(Total Number of Successful Downloads/Total Number of Unique Visitors) x 100%

So if you have 15 successful downloads in the month and your website have around 2000 unique visitors for that month, and then your website conversion rate is around:

Conversion Rate = (15/2000) x 100% = 0.75%

Conversion rate can change from one industry to another. One industry (particularly those in the shopping niche) tends to have higher conversion rate because of the completeness of their products. Websites such as Amazon and EBay reportedly have conversion rates around 5% to 10%. If any person shops in Amazon, most likely he/she will find the things that they would like to buy; thus this explains one aspect of such high conversion rate.

In independent/online music publishing industry; this conversion rate is not the same. If you would like to know the actual figures; you can see how www.musicforlicense.net performs in terms of free music downloads conversion rate:

Conversion rate and download statistics of musicforlicense.net as of September 2, 2011:

Total number of successful downloads = 501
Total number of unique visitors = 53654

The scope of the data is from November 12, 2009 to September 2, 2011.

Therefore the overall conversion rate of the music is around:

Conversion rate = (501/53654) x 100% = 0.934%

Well I can say that its very low compared to what will be the conversion rate of Amazon and EBay, nevertheless this conversion is OK provided the profitability target of the website has been attained. Take note that this is free download music conversion rate. If you are not offering free downloads, you should assume that your conversion rate is way smaller than that (because only a small amount of visitors are willing to buy and everyone loves free). I do not have exact figures and you need to assume.

For example, you would like to start an online music publishing website. One requirement is that you should estimate the profitability of it considering how much will be the income and operating cost of the website. So how can you assess the potential profitability?

Let’s start with the following assumptions. Assuming you have:

Unique visitors = 6500 unique visitors in a single month
Average license fee per customer download = $20
Conversion rate (significantly lower than free downloads, say only 1/8 of it) = (1/8) x (0.934%) = 0.117%

These are your website operating cost per month:

Average hosting cost per month = $5
Average domain registration cost per month = $2

Total income per month (Gross):

Gross Income = Conversion rate x Unique Visitors x Average license fee per customer download
Gross Income = 0.117% x 6500 x $20
Gross Income = $152.1

Total operating cost = $5 + $2 = $7

Net income = Gross Income- Total operating cost = $152.1 – $7 = $145.1

So you earn a profit of $145.1 each month for those assumed statistics. What will happen if you implemented some website improvements that doubled your conversion rate at the same level of unique visitors and cost?

Gross Income (at doubled conversion rate) = (0.117% x 2) x 6500 x $20
Gross Income (at doubled conversion rate) = $304.2
Net income = $304.2 – 7 = $297.2
So your profit would also double.

What will happen if you have successfully doubled your unique visitors at the same conversion rate and cost?

Gross income (at doubled unique visitors) = (0.117%) x (6500 x 2) x ($20)
Gross income (at double unique visitors) = $304.2
Net income = $304.2 – $7= $297.2

So it would end up having the same profit with before. Maximizing profit, you need to look into improving these things:

a.) Conversion rate
b.) Unique visitors
c.) Average license fee per customer download

“Music Publishers” owned the rights to the music/songs and its lyrics. Music publishers are mandated by copyright law to represent the copyright ownership in behalf of the songwriters that they are associated. It is why if you are a songwriter and wants to have your song signed by a music publisher; you need to sign a document called “transfer of copyright ownership” to the music publisher. However the percent of ownership is shared with the songwriters. You can see in typical songwriter-artist agreement of 50% – 50% split between the music publisher and the writer. When the song earns any income, it will be split to half between the publisher and the writer.

The above is the classic/traditional definition of what is a “music publisher” but like the recording industry in the digital age, there will be changes that spawned new types of businesses such as the music libraries.

“Music Libraries” are the “modern music publishers” because they possess BOTH the ownership of song copyrights and master sound recording of the music. This will give them right to issue licenses also. The main difference with the music publishers is that music libraries own “100%” of these rights (for both song and master recording). Most independent music publishers (e.g. www.musicforlicense.net); belongs to the music libraries classification for music publishers. It is because the catalog is entirely owned by the publisher for both song and master recording copyrights.

Most music libraries created their owned music (like www.musicforlicense.net) while some music libraries get music by purchasing music rights from music providers (producers, artist, and writers) for a single fee. This price includes acquiring the entire music and recording copyrights. So after the purchase; the music library now owns the entire rights to the song and recording.

Other music libraries also hire a lot of producers, writers and even artist under a “work for hire” agreement” in a contractual basis. In this practice, all works created by the producers, writers and artist are legally owned by the music library. This is different from traditional music publishers because the songwriters are not under a “work for hire” agreement. This means that songs written for the traditional music publishers are not entirely owned by the music publisher but a split ownership with the songwriter.

