[Music1234]

Going Full Time? Are you kidding me? Yes. I do make “Full TIme” income in this business but I do not trust this business as far as I can throw this business. Do not EVER go “full time” into music for media because you will end up getting another job anyway. Do you have 10 years of time to write 75 cues a year? Can you work for perhaps low 4 figures in your first two years just to get the ball rolling? Are you willing to learn every aspect of every potential royalty stream out there for you to take advantage of and put in the hundreds or thousands of hours of time in front of spreadsheets, entering metadata, registering your songs, releasing them as albums On Spotify, uploading to Content ID? Are you willing to make hundreds of phone calls to establish really solid connections at PRO’s, at libraries, meet Directors, post house folks, other musicians, music managers at stock music sites?

Yeah I have a music production studio and make tunes every week, but no way in hell would I ever put all my eggs in this increasingly “free” basket of library music. The pricing of production music just keeps getting lower and lower and lower every day. How can anyone sell a track for $5 and expect to make a living at this?

For the record, I always sell in the $40 to $100 range for the “standard” youtube/ internet use music license. Le t that be a start to making money. I have been preaching this for years yet I still see so many talented writers selling tracks for $5 to $20, and now of course …$15 a month subscription fee for all you can eat. It’s just getting pathetic.

This is why now these stupid models like “non-fungible tokens” are coming into play to try and help artists put some more pennies in their pockets. Instead of always trying to reinvent the wheel, why can’t composers stick to some basics:
1. License your music for a respectable, professional rate, not $5
2. Stop giving away 50% writers share to mobsters promising the world to you while privately, they are just extorting 50% of your intellectual property because YOU, have no respect for YOURSELF, and are willing to work for chump change.

Sad! Pathetic! Stupid musicians screwing themselves again and again and will never learn.

[Music1234]

Well you can not earn much if you always enter the Lion’s jaws like a wounded Gazelle on the African plains.
What do I mean by that exactly?

1. Signing stupid, unfavorable deals where you essentially give away your music for nothing and take deals that result 50% writers share to you and the other 50% to the Lion’s Jaw, where the publisher just crushes your neck and takes your money like a mobster criminal does.
2. Doing exclusive deals where you lose 50% writers share, a double whammy
3. Not knowing how to chase after performance royalties where you collect as both writer and publisher for your own music placements in high profile projects.
4. Not joining a PRO and understanding how they work. Not registering your titles on a timely basis
5. Not detecting airplays of your music with a service like TUNESAT
6. Not uploading your albums to Spotify where you obtain ISRC codes, UPC Codes, ISWC codes
7. Being lazy about admin work and seeking out multiple revenue streams from both Stock music sites and music libraries that feed tv production
8. Not uploading to Content ID to grab that revenue,
9. Not collecting Neighbouring rights revenue, and so on.

Basically what you don’t know is that your publisher and stock music site “partners” who distribute and sell your music are the lion preying on YOU, your weaknesses, and your overly-excited agree-ability to every deal put in front of you. To make money in this business, not only do you have to sell your music to whomever is buying it on as many platforms as possible, you have to be willing to do all the tough admin work to maximize your royalties.

For those who just want to kick back and write tunes then give your wife and baby away for free…oops…I mean your music, don’t ever expect to get close to 50K in annual earnings. Why? because you are giving away everything and getting sucked into Sh_t deals that exploit you and your music to the fullest extent.

The answer to the opening question is yes, you can earn a lot in this business, but you better know what you are doing. You better be willing to write one track a week for 20 years straight at a minimum, and make almost nothing in your first two or three years.

If you are signing onto every 50% writers share deal and shoveling your music into subscription models at lightning speed and pricing your tracks for $5 to $10, you will be stuck in the gutter forever….by your own doing!

Yes Artists have been, and continue to just be eaten alive by Lions. Music Artists are the most dumb business people on the planet. They love to work for free, then give away their work for free and allow others to profit from it. Learn to be a shark yourself, otherwise…well….why are you in this business? Because you like making tunes for free?

My 2 cents on the matter….

[Music1234]

performing live, geeking out over guitars and pedals, hanging out with friends, etc..

Lol! The perfect plan to go nowhere with your career as a media composer. The hardest part for anyone to grasp is that you simply do not get paid anything for 18 to 24 months from the moment you say “I am going to write a production track for TV, Film, and all other media”. Imagine that moment of feeling enthusiastic after you finished your fist composition. One down and a 1000 to go and…. yep….no checks for at least 18 to 24 months. Perhaps a few token stock music sales here and there, but….you get the idea…..

