Andy Lykens

Innovating and operating through growth

6 Ways to Get Your Music on TV

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First, I’d like to thank everyone who has written in and asked me questions. Keep them coming! Please keep in mind if you’re just asking me stuff that you can easily find out by using Google, it is unlikely I’ll be very helpful in my answer (which might literally be “Google It”). Blow me away with your requests and I’ll blow you away with my answers!

That said, I did have a general question from Erin Hill and her Pyschadelic Harp (which is pretty cool I must say) that serves as a great jumping off point for some action on your part:

How do I even get my stuff considered for commercials?

The short answer to this question is “hit the pavement.” Luckily, I’m going to give you the long answer too!

There are several options when it comes to getting your music in front of people who consistently license music. Here are just a few ideas to help get you started:

1) Contact them directly – This is definitely the hardcore sales route. It is probably the most daunting and least appetizing approach, but it also allows you to play some solid odds. While there really aren’t that many people directly in charge of music specifically at agencies, there ARE a lot of people involved in the final decision. Use your current connections and see if you know someone who knows someone and reach out.

2) Non-Exclusive Companies – The last article I wrote was 2 parts and detailed some companies like Jingle Punks and Pump Audio who represent music for placement in film, TV, and advertising. This is probably the EASIEST thing you can do. However, you have zero control over price, exposure, there is a ton of competition, and so on. Read the full article for more. All that said, if you’re just cranking out music and your goal is side or passive income or hobby money, this can be a great option.

3) Synch Companies/Reps – These guys are basically are similar to non-exclusives; their goals are the same, but they work with “real” artists and take a fairly hefty percentage of fees. They can be individuals repping certain catalogs or artists, or companies looking to find the next big thing via synch opportunities. These people are really great at what they do and provide the same services as a major publisher or label might, but only to music supervisors and producers (generally speaking).

4) Majors/Major Indies – Everyone knows enough about these types of companies to know that some are definitely better than others. Do your research before picking which ones to shop your music to and be sure they have a pro-active approach to licensing music (most at least KNOW this is important at this point). The issue here is that you’re being VERY indirect about getting music placed since it takes lots of effort and time to land a deal. They also aren’t always the most organized entities and getting paid can be hairy and inaccurate. The benefit is that usually you get some sort of advance (which is recouped however) to float you for a bit. They also will go over more than just licensing opportunities for you and have a lot more resources and financial backing. Key skills: determination, live performances, people-skills, consistency

5) Music Libraries – Libraries are basically a combination of Majors + Non-Exclusive companies. These guys are great in the sense that they are hyper-active about getting their catalogs used. The bad news is the dollars are small and they keep most of them. You’ll want at least 5 albums of material to pitch to them as a “library” to make it worth your while, and then also be sure they know you’re available to write custom music for any projects that arise. Library music is great for the same people who can take advantage of non-exclusives. If you’re an artist, you could look at them as a way to exploit and side-project instrumentals you may want to work on, or as an outlet for custom scoring for ads, trailers, and TV promos. Usually you’re paid a flat fee for any track you write, plus you get your performance royalties. The other nice thing about libraries is they’re really aggressive about collecting/reporting their income.

6) Get Notorious – Obviously there are positive and negative ways to do this, but let’s keep it on the up-and-up! This essentially just busting your butt creating AMAZING music, playing live, and driving metrics that you can present. If you’ve got a million YouTube hits, someone should be taking notice of you. Thousands of Twitter followers? That’s a great start. Simply being a great music entrepreneur can drive you into some amazing opportunities all on it’s own. And while this may be obvious, it may NOT be what you’re currently focusing on. More on this in a later article. Suffice it to say, get great, and get great at touting your greatness.

Hopefully this gives you some ideas about where to start when it comes to getting your music licensed – keep the questions coming (the GOOD questions!) and don’t forget to follow me on twitter.

If you’re REALLY serious about getting your music licensed, subscribe to my newsletter for a free 8-part how-to course, music publishing 101 audio download, and more!

Should You Choose An Exclusive Contract To Get Your Music Licensed?

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Previously I discussed some of the pros and cons of signing a non-exclusive contract to get your music licensed. It’s definitely an interesting option and can provide a lot of opportunity. But before you go uploading your music to 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 (though that’s certainly nice), 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.

Let’s check out a the pros

Pros:

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

It all starts with perceived value

When I was pitching music for ads at a music library it was usually a struggle to get them to consider a library song versus a commercial track. In most cases I got the phone call only when the budget was low and not before.

Was the music quality THAT much different between the two tracks? Generally speaking, no. 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; big money opportunities are more available.

