Over the last few years I, probably like most, have gotten overwhelmed with uploading music to the various libraries as well as tagging and writing descriptions for each piece. Every library’s requirements and procedures are different which only adds to an already time consuming process.
Initially the tendency was to get as much music out in the marketplace, to as many libraries as possible. It did get a bit crazy though and the end result would be that many times it wouldn’t get done. I finally came up with a routine that makes it all much less frantic.
I now only work with 5 or 6 libraries so I assign each one to a day of the week and only upload one song, per week, to each library. That gives me plenty of time to focus on that one piece of music and give it my best effort as it pertains to each library’s requirements. A much more relaxed way to do it, at least for me. I feel I have a few more years left in me so I’m in no rush and it leaves me plenty of time to write and have a life!
How about you? What’s your routine?
I’ve just cancelled my submission process for Princess Blue also. No way I could spend the necessary amount of time needed to submit all my tracks. Its pretty nuts. Good luck to him anyway.
I just turned down a library that accepted me- “Princess Blue Publishing” because their metadata process was the worst I’d ever seen …3 times worse. And I told the owner that, Scott Gutierrez. It was as if he designed the process to be as hard as possible. He actually wanted me to encode my initials and other data into each file name and they all had to match perfectly with the tiles on the .xis spreadsheet or his computer system wouldn’t recognize them…and that was just the tip of the iceberg. He wanted half of my publishing share, I told him he could have 100% of it if he did the metadata otherwise forget it, and I even said it nicely, Art. He still got terse with me and said he’s gonna rip up my contract. Then the composer who turned me onto him told me you actually have to fill all that out before even knowing if your songs were accepted! That composer bugged out too. It was nuts. I could have sent my music to over 40 production companies in the time it would have taken me to do that. I just took one look at that and my brain just shut down, I couldn’t even begin.
I guess I’ll post this on the comments for this library too, so people know…stay away.
I actually had the same thing happen to me with Princess Blue, although I basically told him at the end I wasn’t interested. Really, really time consuming metadata inputing, so much so that, like you, I didn’t have the time or energy to do something that ridiculous!! If I remember correctly, I was supposed to reincode all my songs with a specific watermark?? Not gonna happen. I’m not spending 100 hours doing that!!
Is Princess Blue really this bad.
I though of giving them a try.
Thanks for the heads up.
Although, they haven’t placed anything
it seems in quite sometime.
I also started out submitting to about 20+ libraries in the beginning, but in the last couple of years I’ve cut that number down to less than 10 (and still reviewing what’s left). I’m now only submitting to libraries that have actually produced some type of revenue for me.
Luckily when I started submitting to all those libraries I only had a handful of songs. I just need to find the time to get them back.
I’m also reviewing the exclusive deals I have, and if by the time the reversion clause comes around they haven’t done anything, I’ll pull those songs too and move on.
Hi Art:
I thought the same thing. Get in as many companies and see who
is selling tracks.Go where the sales are is the choice.
Do you stop uploading and just leave the tracks at the unproductive company or completely pull off the site or do you give it a time frame,say 1-3 years since it can take time to get into
royalty checks?
Yeah, another hole in my procedures. It’s been at the back of my mind to go back to some of those older (3 years or longer) libraries and pulling the songs from them. Legally I would like them as clear as possible.
Yeah, I’ve been considering using the reversion clause at a couple exclusives. I have about 100 tracks with one exclusive and they’ve licensed about 5 of those tracks. It seems a shame for the other 95 tracks to never see the light of day. Just wonder if this company will get an attitude if I take back half my tracks.
Maybe I’m too old and ornery but I have seldom seen an exclusive deal that didn’t feel like it was one sided in favor of the company. There have been a few exceptions but I was paid a decent monthly salary, they were large successful companies and I still got the writer’s share.
The reason I am now getting into music library music is because of the non-exclusive deals, which I find very exciting. In the late 90’s I was offered a staff writing position in Nashville with a small publishing company for $20,000 per year and no benefits. I did not take it because of the low pay and the one sided contract. That company has since been absorbed by a giant publisher. Had I taken the job, all of my songs would be sitting doing nothing, with me having no legal recourse. One of the things that people do not realize is that many of these traditional music publishers expect you to get your own cuts in addition to their efforts.
Exactly Chris and it’s why I love the non-exclusive model. More power to the composer!
I have been a member of MLR for a couple months now and this metadata, format, tagging issue has been the most frustrating for me. I have been reading about this for more hours than I care to admit. It is exceedingly boring and tedious to read about bext chunks, aXML chunks, and who is compliant with whom. The most reasonable standardized forms I have found are with Broadcast WAVE Metadata or the template at the PMA. From what I can determine, a standardized form will greatly help the PROS track your songs, especially with the non-exclusive libraries. For today, I am thinking of entering all song data into one of these forms as an archival step. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thank you
Hey Chris:
Maybe the pro’s can standardize something like the PMA
examples I sent you.I can see just logging on to Ascap/bmi web site and
downloading the appropriate form. Makes sense to me as a writer and primary publisher.
IDEALLY … it would be great to have an application where you add your song and metatag details and have the option to click a button and send the song(s) and metadata to one or more library sites. This would of course require some sort of standardardization.
How about using the forum to DEFINE the standard. Say the ‘MLR Standard’ or the ‘ART standard’?
I’ll start the ball rolling
FIELD_NAME: TRACK_TITLE
FIELD_NAME: GENRE
FIELD_NAME: SUB_GENRE
mmmmm….dilemma, do you go for the simplicity of the Jingle Punks model or the extensiveness of AudioSparx ??? Maybe some data should be mandatory, and some optional.
Anyway, Good luck with things
I disagree with standardizing uploads and metadata. What would be the point? Libraries serve different markets and require different formats and metadata. They have to make their searches and music easy for the end user, not the composer.
Really good advice. Tagging, naming and all for each library really gets me down!
Thanks, and it always feels like your moving forward!
Art,
You’re so right about how time-consuming it is to conform metadata for each entity’s requirements. I have to deal with the standards of our various world-wide sub-publisher’s, and it’s just out of control. There should be one database standard, one metadata standard, etc. Would make life much easier.
Abby
I can only imagine what it must be like when dealing with more than a few. Standardized procedures would be heaven!