Category Archives: Music

Two Terrible Emails To Ensure You Will Not Get Your Music Licensed

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Lately, as my mailing list has grown and my twitter following increases, I’ve been getting emails from some of you. The crazy part is despite the writing I do, I still get some of the most ridiculously crappy emails you’ve ever seen in your life. Today I want to quickly highlight two such emails and I encourage the folks that sent them to write down any complaints, put them in a letter, address an envelope, and then crumple it up and throw it away. There’s no helping you if the kind of outreach you’re doing is EXACTLY what I say NOT to do.

Here is the first email I got (I happened to see it on my phone first):

BadEmail1

Seriously? They haven’t even changed their default mail name from “Yahoo! Mail” – and, oh yeah, they SPELLED MUSIC WRONG. Are you serious? How does this person expect me to respond? Here are a few things that went through my brain:

1. NO!
2. YES, I am able to, but I won’t.
3. What the hell is “muaic?”
4. Dear Yahoo Mail, I wasn’t aware that non-living computer entities were even self-aware, much less writing compelling “muaic” that I may or may not be able to listen to! Yes PLEASE tell me more!

Look. If you can’t write a complete sentence, give up now. If you can’t do an inkling of homework BEFORE you reach out to someone, give up now. People will tell you to follow your dreams – I am telling you to stop immediately following your dreams if you can’t even follow simple protocol – you’re wasting everyone’s time. I’m more compelled to open spam emails than garbage like this.

Alright, moving on to email number two (which is about as effective as sending someone a number 2). This person can at least write sentences and has included their name. Big improvement. However, they COMPLETELY miss the point of one of my FIRST key elements of marketing your music: they make it all about them. I’ve blurred out the info but take a look:

BadEmail2

Do you see why people aren’t listening to your music? Do you get it? If I sent you an email that never offered any sort of worthwhile content or didn’t want to genuinely help you, would you ever open it? No, you wouldn’t. You’d sigh heavily, throw your sandwich across the room and run to cry under your bed.

Action Step: Re-write these emails in the comments and see if you can do better. Remember, your goal is to get the person to listen to your music, but you want to be relevant to the person you’re writing to. For this exercise’s sake, pretend it’s someone who works as a music supervisor. If you need to, refer back to my post about what to focus on when reaching out to people cold.

Who Wants to License Your Music?

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In my last article, I mentioned recent efforts in getting to the bottom of what independent musicians want to know most about getting their music in film, tv, and advertising. By far, the top answer is “who do I contact?”

Who Ya Gonna Call?Today, I’m going to give you some ideas about who might be looking for music and where you can find them. Most of the information you need exists online as far as WHO you need to contact. Here’s a quick rundown of some GREAT resources.

Television & Film – It seems like everyday there’s yet another television show going on air and I would venture to say that 99% of them use music. The easy win here is IMDB. Check out a show you think your music would be appropriate for and bring up the full “Cast & Crew” details. Do a quick find on the page for the word music or music supervisor, and voila. Another idea is to simply check the credits on your favorite show that you DVR, and then Google the person’s name.

Advertising + Music

Advertising – Ad folks are no more difficult to find. Probably the biggest downfall to the ad industry is that the creative decisions might be funneled to a specific music producer but the final say is up to the end-client (the brand) or, at the very least, a group of creatives at the agency. This makes it tough because you can get into the running for a spot, but then at the last minute someone else can come along and veto. It can be a frustrating process if you let it get to you but if you learn to roll with the punches, something will come along. The best place to get contact ideas is AdWeek. It’s a cool publication all around if you have any interest in advertising outside of music, but they often post credits for their “Ad of the Day” where you can get names of specific people working on specific brands across the globe.

Video GamesVideo Games – Video games can be a bit trickier, but you have to remember that the people with the coveted positions as music producers and music supervisors have been interviewed, participated on panels, and generally are bombarded with enough attention that digging them up on Google is easy. Give LinkedIn’s search a shot, or try googling the video game company’s name along with “music supervisor” and see what you come up with.

People You Know – You probably have heard a million times that the best source of pretty much anything is your address book. I can’t emphasize enough that having a connection to someone who can potentially use your music will be the most efficient, least painful way to go about securing a license. Both parties involved will be more comfortable leading to more useful conversations earlier on. Hit up your Rolodex and see if you know anyone that works at an ad agency, in film or TV, or at a video game company. They don’t have to be THE music contact, but they will be able to help you in some small way if you ask.