Summing up the definition, you can say that:

All music libraries are music publishers but not all music publishers are considered as music libraries. If you are searching music online, almost all the independent music publisher websites are also called music libraries because:

1.) They owned 100% of song copyrights.
2.) They owned 100% of master recording copyrights.

Most traditional music publishers left are the big ones (for example Sony music publishing, etc.) with a small percentage belong to independent publishers.

Advantages of dealing with music libraries than traditional music publishers:

1.) Licensing music from music libraries is obviously faster compared to traditional music publishers. The primary reason is that music libraries can only issue a single license (for the use of songs and master recording) then it’s done. With traditional music publishers, they do NOT own the master recording copyright so you need to get TWO licenses from TWO different persons (music publisher for the song copyright and recording label for the master recording copyright) just to completely clear your project licensing requirements. This takes a lot of time.

1.) Formulate Strategies, Know the expectations and TEST it.

Every business has its own strategy to succeed. In big corporations like Apple, Google and Microsoft; the strategies starts from the top management like the CEO. In self-music publishing business you are the sole owner which would be responsible for formulating the business strategies. Like most entrepreneurs, you would most likely fail the first time you implement some strategies, don’t be upset it is normal. But as time goes by, you would know the music publishing industry very well and could come up with pretty solid business strategies. Over the years, you would be implementing a LOT of strategies and would settle for the most effective one that could stabilize your business.

You should have some form of business strategy to succeed. Below are some examples of business strategy in music publishing common for independent publisher and some expectations:

STRATEGY1: Offering your music for free to the public only for non-commercial use and asking them to “like” your page in Facebook and other social network sites.

EXPECTATION1: This is useful for music that does not yet receive buzz and publicity. Offering music for free can create some buzz because the norm is to pay before you can download great music. If they find your site, they will stick to it and download more music for free! Creating buzz can be very useful for promotions and in this case will be known to some private companies that would be willing to pay and license your music since the nature of usage is commercial. You will be earning money for your music coming from the commercial licenses.

STRATEGY2: Offering music for free regardless of commercial and non-commercial use but will ask for optional donations to be sent to PayPal.

EXPECTATION2: This is similar to the first strategy but this time; even commercial use can license your music freely with optional donation. You would earn money for your music coming from the donations received.

You can formulate countless strategies for your own business. The above are just examples on how you will be implementing your music publishing business in hope of earning profit. The key to testing effective strategies is to actually implement it in your business; know the expectations and get results. If the expectations are not attained or does not help in stabilizing your business, it is time to move on to test a different strategy.

2.) Benchmark successful music publishing companies

Benchmarking is a very powerful tool. Say you have a music publishing website that contains your music catalog and it is not performing well. You might ask: “What is wrong with my business” “What is wrong with the way I run this business”. This is the time to go to successful music publishing websites and learn from them. What websites you need to benchmark depends on what strategy you are planning to implement. For example if you are planning to implement “royalty free scheme” in music licensing, then you would be visiting a lot of royalty free websites and learn from them.

3.) Keep your Documentations in a secure place

Now you are managing your business, you should take care of the legal aspects as well. Documents, copyright papers, master recordings, lyric sheets, writer information, contracts, etc. should be kept in an organized manner. You should have some form of tracking system for all of your papers. As simple as writing down all the name of the important documents in the Excel spread sheet can help you track down if the document does or does not exist. It can help you find lost documents easily.

You should put all the documents in safe place and categorize them clearly. For example, you should not be mixing copyright documents with lyric sheets. Lyrics should belong to lyrics category while copyright certificates should be placed in copyright related categories.

a.) Advance royalties – this is the royalties paid by the music publisher to you in exchange of accepting and signing the music publishing agreement. After receiving the advance royalties, the music publisher will officially include your songs in their catalog. The music publisher will then represent your songs in all licensing deals that go along with it.

b.) Public performance royalties – these royalties will be paid by the performance organizations such as ASCAP, BMI and SESAC to the music publisher and the songwriter. You will earn a portion of this income depending on the agreement (mostly 50%). Take note that you will only received performance royalties if your songs was licensed by companies that will publicly broadcast your music. Examples of these are television companies, radio stations, web casting, film, etc.

c.) Synchronization royalties – these royalties will be paid by the film and TV production companies for the use of music in their projects.

You see that there are a lot of income sources for a songwriter. This is how you can make living writing songs. But wait, before you can realize this you need to find a music publisher. Then one of your goal as a songwriter should land a music publishing deal someday. How to easily get this deal? Actually it is very easy, just follow the step by step guide below and it will increases your chances of landing a music publishing deal.