[Music1234]

Here is what we can all tell all newbies if they inquire about how to succeed in the music for media business:
1. Focus on music you hear on TV shows, in films, on TV commercials, in youtube videos etc
2. Write music you are good at and enjoy.
3. Write, record, mix and master a minimum of 1 track a week for 20 years straight.
4. Join a PRO and register your titles the moment you finish a track.
5. Research and try various music libraries and stock music licensing sites and see which one’s bring you financial success.
6. Do not expect to make any meaningful income for at least 3 to 6 years (Until you have around 200 tracks on the market)
7. Network with people in the business every way you can to build up long term relationships.

Once they read 3 and 6, 99% will throw in the towel. This business is not for everyone. It requires tenacity and an attitude of “I will never give up.” In addition to investment in the right software, instruments, and equipment, it requires absolute dedication, patience, talent, consistency, intelligence, and a dedicated commitment. It initially requires that you have other sources of income while you work your way through this journey.

One you gain traction it requires 10 hour work days for 5 to 10 years to really take it to the next level. I still seek other sources of income outside of music licensing and music royalties. I eternally do not trust this business as a stable long term path to earning full time income year after year. I always operate as if it’s going to implode and always have a plan B in play.

[Music1234]

Daveydad, typically a reputable library would send a check for 4K and also state what the project is for.
It’s very normal for tracks to generate four figure sync fee checks, but then also those same tracks can be getting used on various tv shows as background drops. I have this going on all the time. I have tracks being used on TV spots, but simultaneously they are getting used as TV show cues (Background cues) or even as Promos.

This particular library gets paid (I guess from their PRO) and then they send me a check for my cut.

I find it strange that they get paid as publisher, but you do not get paid as writer. Something definitely seems fishy about all of this, but I would also advise you to just cash large checks and not ask any questions at all.

[Music1234]

Happy New year to all.

To those who are stating how “sad and annoying it is that PRO’s like ASCAP don’t have our backs, make us jump through hoops, etc..” The Reality is that it really IS up to us to chase down our performance royalties for infomercials and tv spots. Cue sheets in the USA simply do not get filed for these projects. Advertisers, ad agencies, post houses, tv and film editors do not send any information to PRO’s on our behalf. No one is looking out for us on any level when it comes to these projects when music is licensed off of micro stock sites. A PMA publisher may have your back and claim this properly, but I would not make any assumptions even with PMA libraries. You have to be willing to dig up your evidence and file the claim. If you are in not willing to do that admin work, you really do not even belong making any efforts into this business.

Soundmouse, and their non transparent role in reporting, is an issue I will never understand. It’s very shady that soundmouse refuses to share their data with composers who put in tremendous amounts of time uploading their tracks and metadata for each title. I’d love to know why that data is hidden from writers.

[Music1234]

10 Months Later here are my numbers for 10 tracks in a sub model for one month of earnings.

Track Amount
$ 4.58
$ 0.21
$ 1.33
$ 0.18
$ 0.92
$ 0.42
$ 3.70
$ 5.10
$ 0.38
$ 1.15
Total for September: $17.97
It’s headed toward a Spotify, fractions of pennies model eventually.
Lets do an exponential analysis- Here is the sub model:
10 tacks earns $20 a month for a writer
100 – $200 a month
1000 – $2000 a month

In a sync license model where customers pay $20 to $500. We see numbers like this:

10 Tracks earn $200 a month
100 Tracks earn $2000 a month
1000 Tracks earn $20,000 a month

Not many guys can or will write 1000 tracks in an entire career. It certainly is not worth doing the work if you only will make $24,000 a year 10 years from now. People still are buying one off sync licenses all the time, just keep supporting a model that actually puts money in your pocket.

Pat, Libraries do not give a damn about composers on any level whatsoever. Composers are nothing but free content creators who supply them with the goods to sell for no cost to the library. Most libraries do not report the full truth of how much they sell and they fudge the numbers so they always “win” no matter what. Instead of libraries trying to earn more money by selling more music to more customers at fair market prices, their only solution is to pay composers less money and cut into their piece of the pie.

