[Art Munson]

And companies like Revostock or Pond5, in my opinion, prefer royality free music. Just check the best selling. 80% of the composers pretend not to be pro members. They are simply Production teams. I guess everybody understands what that means. It is good to split those two systems. With royality free companies you ll make money evtl.faster but it can happen that your tracks will run in programs they are not supposed to run and with exclusive libraries you ll make money
for a long period if the company has good connections to tv broadcasters.
My personal rule is like…for little and medium projects I licence my tracks to stock market and royality free companies and for the big stuff I licence with exclusive libraries.

[Art Munson]

You can sign with  BMI if you’re not living in US. You just can’t do it via the online form but have to fill out some papers and send it back to them due to some taxation issues.

I will primarily be targeting the U.S. market and therefore BMI seems like a logical choice, but then again with most library music it could be broadcast anywhere in the world.

From what I’m been able to figure out (from different forums), getting something from BMI or ASCAP can also take a couple of years.

[Art Munson]

Hi folks,
Prs(England) and Gema (Germany) do a good job and those two countries are as well the biggest markets for production music in Europe. As a European citizen I recommend those Pros. But check their reglementations because they are both strict in some way. It is for sure ok with Bmi or Ascap but it depends for which market you’ll work more. I wait 2-3 years to get my U.S. Royalities. Welcome into the
reality.

[Art Munson]

I wonder , can you sign with  BMI or Ascap if youre not living in US ?

I have been with spanish pro (SGAE) and not received a penny yet and I might have sold close to a hundred songs over last five years (PT,Pond5,beatsuite…)

and I doubt they were all nonbroadcast licenses ,I even saw some cuesheets along the way and still not cent from SGAE.

I wonder how efective are they in collecting foreign licenses or are they reluctant to pay composers and need to be chased with tunesat and phonecalls.

[Art Munson]

Thanks Gale. Always an education to read your in-depth posts!

[Art Munson]

Yes, it’s worth it. I’ve had music, sold on RF sites, used for broadcast TV here in the U.S.

[Art Munson]

If you don’t like the terms of a contract you’re presented, don’t sign it.

Sweet.

[Art Munson]

well I was being polite – they are really good – always better to devalue your opinion of yourself though (constantly tell myself im rubbish as you know thats the only way to get better) – I think with a thousand I should be making 30k a year from them – im getting closer to the aim. Still believe you need 1-2 thousand tracks before you begin to see steady sales – thats just my opinion and experience so far as a noob as I know there are people with a hundred tracks doing really well.

[Art Munson]

thanks for the sense desireinspires – I know what you mean as some people do real well at having a consice cat – I’ve seen it work real well for some people – careful naming etc – I guess I have gone about it a diff way as a noob and just read from everyone you need a lot of tracks – so I stayed in and made a good 5 a day for a long time – Im jumping in with lots new guys today – just take the plunge – I’ve done my soul searching and now is action time. Good advice and I agree with what you say.

[Art Munson]

I mean take revo – I put about 400 tracks up – it sold for a bit ( a little ) then now next to nothing – entire months will pass with nothing sold – the site is a quality looking site – my tracks are good ( ish ) so its hard to know whether to add anymore to it – but the shots in the dark are just really hard punts and I wanted to know if others felt the same in the non ex lib game – the thought of addding another 500 to revo and seeing next to nothing is a real drain. The site is good looking it should be generating sales. So when looking to add to unknowns with no info on internet I wanted to see how others deal with this and whether the unknown shots work out for them

 

You have too many tracks. Weed out some of them and raise your prices if possible. I know that I used to add as many tracks as possible at low prices. I would make a few sales and then it would all stop. You have to get focused. Quantity is necessary, but you do not need 1,000 tracks on one site. A good range to aim for is 50-100. You can build from there.

Also, do not sell low! Low prices = inferiority. It is true. Some people think they may be getting a bargain, but most will just see cheap tracks and will bypass them. I see royalty-free sites all the time where people add too many songs and charge too low. Do not sell yourself short. People will pay for quality music.

One other thing to do is to stop working with sites that have a poor interface. Cheap looking sites are even worse than cheap tracks. Target the few sites with the best user interface. The best way to do this is to actually search for tracks and then buy a few. If the process is easy and uncluttered, this means that it is easy for other end users to buy materials. If you try to buy material from a site with poor search engines and user interface, that site is a waste of time. Take your material away from those sites and go elsewhere.

Having 1,000 tracks is nice. But you have to get focused after you build up that catalog. You can make great money with around 500 songs spread on a few sites that generate the correct traffic and have the best interfaces and search engines. Be a customer first. That will tell you everything you need to know.

[Art Munson]

@adam. I’m with MichaelL. No offense intended but if you have 1000 tracks and not generating enough income then there are other things to look at.

[Art Munson]

with exclusive i’ve got hardly anything – just a handful tho they do ok so do need to go back to doing that – ive got into the easier side of non exc and it earns ok but not huge amounts – the 1000 im tryin to spread out now – i mean after musicloops/revo/p5/audiosparx etc am looking at the others and it really becomes a stab in the dark – contacting ‘dannyboy’ or whoever and handing all that work just makes me feel really uncomfortable but at the same time i just feel god i have to know if it works – im really lost on what to do – reading about the libs on MLR now but so many have no comments

[Art Munson]

it is head doer when you want to add a thousand tracks to someone you know absolutely nothing of – when i began i wouldnt have minded adding 10-20 songs but giving a thousand knowing absoultely nothing of them is a bit of a stresser

[Art Munson]

yeah i know that but its trusting the small ones – i got some exc with universal and course you speak to them and its all cool – but trusting people who you know are a two person operation or whatever and they got some website and no one here is using them or posting any info on really feels like such a shot in the dark – i’ve googled some of them and theres just no info that way either – i just feel like a bit of a chump to send all my stuff to them knowing nothing – it feels very insecure – of course companies with a proven track record – musicloops revo audio sparx etc is diff but these non exs with no info are really doing my head in.

 

I feel you. It is probably better to wait to send music to those companies. Sometimes it helps if you give a company a year or two. They may be busy just building the company and landing a few loyal clients. Then they end up scaling up from there.

I have joined libraries straight from day one. Most have not paid off, but I only send out a small batch of new songs on a non-exclusive basis. If the company is new and wants exclusivity, there should definitely be a revision clause or an income limit. It takes patience. That is why it helps to keep making new stuff. Worrying about songs getting placed is such a drag. Moving forward is the best remedy to overcome those worries.

[Art Munson]

yeah i know that but its trusting the small ones – i got some exc with universal and course you speak to them and its all cool – but trusting people who you know are a two person operation or whatever and they got some website and no one here is using them or posting any info on really feels like such a shot in the dark – i’ve googled some of them and theres just no info that way either – i just feel like a bit of a chump to send all my stuff to them knowing nothing – it feels very insecure – of course companies with a proven track record – musicloops revo audio sparx etc is diff but these non exs with no info are really doing my head in.

[Author]

Posts