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In other words, hypothetically how many do you submit before gauging the success rate of your cues with their clients? Does exclusive or nonexclusive impact that decision?
Also, if a library you are supplying music to suddenly becomes unresponsive to email (I can only imagine the daily volume they contend with) do you continue to submit music?
Hi Sabalsounds
For non ex i will send at least 50 good cues and give them a couple of years. For Ex, which i do less of, i would send about 25 and give it the same amount of time. I would not submit to a library that is unresponsive,… highly unprofessional and even disrespectful imho. I might not even work with them, unless they have really proved themselves in the past. Hope that helps
MM
Define being unresponsive. Not responding within three days? 2 weeks or a month? Or not at all?
Same questions here, Cabal good topic.
Personally I think reputation goes a long way, and other composers success with a particular library really effects how long you give something a chance. Also the rate a sync goes for in that library should effect the length of time you are submitting new music. It’s hard to put a number on it because sometimes you just have a gut feeling, but sometimes it turns out to be a waste of time. If you are sending emails and they are not responding, then I wouldn’t keep my tracks with them. This is a partnership and if they aren’t getting back with you, then just imagine if you were a customer. I had a situation where I was owed 100+ euros and didn’t get my payment. I tried sending emails, calling, and got no response. The only time I did get an email was once I deleted my entire catalog of music. Kind of a case of to little to late.
I put tracks in Libraries where I get sales. If a Library is unproductive, I stop sending tracks. I don’t necessarily dump the Library. I just stop feeding it. I still believe that Libs. that don’t actively create income, guarantee their own demise. We stop providing the content they need.
When you sit there a few weeks afterwards regretting it and wishing you’d kept the last batch back or sent them elsewhere ….
If you have exclusive tracks with a library that aren’t getting any uses, it’s not unheard of to ask a library to convert them to non-exclusive or to remove them and revert the rights back to you. I’ve had some agree to this and some not. You wouldn’t ask after a few weeks though, I would say give it at least a year.
(edit – this is if they didn’t pay upfront money for the exclusive rights.)
Hello to ALL! This might be slightly off the topic, but.. I had a couple of Exclusives that would send out Quarterly Reports (with a quarterly check for library participation/blankets/needle drops, etc..) and it would show the amount of uses each track would get in that quarter. Not only did it help to see the tracks activity; I didn’t have to wait until the cues finally started receiving back-end payments.
As well, it helped to shape what types of tracks I composed.
Also, I agree with something that was posted previously in the thread. It really depends on the Library, and if they have a solid reputation; with great connections in the business, and a lot of subscribers.
I had one library that I thought was a bust because I “literally to this day have never had correspondence with them” (was all done through a music consultant) I Thought I threw my tracks away. 3 years into the deal 5 figure checks started popping..
For TV cue (Cue Sheet generating libraries) that mostly pay back end PRO royalties, It really does take 3 years to come to a conclusion.
For the “Direct Licensing” business models, i.e. self uploading and you input your own meta data and descriptions to market the songs to end customers, you can actually start seeing sales results in 1 to 2 months.
After almost a decade into my adventures with various digital music licensing platforms, yes indeed, I only send music to those who send me checks. Send me money, I will keep sending you tracks. If you are not sending me money consistently, I will stop sending you tracks.
This is why the exclusive model for a new writer is so risky. There are predators out there, trying to get you to sign cues in where they take ownership and control for $0…then you wait 3 years to see if your “experiment” worked out. BEWARE! In fact, no writer should ever sign a cue over exclusively. If everyone just stopped doing it and we all constantly wrote articles and blogs and tweeted about it and talked about it…the practice may just disappear forever. My price tag for an exclusive cue (in perpetuity) is $3000. Yes, that is what you’d have to pay me for the cue I just wrote today.
I agree no one would ever advance that to me, but still…that is the only price I’d be willing to accept to sacrifice flexibility, ownership, and control over the asset I just created.
I am not coming up with a figure by drawing numbers out of a hat. From my many years of experience, it is very easy to pull down $3000 from a track (Over time) when you have ownership and flexibility on your side.
Needless to say, I absolutely detest the exclusive music model for $0 advance, and the petty $50 and $75 “consideration fees”.
Gee, you are so considerate by giving me $50 for the track!
That bogus and predatory business model should be demolished forever.
$50 Consideration fee? Ha Ha Ha! To Mr. greedy publisher, did you know that I can make that in 1 month or less selling it on a do it yourself style, direct licensing to end customer platform?
Then with some patience, a different customer may come along and license it for 1K, 3K, 5K, 10K…you just never know…Ownership, Ownership, Ownership 100% ownership of the assets YOU create, is where the future lies.
In fact, no writer should ever sign a cue over exclusively.
I’d tweak this advice a little.
I totally understand where you’re coming from, but the reality of music licensing, especially at the top level, doesn’t allow for libraries that can’t vouch 100% for all their music being pre-cleared.
It’s wise to be very careful with who you give music to exclusively. Many cattle call type libraries can have perfectly good music languish unused in their huge catalogs.
However, if you want to work with libraries that can command five figure license fees, you almost always need to be willing to sign over your music to them exclusively. These libraries have built up a reputation in the business for having rock solid pre-cleared music. They can only guarantee that by being the sole library pitching their music.
Taking a stand against exclusivity will protect you from bad deals with lower level libraries, but will also prevent you from moving up from RF and reality TV focused libraries.
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