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@Desire_Inspires & More advice
Ten years ago I was enjoying big backend money, touring with a big name here in Italy and I was composing radio jingles for about 100€ each, which was an average fee here, and I criticized people selling bad quality jingles for 30€ and I thought that they were ruining the business so I can understand what you say. I’m not talking about licensing tracks for 2 or 5$ but I can’t pull my tracks from good libraries that sell my stuff regularly in the 30/50$ range and only rely on those that sell at higher price. Sometimes I get a 100/200 or even 1000$ placement from some library and I’m very happy when that happens but my experience shows me that they can’t replace the steady flow from other sources, not yet and the trend seems to get worse and worse for me.
I don’t think I’m selling out, I’m just conforming to what seems to be the average fee for quality libraries that have a ‘selected’ roster of composers.
I’d like to know the opinion of Mark L. Mark P. and other library owners on this.mikevan,
I jumped ship on audiomicro after just 3 months. I left Music Dealers after 1 year, I bailed out of Muziko. Is Anyone makin’ money on Muziko in Dublin? All three gave me a tiny bit of money, but it just was not enough. I love P 5 because we control our own destiny there, we set the price. I just hope you are getting some steady income from the sites you are selling on. RF is a direct final sale. It’s one and done. The customer owes you and the site no more after they click buy. This is why it is imperative that we all get a good fee.
Those prices you are referring to for jingles are brutal. 100 EUROS? wow!
We used to get $15,000 to $20,000 for a national jingle. $5000 for regional/ local…occasionally just $1500 or 2K for really cheap stuff. Big Spots still pay a 10K fee and often more! They pay $1500 to a music house just to write the demos to picture. I just 3 years ago got $3500 for a local Mirror and Glass manufacturer TV spot for just 1 market and I made $600 in ascap royalties from the times it played on air. I educated owners of the business about ASCAP and convinced them to publish their own jingle and collect royalties back. They did it and sent the media buy to ASCAP and both parties received about $600 in royalties for the performances that aired.
If you live in Italy, a country I absolutely love by the way, and are selling to the U.S. market…just know that you can move the prices up. Most people I know always set aside at least $250 – $300 for a track to accompany their important business presentation videos (aka corporate videos). Music matters for those videos and people want a good track to support their brand image.
Actually, selling some cues at a lower price is a great idea. Taking a lower payment for a small set of cues is a good idea. It gets people interested in your music. But don’t sell everything for super cheap. It is ok to have most of your cues at a higher price. Just designate a few mainstream cues to sell at the lower price to get traffic.
Hi mikevan. You’ve been a PIR composer for about 10 years?
I am seeing that you have been selling the same 45 songs more or less for that whole time. The songs are all great but they are in a style that is losing popularity and the genre is also being flooded with music from lots of other composers.
I would suggest writing new material, keep the low prices on the old stuff and new material gets higher prices.
Go to ML, sortby popular to get a good idea of what is selling these days.
Gotta keep pumping them out and keep it fresh.I presented this question to post audio mixers group:
“I’d Like to ask everyone what their favorite music library is and what they look for in the library?”
Response:
We use several libraries. APM, KillerTracks, DeWolfe are the most-often used, mainly because their libraries are so extensive, and their online search/download is handy. Many clients force me to use pond5.com or audiojungle.com for royalty free/buyout libraries. They are dirt-cheap, and have some gems, but are filled with lots of crap too.
Do you want to be “dirt cheap”? I don’t…See how clients are “forcing” post audio guys to the cheapo sites. WE ARE THE ONLY GUYS OUT THERE WHO CAN UN-CHEAP THE MARKET!!!!
Please keep your prices up. The only reason clients are going to these so-called “cheap” sites is because composers have decided “I’m cheap, my music is cheap”….This is not good.
I have decided that “I’m Expensive”…I want to be one of those “expensive few gems” on Pond 5. Don’t support Audio Jungle. Don’t send your music there. Guys, The RF market can slowly but surely take over the entire market and burry companies like DeWolfe and Killer Tracks….be careful…price your music accordingly…be a “more costly gem in the RF market”. RF is serious stuff. remember the sale is the sale…no royalties, no further obligations. I am going to price a track on p5 for $1000 very soon to see what happens. I have a catchy gem with a catchy vocal on it. It’s worth at least $1000.
“WE ARE THE ONLY GUYS OUT THERE WHO CAN UN-CHEAP THE MARKET!!!!”
I hear ya brother..my stuff is priced high and possibly going higher soon for my best tracks…when I first started with RF sites I couldn’t believe how low some were selling for…it REALLY cheapens things 🙁
@Mark Lewis
thanks for the reply and advice…
7 years, to be precise 😉 I know that my catalog is small and I’m to blame for not producing more tracks but I had to do ‘local’ studio work to pay the bills even if it’s very underpriced and in the end gets me nowhere. Now I’d like to give a serious shot to RF music and I’m trying to understand what’s the best strategy to ‘build’ something that may have a future… Music business in Italy is quite dead… Unless you’re American 😉
@ More Advice:
100€ were for local radio jingles, you could get 500 for a Network and 1000€ for a radio commercial. Then there was the big league of Tv commercials but they were very closed circles. Things were always hard for a musician in Italy but now nobody has got any money 🙁
I can’t complain ‘cos I had a good 10 years, made some money, did some cool stuff but now I have to reinvent myself… again…
Thanks everybody for sharing your opinions and experiences
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