back door but that's extremely rare. In fact, many of the Nashville publishing houses that work with the big and medium artists won't even talk to you if you're not hanging out in their town. The bar for song and demo quality is extremely high. If you're not writing better songs and demos than what is playing on the radio now, you can't expect much major publisher action. I know that sounds discouraging, and it is, but it's also pretty much the way it is in country music in Nashville these days.

Film & TV. I've had some success in this arena. I've landed placements in some made for TV documentary films and also a few reality TV shows that are on the air now. This area is probably the easiest to get into but still not really easy or else everyone would be doing it. Again, song and demo quality matter a lot. No bedroom sounding stuff. In this area, you find music libraries (aka publishers) who cater to the film and TV industry. Find and get into a good one or several. Many of the better ones audition your music and give a thumbs up or down. If up, you're able to submit music and if thumbs down, many have a 90 day minimum wait before you can try again.

You can publish anything. It can literally be a 5 second cue to a full 4 minute song. Anything goes.

Once you determine the music exceeds the bar in your area of interest, you need to get out and look for the people and publishers who are interested in your music. You do this by door knocking in the literal and digital world to find those folks. Google..... Bing.... etc.

Cover songs..... contact The Harry Fox Agency for license info and pricing.

Copyright.... wow... let me keep this as short as I can. My views are not the views of many people. I have my own way of working.

You can copyright with the Library of Congress. Go to their website. All the info and applications are there. Personally, I don't copyright. Yep, you heard that correct. As hard as it is to get anyone to listen to my songs, I know no one is out there trying to steal them. Besides.... if and when you get a good publisher and sign your songs to them.... they will get the copyright for you and pay for it too. Music for libraries for film & TV are similar. I work with all of the libraries I am with (over 12) and none of the songs are copyrighted. None of the cues are copyrighted. Even though millions of people hear my music.... who's going to steal 12 seconds of music in a TV scene? Nope that's something I just don't worry about. If I was writing songs for artists and getting cuts, I would probably be using the copyright office for my music. But that's not the area I'm working in and the music I write falls into the "disposable commodity" side of the business. All the things are in place for me to get paid every time they play that TV show on the air or cable and that's all that matters. AND.... the TV show itself, in it's entirety is copyright protected.

Wrenches in the machinery. You will undoubtedly find them as you go along on any path towards success. When you encounter them, you simply evaluate the best course of action and take it. Don't set and fret about what might happen. If you do, you'll never leave square one. Formulate a plan of action, then put that plan into action and see where it takes you.

Always remember this.... it all begins with a song. So you need to be honing your writing skills and also your music production and recording skills because once you send out that first MP3 demo to a publisher, you are playing with the big boys and girls. Your writing and recording skills have to stand up to the level of professionalism that is exhibited in the industry as a whole. You need the product first.

So... I have given some advice.... let's hear one or two of what you think are the best songs in your catalog right now.

Oh...and good luck. It's a fun process.

I am not familiar with Tonecore.

I have four CD's up on iTunes (and Amazon, Spotify, etc.) and I used CDBaby to get them there. The nice thing about CDBaby is it is a one time fee if you release through them, plus they take a small percentage of sales. Some of the other services, reverbnation for example, charge you a yearly fee to keep your releases up on iTunes.

Thanks for the information BlueAttitude. Just listening to your album "Alpha" on CD Baby. Very cool 8)

CDBaby looks good. Are you a Free, Standard or Pro user?
The Free option looks good although they keep 15% of your earnings.
I guess I would have to work out the best value based on expected sales for a song in aid of my local school.

Cheers
Rec

Hi Rec,

I have the standard membership. The Pro membership is something new I think that handles music publishing as well, I don't know much about it to be honest.

For digital sales they take a 9% cut from sales generated through iTunes and Amazon, the 15% is for selling the downloads direct from them. Most of my sales have been through Amazon, a few through iTunes, only one direct from CDBaby. And mostly these days it is streams, not downloads. Not much money to be made from a stream :P $.0078 for an iTunes stream, less from some of the others.

The big cost is getting it up there in the first place, $49 for a CD, $9.95 for a single, although they have sales a couple of times a year.

Hope this helps!

Dave

This is an interesting take on the issue. That's crazy that her music is in over 12,000 videos! Talk about exposure.

Has anybody here considered using Bandcamp?

I don't have any direct experience but from what I hear it's a pretty great service for independent artists to manage a storefront for their music and merchandise, and it offers streaming, which of course everybody looks for nowadays

Our latest is on bandcamp, here: https://blueattitude.bandcamp.com/album/alpha

We haven't made one cent from it so far :P Although I have friends that have done ok there, and it is totally free which is a good thing!

Thanks Dave, very useful information. Much appreciated.

Rec

As a follow-up to this.. last night I was on FREESOUNDS.ORG looking for sound effects for a video I'm making. Most of the sounds there are creative commons usage. Each sound clips shows how many times it has been downloaded (and I would guess this correlates directly with the number of times each has been used in somebody's project)

The download numbers tend to be huge!

You can put music on this site too. Not everyone requires that credit be given when you use their clip.. but if you are posting music and you want your name to get around, I strongly suggest that you require a listing in the film's credits in exchange for free use. In fact you can require ta link to your web site where you have other work for sale.

