Making Songwriting Pay
Making Songwriting Pay
“Before thinking about music publishers as a priority, the professional songwriter will be focusing how and where they themselves can make money on a given song.”
In this edition of Songwriters Market we present the first in a series of extracts from a new book by the former head of copyright for EMI Music Publishing, Dennis R. Sinnott, called ‘Masters of Songwriting’.
In the book Dennis offer his own unique take on the songwriting world drawn from his extensive experience in music publishing at EMI - where in addition to administering a repertoire of over 1 million works, he was also instrumental in negotiating deals with many super stars, including Queen, Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan – and then later in pivotal roles at Velvet Music, Orange Publishing and Milmarsh Music, before his present role as technical consultant in the formation of publishing, management, record and production companies.
In this first extract from ‘Masters of Songwriting’, Dennis Sinnott stresses the importance of songwriters not bowing down to the authority of publishing companies but first learning how the industry operates and asserting their considerable rights as a song’s composer.
’Make Songwriting Pay’
- an extract from ‘Masters of Songwriting’ by Dennis R. Sinnott.Have you ever looked at the songs you’ve written and thought, isn’t it time I started to earn royalties off them - just enough so I can pay off my credit card or at least pay the rent? After all, isn’t that what we’re told that songs generate royalties? Are you kidding me?! As someone who has worked for the largest music publishing group of all time, I can speak with some authority.
I have seen medium sized publishing companies with 40 employees not only survive, but prosper into million dollar empires on the earnings of a handful of standards or ‘evergreens’. These tuneful little nuggets can go on generating income every hour of their copyright existence (life of the author plus another seventy years). I have known songwriters to purchase mansions and recording studios on the back of them - some on just one song!
One of the things I discovered in music publishing is that a vast number of unsigned composers and lyricists fail to understand the awesome earning power of a song. Many more have never gotten beyond the initial hurdle of presenting or mailing in their song to a music publisher, much less secure a deal. After receiving a handful of rejections many begin to give up. They convince themselves the songs are no good, and never will be.
The truth is, their songs are every bit as good, and sometime even better, than some of the most commercial melodies and lyrics hummed and sung by millions since the dawn of the phonogram. So why should this be? It’s simple and it’s sad. The good news is it doesn’t have to be. More songwriters fail because they - the songwriter, not the publisher - have a lack of understanding of the music industry and how it really functions. If only there was someone there to tell them what they should be doing.
Alas, their inexperience prevents them from realising that trying to secure a deal on an unpublished song should not be their priority, indeed it’s the worst thing they could be doing.
Think about it. If your average music publisher has a repertoire of say, twenty to fifty thousand songs, how much time do you think he’s going to spend looking for an artist to cover your song? Even if he finds your song really cool and interesting, and even presents you with a publishing assignment, he will for sure be offering you the worst possible terms. Why? He’s going to have to work hard to give your song life, and no music publisher I know, is going to do that for anything less than the lifetime of the copyright. And who would blame them? They’re in business after all, like everyone else – and time is money. From the songwriter’s point of view, however, no deal is better than a bad deal.
Of course, the experienced songwriter will know this. He will know not to be so dumb as to assign the rights for long periods of time without an exploitation clause terminating the rights after say a few months, if the music publisher has failed to secure a record release of his song.
Before thinking about music publishers as a priority, the professional songwriter will be focusing how and where they themselves can make money on a given song. They will be thinking in terms of separate territories and different markets. Above all, he will know how and what part of his song to license directly via the internet, and for how much. He may reserve entering into any kind of publishing deal altogether, preferring instead to license the rights directly himself with a television, film company in, say, Los Angeles or Frankfurt, or a synchronisation license for a commercial in Paris, or a mechanical license with a record company in Glasgow.
As the experienced songwriter has already protected, activated and begun the licensing process, they know that when they’re ready to offers the rights in his songs no music publisher will turn them down. Why - because they have already set up a license to generate income. Moreover the deal will be largely on their terms with the physical rights focused on a specific market and digital rights always granted non-exclusively.
