Music Licensing Money

by Sebastian Samuels

That’s the truth, when it comes to licensing your music to make money from it not all clients are worth the time and effort. You must choose your clients wisely and stick to the ones that will make you the most money.

There are clients out there that will will nickle and dime you for everything. Discounting off of this and off of that and the end result is you put in so much of your precious time and what did you get out of it? 150 dollars and 6 hours of wasted time. Not worth it. When you calculate the time it boils down to 25 bucks an hour. When you’re desperate then maybe that’s worth it but you must choose your clients carefully and go after projects that will bring you 150 dollars in 15 minutes or 1000 dollars in 15 minutes. Those are the types of clients projects you should be involved with.

A good musician friend once was complaining to me about this client he had. The client was producing online videos for a big global event that was going to draw major views. He had mentioned he’d delivered almost a hundred tracks to this client and he already hadn’t selected any of the tracks to license yet. This was for a prior project. I was like that’s too much of a waste of time and you it’s time to move on from that client. My friends music was awesome and the highest quality recordings. I would have used his music. My friend also mentioned that this client is very cheap. When I heard how much money he was paying my friend, I was like dude just move on already he’s not worth your time but my friend continued trying to please this waste of a time client. The client would complain to my friend all the time that he only paid 100 bucks a cut at other companies or to other artists but my friend negotiated 150 bucks a cut.

So the client contacted my friend for this big project and he was needing about 20 cuts for these online videos of this big global event. My friend started delivering many of his tracks for these videos and the client kept complaining that none of the tracks are working. So my friend delivered many, many more and finally after delivering over a 150 tracks in a one month period this client picked one track and still complained that alot of the tracks are just not working for his videos.

When my friend was telling me this story I was like dude come on it’s not worth your time and energy to try and please this very cheap and picky client, move on already.

And you know what that’s the truth, move on. Just come right out and tell the guy it’s not working out and the relationship is just not going anywhere. So my friend finally told the guy to just keep the tracks he had sent him (by now it was in the ballpark of 300+ since he had delivered tracks for two different projects) and he will not deliver anymore. If he ever wanted to license any of the other cuts and that was fine but he wont be delivering any other tracks.

So be careful when choosing clients and go after the ones that are going to make you the most money when it comes to music licensing. Stay away from the clients that are really cheap and the clients that will even complain about a penny. Those are the worst ones to be working with!

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by Aaron Davison

Let´s face it. The music business can really suck sometimes! It´s not nearly as glamorous as I thought it was when I was younger and dreamed of one day playing music for stadiums filled with adoring fans. The reality of pursuing a music career is that there are times when it´s really, really hard. It can be a struggle to stay motivated when things don´t seem to be going the way you want them to be.

One of the most common responses I get from people who leave my newsletter is that they appreciate the information and think it´s great, but they´ve simply decided to quit music altogether. They´re throwing in the towel! They´re just giving up. In some ways I´m saddened when I hear this, but in other ways I think this is perfectly normal and makes it easier for those of us who want to keep going and keep getting our music out there.

You have to be in it to win it, as they say. But even if you´re in it, and you know you´re in it for good, it can be discouraging when you´re not getting the instant gratification you´re looking for. So how do you stay motivated along the way when you face the inevitable rejection and setbacks that come with pursuing a music career?

For starters, it helps to be as objective as possible about what you’re trying to do. I once read that the average songwriter who moved to Nashville to work as a songwriter spent about five years on average in Nashville before they landed their first publishing contract. Some things just take time, and if you´re aware of that fact you can stay calm as you confidently move towards your goals.

Secondly, something that has helped me tremendously in staying motivated is setting smaller goals that will ultimately lead to my bigger goals. I realize this sounds like self help 101, but it´s really true and can be easy to forget. If the only thing you´re thinking about is wanting to be a rock star, you´re going to be missing out on a lot of other opportunities along the way that will propel your career forward.

Licensing your music is one of those areas that you can get start getting success in along the way as you pursue other music career related goals. Or it can be an entire career in and of itself. For me licensing my own music, primarily in TV shows, has given me a huge boost of confidence and has inspired me to keep going. And to be honest, somewhere along the way I´ve fallen out of love with the idea of being a rock star and have fallen in love with simply writing songs. Isn´t that´s really what it´s all about anyway?

The lead singer of Coldplay, Chris Martin, was once asked why he wrote songs and I loved his reply. He said that his motivation is to one day write the ¨perfect¨ song, although he knows the ¨perfect¨ song doesn´t exist. That sums up how I feel about writing songs perfectly. Every time I write a new song I want this one to be the ¨perfect¨ one, and although I doubt I´ll ever get there, hopefully with enough practice I can get close!

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