I've outlined my guide, Making Money with your Music kind of like building a house. First you have to lay the foundation. This means getting everything ready, which includes copyrighting your songs, making music library cd's, registering with a performance rights organization and setting up your business with a website, email and phone.
That sounds like a lot, and it does take a little bit of work, but it's not really that bad if taken step by step. I plan to go into more detail on each of these subjects in the future, but for now I just want to document what I've been doing the past few days and what my next steps are.
That sounds like a lot, and it does take a little bit of work, but it's not really that bad if taken step by step. I plan to go into more detail on each of these subjects in the future, but for now I just want to document what I've been doing the past few days and what my next steps are.
I've pretty much gotten my foundation laid. First, I already prepared music library cd's in the past, so that's pretty much taken care of. I have a few more songs I can add to that, but I can do that quickly if the need arises and I need to send out a music library cd (or cd's). I've copyrighted most of my songs. I've decided to wait and copyright all my new songs at once when I release the album. This may put me at a little bit of a risk, but I'm not too worried about it. I've already joined BMI a performance rights organization, so that's taken care of. I've gone a step beyond that and formed a publishing company with BMI as well, which I can also talk about in the future. And I've created and updated the music licensing page of my website (www.brotherhowe.com/musiclicensing). That's been the major time killer for me. This can be outsourced if you want to pay for it (anywhere from a couple hundred bucks to a couple thousand depending who you get to do it). I like the autonomy of knowing how to do things myself. This is also one of my weaknesses. I have a separate email account for music licensing and also a phone number that can be answered professionally. I'm just using my personal cell phone (it won' be answered at home when I'm not there).
So now I'm all set to proceed to the next step, which is finding opportunities and making contact with people who need music for their projects, whether that is a TV show, a movie, a video game, a website or an advertisement.
Now, I can do this in a variety of ways, which I will explain, and then I'll tell you what I plan to do instead (ha!). I could look for a publisher who has all the relationships intact to shop my music around (if they wanted any of it). But since I have my own publishing company now, I'm going to go about it the hard way. I can also search on a national level through Variety or the Hollywood Reporter, figuring out what shows and movies are in production, then try to find out who the music supervisors are and then try to get their contact information and then try to contact them and then try to find out what their music needs are and then try to convince them to give my music a listen if it makes sense. Whew!
I can contact BMI and ask them what assistance they can give me. I think I will actually do this. It is in their interest to have my music earning royalties, since that's how they make money also.
I can also search on a local and regional level, searching the internet locally for key words, call up local ad agencies and see if they need any music for local commercials, and/or search for any local movie studios.
I will do some of that, but here's what I plan to do mostly instead. I'm going to order the Film & Television Music Guide by Ritch Esra and Stephen Trumbull at www.musicregistry.com for $100. I will put an email together to send out to all the music supervisors saying that I'm a publishing company representing music for use in television, commercials, movies and video games (I'll figure out better wording later) and then ask them to put me on their email list when they are looking for music. That way they are coming to me, not me going through all the effort outlined above. This may or may not work, we'll see. I also plan to research local ad agencies and the like and see where that leads (if anywhere) and contact BMI to find out what assistance they can offer me. I'll let you know how it goes.
So now I'm all set to proceed to the next step, which is finding opportunities and making contact with people who need music for their projects, whether that is a TV show, a movie, a video game, a website or an advertisement.
Now, I can do this in a variety of ways, which I will explain, and then I'll tell you what I plan to do instead (ha!). I could look for a publisher who has all the relationships intact to shop my music around (if they wanted any of it). But since I have my own publishing company now, I'm going to go about it the hard way. I can also search on a national level through Variety or the Hollywood Reporter, figuring out what shows and movies are in production, then try to find out who the music supervisors are and then try to get their contact information and then try to contact them and then try to find out what their music needs are and then try to convince them to give my music a listen if it makes sense. Whew!
I can contact BMI and ask them what assistance they can give me. I think I will actually do this. It is in their interest to have my music earning royalties, since that's how they make money also.
I can also search on a local and regional level, searching the internet locally for key words, call up local ad agencies and see if they need any music for local commercials, and/or search for any local movie studios.
I will do some of that, but here's what I plan to do mostly instead. I'm going to order the Film & Television Music Guide by Ritch Esra and Stephen Trumbull at www.musicregistry.com for $100. I will put an email together to send out to all the music supervisors saying that I'm a publishing company representing music for use in television, commercials, movies and video games (I'll figure out better wording later) and then ask them to put me on their email list when they are looking for music. That way they are coming to me, not me going through all the effort outlined above. This may or may not work, we'll see. I also plan to research local ad agencies and the like and see where that leads (if anywhere) and contact BMI to find out what assistance they can offer me. I'll let you know how it goes.
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