Step1.) Craft your songs as perfectly as possible. Before sending your songs to a music publisher; it should sound as perfect as possible. Below are the checklists:

a.) Does the demo sound broadcast ready? (This includes the demo artist performance as well). It does not have to be fully produced, as simple as guitar and vocals demo are sufficient.
b.) Does your song well-arranged? Remove those boring sections.
c.) Does your song have appealing lyrics? Lyrics are important. It should convey some story.
d.) Does your song have excellent hook? These are the memorable parts of the song (commonly found in chorus). If you are doubtful have a 5 to 6 year old listen to your song 3 times and then stop it. Let the kid sing what he/she remembers about the song that has been played. If the kid can sing/remember specific sections, voila! There goes your song hook! If the child cannot remember anything from the song, your song does not have a great hook, rewrite it. Preferably you should put your song hook before 45 seconds because music publishers’ attention span can be very short.

Step2.) Secure a copyright registration certificate for all your songs that you want to be published. Music publishers need some proof that you really own the material you are submitting to them. The best proof is the copyright certificate with your name on it as well as the date of creation/registration. This is usually issued by your government copyright/intellectual property divisions.
Step3.) Look for music publishers that are actively looking for songs. This where most mistakes are made; watch out for these common mistakes:

Mistake: Submitting unsolicited demos without obtaining permission.
Correct: Send only demos if the music publisher is asking for it directly from you.

Mistake: Sending the entire collection of songs.
Correct: Send only the “strongest” songs; typically one to 3 songs at most. Asked the music publisher what format they need. Typically some will accept MP3 320kbps, delivered online and others will accept only physical CD audio. It depends on the music publisher, so you need to ask this first.

Mistake: Not sending some bio, contact information, list of song titles, copyright registration information and lyrics.
Correct: Include this vital information because it will be used during song screening. You can include this entire information in your press kit whether online method or not.

Mistake: Sending songs to music publishers of different genre.
Correct: For rock music publishers, submit only rock music. Otherwise for jazz music publishers, submit only jazz music.

Step4.) Wait for music publisher feedback and be patient for the reply. Sometimes it can take weeks or even more. You can follow-up at least once.

Step5.) If the music publisher is interested; they will contact you and ask for more information such as songs, etc. Answer them promptly and do not expect a BIG advance royalty during initial offer. You need to start small. They might offer you are small advance at first typically if your song still does not have that much exposure. This is OK.

Step6.) A songwriter-music publisher agreement will then be drafted and signed between you and the music publisher. Make sure you understand all the terms involved and asked for entertainment lawyer for assistance.

Step7.) If you cannot get some reply early; never stop marketing your music and someday your music will fall into the right hands. Never stop looking for music publishers.

Step1.) Write great songs. Of course, you might argue songwriting talent is not needed but it is. A lot of recording labels today are cutting music publishing cost and they are signing artist that write songs for themselves so that they can negotiate a much lower mechanical licensing fees for each song. If you have a lot of great songs, then you have secured step 1. Go to step 2.

However, the problem on this step is that a lot of wannabe artist believes their song is great when in fact its not. Try to get an honest opinion from the wide variety of sources about your song. Make sure they are not your mama, papa, friend or brother because they do not tell the truth. Give it to a real music critic, someone who is unrelated to you so that you can receive honest opinion about your music. Do not proceed to step 2 and the rest of the steps if you are not sure you have “lots” of quality songs.

Step2.) Can you sing “really” well? This is where most of the debate is. A lot of artists today particularly the mainstream “pop” scene are not really brilliant singers. Well it’s not an excuse, to be a great artist you should still be able to sing really well. Forget about that crappy artist that gets signed with their poor singing skills, they do not last long. If you want to make a living in music, aim for a long term success; not just a 2 year success span, 5 year success span. Think of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson they have careers that span over the lifetime and their songs are still played today. They are your role models as a recording artist.

Again the problem is not there are only few who can really sing well. And the recording label is very selective about your voice quality particularly if you are aiming for a more “vocal” focused genre such as country and ballads. Get honest opinion about your raw singing skills; join a lot of singing contest. If you cannot win “first place” even “once”; you might not have great/quality voices that can compete and makes your label proud – its time to think another career NOT in the music business.

Step3.) Can you really give an “outstanding” live performance of your original song “on the spot”? Live performance skills are common among those who are signed to a record label, it’s because the label is expecting them to perform in front of their fans. If you are the type of person who is shy, not confident, rejecting public request to sing live because you are shy and unprepared- its time to think another career NOT in the music business.

Step4.) Do you already have a LOT of fans? It’s because record label is a business that are made to produce profits. They do not invest in “unproven” talent. If you are great enough to conquer step 1 to step3, getting a lot of fans is not very hard. All you need is play frequently live, start a Facebook fan page, Twitter or Youtube channels and have all of your fans sign-up to them. Post your concert schedule. Record label is attracted to an artist that are willing to work hard by themselves, if you already have a lot of fans that are start following you –record label will think its not hard to earn a sale from released CD’s or downloads because of your solid fan base. Get it?

