3 Lessons From $100K in Production Music Royalties
In today's issue, I want to share 3 lessons from making over $120k in production music royalties.
You heard me say that: Production Music is an incredible way to earn extra income. I know musicians that receive royalties from 1,000$ per month to $ 10,000 per month by just having their tracks sit in a publishers' catalog.
But I also know hundreds of people struggling with production music: no publisher, no placements, zero track output, etc.
So, today I am going to show you how I improved my publisher search, increased production volume, and improved placability for my tracks.
Let's go.
Lesson 1: Improve publisher response by Building a Publisher Outreach system
Let's be honest. No publisher means the rest of the list doesn't make much sense to go through.
And this is also where most of the coaching clients I talked to struggle.
No wonder, since we were never really taught how to prospect a client.
Finding the right publisher needs to be a part of your daily routine.
And to make a routine you need a system, that helps you follow through.
Publisher Outreach SystemI built a 4-part email sequence that has helped all of my students get their emails answered and get them signed with their Dream Publisher.
One of my students even got a 1,500$ dollar production contribution from the publisher.
How cool is that!
Need some help emailing publishers?
Here is the email template that all my students use to get signed with a publisher. I have also included a couple of examples to get inspired.
Lesson 2: Increase Valuable Track Output by Implementing Research
There is nothing worse than putting in hours and hours of hard work into a track just to realize that publishers just don't want it.
Before I touch my DAW at all, I do proper research to find out what a publisher needs.
The research includes "listening" to TV, calls with publishers, and searching their catalogs for trends and what kind of music works well for them.
Research to fill the gapI usually look at how many albums of a specific genre they have published.
From there I look at the publishing rate, how often and recently they publish albums like this.
And lastly, I look at a gap in their catalog that I can fill.
Ask yourself: "How can I give this genre a makeover or twist?"
Lesson 3: Maximize Placability by a Valuable Track Structure
Look, all the effort is not worth it when our music isn't placed on TV. That's where most of your royalties are gonna be made.
That's why it is vital to maximizing your effort to make your tracks placable.
I put myself in the editor's shoes and try to imagine how the track I am producing is going to be used.
It's not so much about me, being the most creative and unique I can be but about an emotionally uniform and well-built track that a tv editor can use easily and swiftly.
Valuable track structureEmotionally uniform: Staying with one emotion throughout a track.
The editor maybe listen for 5 seconds before deciding to use a track or not,
Imagine the disappointment when your tracks make it into the timeline and the genre or emotion switches every 10 seconds. That basically makes the track unusable for TV.
And even worse, the editor might not go back to your tracks because of that.Well-built track: A track crafted specifically for use in TV.
You want to make it as easy as possible for a track to get used. Less friction means more placements. If it is easy for an editor to e.g. cut specific parts of your track to fit the edit, the music will get used more. Yeah, just because of that your track might get a placement. A track that is going to be used needs to have these structural features:
Dynamic build: slight dynamic improvements (e.g. adding percussion layers) to give the editor options to choose from.
Easy edit points: to make the editor's life easier, the track needs to have 2-3 edit points (e.g. silence) to make it easy to fade in and out of the track.
See you again next week!
Whenever you're ready I can help you grow your creative business.
Book a time with me here!