The only hope moving forward is maintaining the strength of the PRO performance royalty model. If that ever goes away, the entire business is toast. Some composers already are burning down their own house by giving away 50% of their writers share. This is unprecedented stuff, shocking, and incredibly foolish. I am still eternally astonished that anyone would ever give away 50% writers share to someone who did not write the music, especially in the context of background music cues for Reality TV content. I also have trusted, credible sources who once were doing well in the Sub model (Elements) , but are now reporting a gradual erosion of earnings. When customers can get music for 90% less than they used to pay, the revenue distribution “pot” shrinks accordingly.

[Music1234]

I have to take the side of LA Writer Mark. Your 100 very well crafted tracks came to fruition because you composed 500 to 1500 tracks in your career. Sounds like you rushed through some and spent time on others. You say you make a great deal of money on the one’s you spent time on, and I believe that. However, you still have to really become a master of the craft and you do that by composing 1000 tracks over a 10 year career or so. From that effort our hits rise to the top, but we never know which one’s those will be.

I have tracks that I spend days and days on, but then they earn very little, then I have others that I produced in an afternoon for 4 hours and have gone on to produce 50K in total royalty earnings over a 5 year period. Then there is always the “surprise” variable where a track you don’t expect much from goes on and really produces huge revenue. This business is full of surprises, but if you don’t put in the 10 years and 1000 tracks, the surprises will not come. Very few can make 6 figures with 100 “well produced” tracks.

In 2020, for those just starting out, do not think that 100 well crafted tunes will lead you to the promised land. You are better off assuming you need 10 years and 1000 tunes to achieve 6 figures in annual royalty income.

Frank, your music really pops by the way, I listened to a few and right away I hear some quality. If you are in Germany just get aligned with the right Library over there and I am sure GEMA will be sending you a lot of fat checks.

[Music1234]

“I think it may only be a matter of time until that is more the rule than the exception.”

I disagree. I have not been asked ever to sacrifice 50% of my writers share. While the extortion does exist with some shady players in the business, I have to think the majority do not play the game this way. Aside from that, if the practice does gain more traction, then it’s time for us to invite the TV Network music directors into this forum so we can just submit cues directly to Viacom, Discovery, MTV, VH1, TLC, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc. etc. If networks morph into music publishing library’s, we simply need to supply them directly and cut out the middle man entirely. I just do not see this escalating and we probably should just stop talking about it. Just say no if you really are getting pressured to give up 50% writers share.

[Music1234]

BMI was great this year. Hard to believe 2020 is in the books for 4 BMI Statements. International made up 25% of the earnings whereas ASCAP international seems to make up 50% of my overall earnings so that is one data point I am perplexed by. However, I always have felt as though ASCAP does a better job collecting foreign royalties.

It does seems like Internet audio and internet audiovisual is improving slowly but surely compared to what once was a sea of .01 cent payments for Netflix, HULU, etc. Now we are seeing line items paying .15 cents to $2.00 for streaming. Hopefully this is a sign that BMI has forged better deals with netflix, hulu, amazon, youtube, facebook to increase the royalty pot for all of us.

Had a nice $590 payment from FACEBOOK on a couple of tracks with an “FF” Usage.

Anyone know what “FF” stands for?

BI is background Instrumental
CJ= Jingle or commercial
T = Theme

So all in all it does seem like we are seeing revenue improvements with streaming and internet tracking. I am quite pleased Art.

[Music1234]

I kind of think it all depends on where most of your placements are coming from. From my experience, I earn more from ASCAP foreign royalties than BMI foreign distributions, but domestically, I feel as though BMI pays better than ASCAP for USA TV shows and USA TV spots and promos. BMI covers more TV networks and does not rely on the survey method. So if most of your placements are USA TV shows, I’d lean towards BMI. If you get a lot of action in foreign markets, I’d stick with ASCAP.

[Music1234]

Giving away writers share is akin to giving away your spouse or baby. I’m 11 years into the game of writing for libraries and selling on stock music sites and I can state in a way that leaves no doubt that lowering prices and sacrificing ownership interest in your music assets, always leads to LESS EARNINGS, for a writer.

I tried many experiments lowering prices to attract higher volume of sales. It does not work! Raising prices or keeping them at a certain level of self respect has actually paid dividends for me. TV show editors are your best friends. These guys get to know us and they are taking notes on composers tracks. If they like the genres you write in, they will come back to your music.