Finding the right people is really straight-forward and easy to do. If you’re smart about it, you can put it to use TODAY to start building relationships with the proper folks. I’d like to emphasize “building relationships” and not “sending emails all about how great you are.” Keep that in mind before you start dropping emails to folks, they will VERY much appreciate a genuine connection versus yet ANOTHER artist sending them more music they’ve never heard of and don’t care about.

Exclusive vs. Non-Exclusive – Part 2

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Part 2: Non-Exclusive vs. Exclusive Contracts

Last week we discussed some of the pros and cons of signing onto a music placement service offering non-exclusive contracts. It’s definitely an interesting option and can provide a lot of opportunitity, but before you go uploading your music to a Pump Audio, why not consider all options?

Always consider all sides of the story...

Exclusive deals can be very rewarding experiences not just from a monetary stand point, but also from an artistic one. However, they’re definitely not as easy to come by and there can be other drawbacks to signing on with a major publisher or label (or both). Let’s check out a few pros and cons from each:

Pros:

  • Perceived Value is Higher
  • Retain Greater Performance Royalties
  • Better Synch Fees
  • Better Percentages
  • Creative Control

Starting with perceived value is great because it drives some of the other categories. When pitching music for ads at a music library, it was usually a struggle to get someone to listen and VERY difficult to get them to consider a song versus a commercial track. In most cases I got the phone call when the budget was low and not before.

Was the music THAT much different? In some cases a superstar band definitely brings its own associations to the brand, but in many cases you could easily send a library track and commercial track, and save for the name attached to it have no idea which was which. That’s the power of perceived value; to get into the big money opportunities in the first place.

Let’s lump the next few together because they all have to do with the contract you sign. The number 1 fantastic thing about an exclusive deal is your artist, publisher, synch, and even advance are all negotiable. It doesn’t matter if you’re huge or tiny, you CAN negotiate to some point (and I’ll talk about how to do that as a little guy in a future ad). The bottom line is: any additional percentage you can get, take. And with those percentages chunking out of better fees due to prime opportunities, you’re doing pretty great.

Negotiate. Always.

Finally we come to creative control which is something you may or may not care about. For the most part music doesn’t get pitched for political or religious advertisements just out of principle. However, how stoked would you be if your song got placed in an ad for a discount furniture store? If your answer is “ehhh,” then there’s your answer about which contract to pursue. Think of all the products you see at your local drug store and if any of those (like adult diapers or prescription drugs) are not something you’d want to attach your music to, then creative control is an important thing for you. You also get the opportunity to turn down jobs that don’t pay enough.

Looking at the list initially it may seem like a no-brainer – hit the pavement and get after trying to get yourself signed. But hold on, there are some cons to consider before you go burning CDs or duping USB drives.

Cons:

  • Difficult to Secure
  • Adrift in a Sea of Music
  • Possibly Reactive
  • Possibly Disorganized

First, I don’t want to overlook how difficult it can be to land one of these deals. It can take years. In fact, they can just not happen at all. However they DO still happen and they are out there. More on landing this type of opportunity later on from some friends of mine who are experts. For now, just know that it is tough work!

Major labels and publishers have some pretty amazing music to tout when it comes to placing music in film, TV, and advertising. On top of that, they also have a ton of other music. For that reason its possible you’ll get lost among the other artists in the catalog. Now, you might make the same case for non-exclusive style companies, but keep reading as the next two items are what REALLY separates the wheat from the chaff.

First, publishers and labels can be highly reactive. Many companies are changing, particularly new ones, but still far too many more wait for the phone to ring or depend on clients to reach out to them. So sure, they may get a call when someone has $200K to spend on a Super Bowl spot, but guess what the agency wants for that spot? Superstar. So if you’re not as superstar, you need to MAKE SURE the company you’re signing with is abreast of as many opportunities, large and small, as possible.

Don't let your publisher or label be lazy!

The other bad habit of current majors and indies is disorganization. They’re not sure who wrote what, they don’t have useful systems in place to help them find the right music, and maybe they don’t even know who represents the other side of the synch placement. Yikes. This means you could miss an opportunity simply because the company doesn’t know some critical facet pertaining to landing a license for you.

In the end, whichever route you decide to go just be aware of the potential caveats. Now there are more and more people offering services and opportunities to up-and-coming writers. If you do your homework, chances are you can land somewhere that will be a great fit!

As always please let me know any questions you have via email, twitter, or on my blog. I’m always looking for ideas about future articles and always happy to help!