Everybody wins.

https://creativecommons.org/

Hi Herb,

Some wonderful suggestions and ideas, thank you for sharing your knowledge on the subject. I agree posting tunes to the Band-in-a-Box Users Showcase or Soundcloud Radio Station is a great way to get some feedback.

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=50&page=1

https://soundcloud.com/bandinaboxradio

Pauline
PG Music Team

Hey Ya'll,

I am about to publish a blog regarding this very same topic as an NSAI (Nashville Songwriters Association International) chapter coordinator, but it is currently being reviewed by them so it is not ready for prime time. But I can cite a few things. All of this comes from pros I know and have interviewed, not me.

1.) Herb (who is in my NSAI chapter and who introduced me to Band in a Box for which I will be forever grateful) is right about so much in what he said that I can't add much to it. There is an opportunity in placing songs for film and t.v., but your sound has to be way over the top. Go to www.musicbed.com and study the production norm. Bookmark it and try to learn from it. That's the way you have to sound. Here is a young lady who goes to my church. She is one of the "lucky 600":

https://www.musicbed.com/artists/samantha-ray/7950

or

http://noisetrade.com/samantharay

The new BIAB Xtra styles will help you with some of these sounds (there is some stuff that sounds like this in singer-songwriter) but you will have to stone cold master the mixing board in your DAW, and spend many painstaking hours EQing each track. Again, this level of quality is about meticulous listening and mastering of each individual track. Pay careful attention to the reverb and EQ.


2.) There are 3 types of songs.

A.) Songs you put on your own album. These can sound however you want. However soundcloud does not lie, neither does this forum. If you post your song on BIAB and ask for honest feedback you will get it. If everyone raves about the sound production and you get hundreds of listens in a month, you know you are doing something right. It means people are replaying or forwarding your stuff to friends. So keep doing that. If people say "interesting" and you get 10 listens stop doing that.

B. Filler songs for major albums. There is a zero chance here. They have enough of those to last until Jesus comes back.

C. Hit singles that will pay the bills for publishers and labels.

Believe it or not, but it is not impossible for you to get a song cut if you know how to write a hit, the song that will become the single. Much has been written on this. If you write the catchiest song a publisher has ever heard and your demo is professional (good singer, especially) you do have a chance, because people are still hungry for "hits" where ever they come from. But you have to know what a hit is. The short definition is that a Hit is a song that is about 5 times catchier and more awesome than your own favorite song.

Try and write THAT--if publishing is your goal.

But as Herb said, just have fun along the way, and stay happy, because it is a process. Frustration will do you no good. Play for the fun of it, and for the love of it, and try and write something 5 times catchier than your own favorite song--and have a blast doing it.

And listen to the stuff on musicbed for a reference.

One thing you have going for you is Band in a Box. It gives you a long head start if you learn how use it, but you have to master it, and you have to master production in your DAW.

Have fun!!!!

David,

Thanks for posting all that information. It's very informative.

Regards,
Noel

Absolutely have to thank everyone that has contributed to this topic. (My apologies if it was a topic already mentioned, but, when I searched, I used the search term "getting published" and it returned nothing.. so, now it does.. lol)

Another question I have is, what about really old other peoples music? I know more than likely you would have to pay a royalty or something to include songs like that on CD for sale.

As an example, I play mostly all blues. However, I would like to do my own versions of old blues songs. Stuff like Hideaway, Shame Shame Shame, or whatever. It would be nice to know ahead of time if older songs would cause problems down the road.

Is there a searchable database for this?

A quick google search for "songs in the public domain" found lots of hits. Here is the first: http://www.pdinfo.com/

Anything published before 1922 is public domain, so you are out of luck with "Hideaway" unless you wait for another 40 years or so

Yeah, you can always google search the song you're interested in recording. You will find it's date of creation/copyright.

For works published after 1977, it the life of the author plus 70 years. If the work is a work for hire (that is, the work is done in the course of employment or has been specifically commissioned) or is published anonymously or under a pseudonym, the copyright lasts between 95 and 120 years, depending on the date the work is published. All works published in the United States before 1923 are in the public domain. Works published after 1922, but before 1978 are protected for 95 years from the date of publication. If the work was created, but not published, before 1978, the copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. However, even if the author died over 70 years ago, the copyright in an unpublished work lasts until December 31, 2002. And if such a work is published before December 31, 2002, the copyright will last until December 31, 2047.

A bit complicated, but if you research the song, you will be able to find that information and move forward knowing you're working on a PD song or pay Harry Fox for the license.

Loads of useful information here. I'm going to bookmark this thread

Thanks Herb, David, Pat, Joe (PG), BlueAttitude, Will (PG), JohnX3 and Pauline (PG).
Hope I didn't miss anyone.

Rec

Great thread. Super stuff, Herb.

I attended a Copyright class held by a music attorney here, Peter Vaughn Shaver. He gave us some literature I can share (he's fine with it...points people to him). Is there a way to attach files here? Total 3 megs.

Probably, but why not summarize it in your own words?

It's far too much info to cover.