Performance royalties, sync fees, and percentages…

The number 1 fantastic thing about an exclusive deal is that all fees and percentages are negotiable. It doesn’t matter if you’re U2 or You Who?, you too (see what I did there?) CAN negotiate to some extent (and I’ll talk about how to do that as a little guy in a future article).

The bottom line is: any additional percentage you can get negotiate pays dividends.

Negotiate. Always.

Creative control

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,” that should be a clue 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 (you hoity-toity art-nerd).

Looking at the list initially it may seem like a no-brainer – hit the pavement and get after a major label or publisher. But hold on, there are some cons to consider before you go hucking your wares to Universal.

Cons:

  • Difficult to secure
  • Lost in the shuffle
  • Are they pro-active?
  • Organization

Don’t overlook how difficult it can be

It can take years. In fact they can just not happen at all. However they DO still happen and they are out there. If you decide to go for it, do it with all your heart and soul. Just know that like anything worth having, it is tough work!

Lost in the shuffle

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 that is maybe not so amazing, but that they still need to make money on.

For that reason its possible you’ll get lost among the other artists in the catalog. 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.

Are they pro-active?

Many companies are changing but still far too many 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 which artists get first dibs on that kind of money? So if you’re not a 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!

Organization

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 sync placement. Yikes. This means you could miss an opportunity simply because the company doesn’t know some critical business facet. Some entities really have it together, and some can barely make it to work.

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 leave a comment with your own stories. I’m always looking to hear more about your experience and answer questions!

Exclusive vs. Non-Exclusive Music Licensing Contracts: Non-Exclusive Basics

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A lot of my friends are great musicians who really pour their heart and soul into their work and I am truly lucky. Why? Because having worked in the industry for so long for both production music and commercial music entities, from independent to major publishers, and from focusing on strict marketing and sales to careful copyright consideration, I have learned a lot and get to help them out.

Contracts are still contracts!One question has come up consistently over the years whenever artists come across a company like Pump Audio or Crucial Music. After reading through their sites an artist see the term “…represented on a non-exclusive basis…” and gets excited.

Score! Someone’s going to put my music on TV and I get to keep my all my rights!

But hold on – what does “non-exclusive” really mean? In this two part blog, we’ll take a look at some of the differences between exclusive and non-exclusive contracts and how they could potentially effect your copyright value and revenue as an artist.

Non-Exclusive Basics

  • You retain your rights.
  • You typically get royalties from the artist’s share of your performance royalty.
  • They typically keep the publisher’s share of the performance royalty.
  • They typically take 50% of the synchronization fee (65% in the case of Pump!)

Exclusive Basics

  • You retain your rights.
  • You typically get 100% of the artist’s share of your performance royalty.
  • The publisher’s share of performance royalty is negotiable.
  • They typically take a negotiated percentage of the synchronization fee.

Hmm, doesn’t look too different does it? Let’s dig deeper.

Non-Exclusive:

Alright, the big benefit of being non-exclusive is that you can literally get your music out there, to anyone. You can register with as many non-exclusive entities that you like, you can get 3rd party PR representation, and you can shop your music to agency producers and TV/Film supervisors yourself. This is definitely a great thing. It means you can literally put your song in multiple places and have multiple people getting your music out to lots of supervisors and agencies.

Get Your Music Out There!

This could mean that you get put up for a lot of opportunities, or in case your music is quite niche, that the few opportunities that come up your music is involved in.

But as you can probably tell by the way I’m writing there are some caveats to be aware of with a non-exclusive deal.

First, there are typically terms for these deals even though they’re non-exclusive. That means if you get offered an exclusive publishing deal but have signed a non-exclusive deal, some litigation may be involved to get you out of the non-exclusive contract so you can sign the exclusive one (if you want to).

Next, you MUST realize that these companies do NOT get top-dollar for the tracks that they license. A “low-budget” advertising sychronization fee, let’s just say, is around $15K. But, if the agency is looking for a pre-cleared track, chances are the most they’ll get is $3-4K, and that’s IF the fee is negotiated (in the case of Pump, the agency producer can ‘check-out’ online and fees are assigned at a set, flat-rate). This is BAD. It means that your music is only being put up for opportunities that will yield low dollars and probably have limited air-time (meaning your performance royalties are smaller too).

That said you may have 50 scratch tracks sitting around from 1994 and weirdly, people aren’t listening for that sweet Ace of Bass sound anymore. Or, you may be in a rock band but have a bunch of film trailer tracks that you did for fun that are just collected digital dust – upload away! In this case, it’s bonus money for songs you don’t really care about.

However if you’ve got your heart and soul project and you’ve just started shopping it around, or you don’t know where to start but would LOVE to get your music on TV, it may be best to beat the street a little bit before you turn to a non-exclusive service.

