[Pat]

Hi midi,
That’s a really cool gesture but while I wasn’t in their affiliate program (assuming we’re talking about the same thing), it sounded strange to me that somehow a writer can take 5% of another writers profits like that so I looked it up and it says,”You can refer your friends to Pond5 and earn 5% on all their “purchases” within their first year of signing up.
Maybe I got it totally wrong, but that’s all I found that sounded close to what you were saying.

[Pat]

Oh man! You made out nicely Art. Congrats!

[Pat]

Thanks for posting that MichaelL. That gives me an idea of what of what we’re talking about realistically.

[Pat]

I would love to hear tracks from those who can do 2-3 tracks a day. I just want to get an idea of what kind of tracks we’re talking about. Maybe I’m just going overboard with mine or I just don’t have “it” to be able to do that and be satisfied with my work.I’ve also read about staff writers at a certain library churning out 6-7 cues a day and I say to myself,”what in the world kind of music can it be?.” Hard for me to grasp that.

[Pat]

Bookmarked! Thanks Gary. Very useful.

[Pat]

I check BMI every day,sometimes twice.Maybe there’s some kind of 12 step program to help cut that out.

[Pat]

I’m in California MichaelL. Usually up by 7am, 40min walk to get the brain going then I sit down to write for most of the day.

[Pat]

I do get just enough sales to warrant keeping the tracks there DI but I’m glad I stopped submitting once they went exclusive. When I do get sales I wait until I’ve sold a few before sending the invoice which I made a template of to make it simpler but I won’t sign anymore deals like that where they put the burden on the writer to submit invoices instead of just sending what they know they owe through Paypal or check or something better than this way. When I first stated doing this,it was more important to me getting started and I’d worry about the rest late.
After this experience though how I get paid is just as important as when and how much. I chalk it up to experience which at the time I had none. I’m sure they’ll always be lessons to learn.
Frankly,I don’t make enough from any of these RF type libraries to write home about but where they won’t buy me a new car, they are putting gas in it.
After 3+ years of submitting to RF libraries, I think it’s fair to say that backend royalties from TV placements seems to be a much better fit for me overall so that is where my focus is these days.They are actually paying a few bills.

[Pat]

Thanks for the responses guys!I decided to pass on the direct license thing. It wasn’t worth all that for next to nothing and the whole thing is a little too strange for my comfort level. Besides I’m already not too happy that they make composes construct invoices for sales they know they owe for. Seems that should be their job but that’s another conversation. I’m just not going to go through any more hassles then I need to least of all for so little money.

[Pat]

That’s my thought besides the reason I posted above.

[Pat]

Maybe I’m answering my own question by talking it out loud but I’m leaning toward not getting into direct licensing because to me it seems like it would undermine the whole purpose of being registered with BMI in the first place plus the fact that we’re not talking a whole lot of money here.
I’d rather just chalk it up to the client accidentally picking the wrong track for his purposes and they can cancel the order if they choose to and maybe I’ll just move on.

[Pat]

Never mind. I figured it out.

[Pat]

Hi Mark,
I’m in the US but you really don’t need anything to go on since because the broad context of the question is about approaching pricing when selling music in a country other than the one you live in in general. I wasn’t trying to be specific.

[Pat]

Taxi and companies like that work for some just not for me. I was a member. $1500 in membership renewals. I went from a forward here and there to no forwards at all. Maybe I just kept getting worse every year. I wasn’t even getting critiques anymore because of “deadlines” so I thought what do you do if a slot machine never pays off when you gamble your money? You move on before you’re broke.
In fairness,I don’t fault their model. They do what they say they do. You pay them, they listen to your music and forward it if they decide to and not if they decide not to. Clear away all the advertising smoke and glitter and that’s really all they ever say they’d do.You might get a useful critique, you might not.You might get nothing, you might get something but they will always get paid. That’s how it works.
Some can do well with that.I didn’t. Not their fault.They didn’t promise me anything more than what I got.
Sometimes you find out what doesn’t work before you find out what does.In my case, I was the former.
These days I’ll give up some publishing or sync fees in exchange for getting “something” I won’t do any more “give us your money first and we’ll see” deals. I give you music and when you get money “from” my music it is because you did something “for” my music.That’s it.

[Pat]

Thanks for all your input guys. After thinking about it, I can’t see managing different title tracks and I’m more inclined to agree with you that most supervisors probably find their favorite libraries and pretty much stick with them instead of putting alot of time (and money) shopping all the libraries for a deal on the same track. I think I’ll just adjust the prices at the libraries best I can so I can sell tracks.
In the I think I might be over analyzing this a bit.

[Author]

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