Search Results for: music industry

A Recent Email To An Independent Musician Like You.

January 9, 2013 by Andy

I recently responded to a friend’s email and I realized it has some fantastic tips that every independent musician can use if they’re looking to take control of their music career, get their music licensed, or simply improve their music marketing. Here it is (edited for anonymity’s sake):

It is my personal view that musicians need to know that they are entrepreneurs, and not by choice!, with the industry the way it is currently.

The reality is you can do pretty much everything you need to except for have a lawyer review contracts – and even that you can learn a lot on your own (but seriously, always have a lawyer review). You may have already realized this.

So to get started, you should focus on areas where you think your music will excel – I’d recommend honing in on a specific media (ie: advertising, film, tv, video games). Each of them have their own plusses and minuses, however if you have a particular contact or know someone who works at the following (I just wrote a piece on this to my email newsletter (you can sign up here). It’s free but I try to provide real actionable advice for independent musicians just like you):

Advertising:
– Ad agency: Loads of folks work at these, you need to talk to individual ones. See the newsletter for specific titles, but friends are your BEST inroads.
– Brand: You want someone in the marketing department ultimately. Often times brands let the agency choose the music, however if it’s a music centric brand like Coke or Pepsi, they get more involved.

Film/Tv:
– For TV you’re looking for production companies that are working on particular TV shows – you can find these by watching the credits on any show that you think your music could fit with.
– Films are no trickier, check out Variety – you want the general status of the film to be in post production (where they typically are licensing the music).

Video Games:
– Most major video game companies have music departments that deal with licensing the music they want and hiring composers. For composing custom, you need to be in touch with the “audio” folks. For music, they’ll have separate people of varying titles. Some googling goes a long way

Also, if you have a bunch of scratch tracks that never turned into songs, or songs that were never released, I highly recommend digging them up. It’s nice to have more to offer. You can also mess around with cutting them down into 30 and 60-second versions.

If I were you, I’d start talking to your really good friends and see how many of them know someone at an agency, production company, or work in TV & film. You might be surprised. Then try to arrange a meeting with that person (or if you know someone directly, even better).

More questions? Let me know – and seriously, the newsletter will be useful to you in a lot of ways.

Also, I go into A LOT more detail about building genuine relationships and how to put your best foot forward when pitching yourself. I’ve also covered some great info on what to say when you find a great connection.

Again, you can sign up here.

Who Wants to License Your Music?

December 23, 2012 by Andy

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 – 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 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 Music Licensing Contracts: Non-Exclusive Basics

October 19, 2012 by Andy

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!

How Does An Independent Artist Stay Relevant While Creating New Music?

September 7, 2012 by Andy

How often does a band you love come out with new music? If your answer is “typically once a year” you win the prize (which is getting to read the rest of this article). Last night at a happy hour with some clients I had the unique opportunity to chat with Wise Girl (an independent artist) and the CEO of Melody Robot (and freelance ad agency producer) at the same time. It was great. I love picking their brains to see how the two different sides think and bouncing ideas off of them to see how they resonate.

Looking to successful businesses and marketing campaigns can help eschew old music industry models to advance independent music. Lately my big thing is product cycle.

If you’re an avid Apple fan you really look forward to June, September, and January. Why? Because these are typically the big refresh dates for Apple products. If you watch Breaking Bad on TV chances are you look forward to every Sunday night for 13 weeks in a row and then download the series to watch it again in a few months. Or maybe you love to shop at J. Crew and can’t wait for Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer catalogs to show up in your mailbox.

Are you starting to formulate what I’m driving at? At its fastest music generally comes out once per year. You get 10 songs, sometimes as many as 16, and maybe a concert, and then it’s back into hibernation.

Now, for a band like Pearl Jam that has sold nearly 32 million records and has a huge global fan base, you can choose to release an album once a year (or longer) and go on tour for 3 months and know you’ll sell a ton of records. People will punch each other in the face just for the miniscule chance they’ll be able to buy a ticket to see a live performance too. Leading up to that release, they’ll scour the web searching for every tidbit they can about the band. They have the luxury of already having a hungry public in place. But what if you don’t have a huge fan base? What if you need to transition from being “this band I kind of like” to “I cannot wait for their next album!”?

Pearl Jam - Over 31 Million Albums Sold Shouldn’t independent artists be in frequent contact with their fans? Shouldn’t they seem prolific? Wouldn’t scheduling yourself to write and record music be an insanely useful exercise? So why bust your ass to save up $5K, take FOREVER to complete a project, then release it and act surprised that you don’t immediately gain fame and fortune?

Here’s the deal: as a new artist you have a lot of work to do and only about 20 percent of it is actually writing music. You need to garner some attention from current fans, they need to know what you’re doing, hear the results, and get an exclusive look at how you did it. Fans need to be engaged in your work and encouraged to pass it around to their friends due to its raw magnetism. It is NOT good enough to release an album once a year or an EP every 6 months, play a few shows, and then go back to waiting tables while you wait for something to happen or try to shop your 10 songs around.

The game has changed. Consider using a content calendar. Tweet photos, post temp tracks, ask for feedback, populate and maintain a mailing list (I LOVE Mail Chimp). Find ways to engage your fans, solicit new ones, and keep them posted with what you’re doing, what it looks like, how it’s sounding, and building that anticipation for the final product. After all, it works for Apple.

**Feel free to leave your ideas in the comments about how or if you currently do this, and note which tools you like best.

Excited to be part of the NFL Business of Music Boot Camp

February 24, 2012 by Andy

Recently I was asked to participate on a music supervisor panel at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Sound’s “NFL Business of Music Boot Camp.” As a music industry professional highly interested in music publishing, music licensing, and branding with music I think this a phenomenal event.

I’ll post more thoughts later, but for now here’s a link to an earlier press release about the event:

NFL Business of Music Boot Camp

If you’re going to be there, drop me a line in the comments and let me know what you’re looking forward to most!

Here’s Why Your Label Isn’t Getting More Syncs

June 6, 2014 by Andy

The C-levels at a music publisher I used to work at would drop by my cube once every few days. All nice people, they did their best to be friendly when asking “working on anything big?”

They’d ask that question because I was the person who had developed a system and brought in deals (licenses worth anywhere from $15K-$400K per side). My answer was typically “yes, I’m always working on something big.”
[Read more…] about Here’s Why Your Label Isn’t Getting More Syncs