There’s one more thing to consider and it’s something I like to call “perceived copyright value.” This simply means that when someone thinks of your song they associate a price point with it automatically depending on certain factors.

For example, if I told you I have a really great song and all my friends tell me it would be perfect for a commercial, you might roll eyes or punch me in the face depending on how many times you’ve heard that.

But if I say “hey, I JUST released my new EP – it sounds awesome! I recorded in the same studio with the same engineers as Arcade Fire and it was produced by a guy who’s got 5 top fifty songs to his credit,” well, which one do you think sounds more expensive?

The point is this – if an ad agency hears “pre-cleared,” they know that means less-expensive. Sure, it also means “easy to license” and that’s important to them a lot of times, but what they won’t do is bother to remember who the artist is that created the track or put it on their iPod (I mean never say never, but in reality it’s tough enough to get them listening to new major publisher stuff on their iPod).

If you’ve been thinking about doing one of these deals, I encourage you to take a look at the FAQ on their site and be really certain you know what you’re giving for what you get.

You can read more about what an exclusive deal might entail and also evaluate some pros and cons here. By then, you should have a really good idea of where you’re going to focus your efforts when it comes time to shop that shiny new song around!

A Quick Of Italian Design

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I’m just checking in while abroad and have some great content upcoming for when it’s back to the grind for me! Until then I’d like to point out the amazing, seemingly inherent Italian focus on design. Every cafe, apartment, door, window, shop…everything! Beauty is everywhere in this country. In the States, our focus is on being better, doing more, earning more, achieving more. Here it is about creating better aesthetic, looking nicer, feeling better.

Neither is right or wrong, in fact I think it would be perfection to combine the two ideas. Let me know your thoughts in the comments on which you focus on, and how you could better improve the alternate trait wouldn’t you?

Get On The Right Track

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My commute to work in the morning is a fairly simple process but it does involve two sensible options.

The F TrainOption 1: I can get on the F train at Delancey/Essex, then change at West 4th street for the uptown C or E. I’ve made the commute as quick as about 20 minutes and typically it doesn’t take longer than 30 minutes.

Option 2: Get on the F at Delancey/Essex, and get off at 34th Street, then walk the rest of the way.

Option 1 means I have to wait for a second train but be slightly closer to my office at the exit. Option 2 means I don’t have to wait for a second train but I do have a little bit further to walk.

It may seem like a snap. Maybe choose to walk a littler further on nice sunny days like today, or perhaps take option 1 when I’m in a hurry. But more goes into it than that. Because some mornings I don’t bring coffee so I like to stop and get iced coffee at Starbucks. Of course, if it’s chilly and I want a hot coffee the cup at the local deli on my way to work on option 1 is just fine.

But of course if I stay at the back of the train on Option 2, I walk fewer short blocks and only 1 long block.

And on, and on it goes and I tell you this isn’t a single-time occurrence. This happens in my mind almost everyday depending on how close to being on time I am vs. my need for coffee, etc.

This morning I realized I was over-analyzing my situation and from now on, I’ll just take option 2. Not for any “good reason,” mostly just because it feels better and I am TIRED of over-thinking about it.

It dawned on me that in life, we often do this.

When we try to achieve a goal, how often do we over-think our situation? And how often are we presented with the same, or similar situations, and continue to choose based on lengthy mental analyzations?

As musicians here’s how it might manifest itself:

Goal: “Today I’m going to submit my music to a label”

Thought process: What if they don’t like it? What if someone doesn’t answer the phone? What if someone does answer the phone? What if I forget to attach my pkit to the email? Should I follow up with the person I’ve just emailed a couple of days ago? What if it bothers them? What if I get the wrong person? I’d better research the right person to talk to. Crap, I can’t find the person I need to talk to. Now what do I do? I found the main line but I’m terrible on the phone.

Don't over thing - pick a direction and move ahead!

…and on and on. The reality is we think too much about almost everything and too many times we manage to convince ourselves into prolonging efforts or even worse, into in-action. Analyzation can be a very useful tool but we need to ACT more on our guts. ACT on the goal.

Take A Step!If you have a goal set for yourself for today, or next week or this year – what are you actively doing to move closer to it? How can you take a step right now to simply DO that thing? If it’s a long term goal can you back-track from end-result to what you can do TODAY to progress just a little more towards the desired result?

Today, choose a path to take and a take the first step to move down it. Put down the Xbox controller and write the chorus to that song. Close down iChat and make a list of 15 main-line phone numbers for labels to call. Turn off the TV, and turn on Spotify and listen to 15 new songs you’ve never heard before.

Your goal can be a simple one so long as you keep moving forward.