Thank you advice for finally just starting a public thread here and stating the stone cold fact about giving away writers share for the promise of extra attention pitching your cues. Aside from being a corrupt bribery/ kick back/ extortion business practice that should be relentlessly reported to the PMA, PRO’s, TV network execs, and even congressional lawmakers, It’s total B.S. …this deal will not make you more money!

[Music1234]

Any subscription site not offering an upfront payment per track is a complete scam.

Even Epidemic Sound’s model is a scam to young and ignorant writers. Or perhaps, who knows? there could be older and ignorant writers? When you sell a track to Epidemic for $300 to $600 as full buyout, that’s it, the deal is done and you lose EVERYTHING, writers share, publishing share, shared sync fees, shared subscription fees, all of it. The property essentially is transferred to them from you for that fee. It is like selling a car.

Everyone needs to realize that some tracks can go on and earn you $20,000 to $100,000 depending on how popular they may become. I can say that most can easily earn a writer $500 to $1500 over a 5 year period. We never know which tracks will be our hit money makers. That’s why it’s so dangerous to sell tracks for nominal fees.

Steven, yes, I can say confidently that subscription is a total joke for writers, all it did was devalue music works by 90%, and there is no increased revenue opportunities for 98% of all writers. A few will do OK in this model, but I am not sure for how long that will last. It does not seem to be sustainable. All of my opinions are based on direct participation of the model for just over 1 year. I do not see any scaled upside for my portfolio, so I will continue to license my tracks for $39 to $69 as my “standard youtube / interent only” price.

[Music1234]

Here is my opinion of what happened. It’s classic case of the early birds getting the worm. those who were invited to join envato elements accepted for fear of missing out. They invited all reviewers and also key stock music suppliers who currently were the best sellers anyway. So the offering was strong. Yes, my friend has 400 tracks in the model. envato had to pay these folks well to keep them on board. A lot of the earnings is from the subscription “bonus”. The bonus comes from paying subscribers who actually download nothing in a given month, but still pay the $16.50 a month.

Now how that “bonus” is calculated is another story, ripe for corruption, and really distributed any way the company feels like distributing it. My friends entry into this market has been ok for him, but he now is clearly seeing his one off sync sales get cannibalized by the subscription option. His customers have two choices: buy one $29 to $49 sync license from him, or pay the $16.50 a month and download his entire catalog if they so chose. The choice is a no brainer. I have seen his data – some tracks earn 0.25 cents a month, others can earn $100 or so a month. Here is what a 10 of our co-writes earned last month. It’s a joke! I only have 10 in this model. So 10 tracks earn $15. Hence, 100 tracks would probably earn $150 a month in this model. We’re getting paid most likely 0.25 to 0.50 a download. These are the facts.

Track Amount
$ 0.35
$ 0.41
$ 0.82
$ 1.02
$ 0.75
$ 0.38
$ 4.41
$ 6.19
$ 0.34
$ 0.68

$ 15.35

[Music1234]

Well there is an endless supply of gas stations, grocery stores to shop at, hotel rooms to book, and cars to buy too. Those companies do not drop the price of their products by 90%. There is not an endless supply of talented music producers, but when the good one’s jump on the cheap sub models, devaluation can very easily become perpetual.
I still believe that for every new cue that comes on the market, an old cue falls off the market. We have a lot of rotten potatoes cluttering up our music markets.

The debate over supply and demand is actually a different debate than the lack of transparency and corrupt accounting standards that are inherent in subscription models. Writers sign contracts that essentially state “pay me whatever you want, and however you decide to account for the revenue you collect from your subscribers.”

Subscription came into play simply because Spotify, Microsoft, Adobe, Netflix, google and several other tech giants invented the monthly recurring revenue model for software and services. It is a great model when you own the intellectual property outright.

Music producers are so ignorant that they literally trusted these companies with THEIR intellectual property to bundle up all cues in a pooled basket to be “licensed” for $15 a month all you can download. A friend of mine who is “all in” is earning $2000 from the sub model and $1000 from one off sync licenses each month. He once earned $4000 to $5000 a month from the one off sync model selling at $29 a standard license.

Another respected AJ producer I communicate with stated that his sub revenue is 2K a month, but his sync sales were decimated once he offered his portfolio on the elements market.

Anyway, I still do OK selling single license usages for $50 to $70 per standard license. I still see no need to panic.

[Author]

Posts