Step5.) Do you have quality demo recordings of your original song? Make sure that you have some demos. You can hire a recording studio and producer to do it; it should not be that super expensive but as long as it sounds nice. You need this demo to share with your fans and other promotional reasons. Bear in mind that the moment some record label catches your attention (honestly you do not beg for label deal, THEY WILL COME TO YOU IF YOU ARE ALREADY SUCCESSFUL); they most likely want to hear some of your demos so make sure you are prepared.

Step6.) Do you have some sales from your music? Why should a label invest in your product if you are not yet proven? Go ahead, do some hard work to get some sales out of your music. The sales figure is very important because it catches labels attention that your product is great and worthwhile, and then they will start to come to you to join the bandwagon.

Step7.) Do you look great? Looks are important but not required; it is why this is in the step 7 and not in the more important steps earlier. You should do your best to look yourself good. If you are too fat, go lost some fat and get that shape. You should look nice in front of your audience and fans.

Step8.) Do you have friends in the music industry? Get some friends particularly in the music industry such as entertainment lawyers, producers, engineers, music publishers, PR teams, etc. A lot of success in the music business comes from referrals, if your talent is great and you pass step 1 to step7; it is very easy for your contacts to recommend you as an artist of that label. Do not just use your friends to help you attain your dream, instead find a friend so that you can learn from them – the music business in general.

Tip#1: Make your website to load VERY fast – remember a study on the effects of slow loading website to your visitors: http://www.peer1.com/hosting/how-slow-websites-impact-visitors-and-sales.php. It says that 33% of the visitors will abandon your website after 4 seconds. Of course, if you are musician and planning to get more fans. You will not like this.

What you can do is to use a fast CMS like WordPress and use that in your website. Do not add to much graphics and slow loading elements like Flash. Its why I hate visiting artist pages in MySpace because it loads very slow!

Tip#2: Showcase your music – the biggest mistake you can commit in your website is that you forget to showcase your music. Remember that your music is your product. You need to show it to your visitors so that they will impress your performance and catalog. As a result, they will most likely buy the music or become one of your loyal fans.

Do not forget to test your music player in all web browsers, to make sure it is comfortable. You can read more details here: http://www.labnol.org/internet/design/html-embed-mp3-songs-podcasts-music-in-blogs-websites/2232/

Tip#3: Sell your music – again one of the big mistakes is that even though you showcase your music; most artist forget how their fans or visitors will buy or license their music. Once your visitors are in your website, eliminate all possibilities of a guessing game and tell them everything what they need to know and that includes where to buy your music.

Some artist uses Paypal as a method to accept payment online while some others are using iTunes, CD baby or Amazon as their distributors. Kindly put the exact URL and make sure it is constantly updated.

Tip#4: Always include a fully working contact form – you should find a way for your music fans to contact you. Some of these are not your fans anyway but could be A&R searching for you. So make sure you have a fully working contact forms.

Tip#5: Use high quality MP3 – some music websites afraid of using too much disk space in their hosting accounts and are too conservative with MP3 file sizes. As a result, the music that they are streaming in their website is relatively in very poor quality. Make sure you stream your music at an acceptable quality. The standard is at least 128kbps at a minimum for best listening experience.

Tip#6: Treat your website as serious as your real press kit! - your website acts exactly like an online demo press kit. So this means, it should include you high quality photos (of course, publish using a reasonable image sizes so that it will load fast- remember Tip#1); your music; bio; your achievements; etc.

Tip#7:Include the URL of your website in your business card- this is very helpful because most of your fans and acquaintances may remember you and need to contact you. The easiest way they can get to you online is by visiting your website.

Tip#8: Include the URL of your website in all of your social networking profiles – if you have a Facebook, Linkedin, or Twitter account; by all means include the URL to your website.

Tip#9: Get listed in the musician directory. There are a lot of music artist directory in the web. Some a free and some a paid. For example Yahoo directory accepts both free and paid listing.

Tip#10: Use a catchy homepage title – for example if your name is Juan Dela Cruz and you are a musician in Cebu City, Philippines. Your professional is that you are a pop and rock musician for hire. You can formulate a more descriptive title such as :

Juan Dela Cruz- Cebu City Pop and Rock Musician For Hire

If someone is searching in Google for “Cebu City Musician for hire” you can be ranked first and you get more business from it.

Tip#11: Write more music tutorials in your website and offer it for free. If you have some expertise in music theory, write an in-depth tutorials about music and publish it in your website. Make sure it is originally written and not copied from somewhere else. This is a very useful marketing tool because great music tutorials written by performers themselves is very hard to find on the net.

Tip#12: Find more friends in your music genre and link to them. Ask them to link to you also. For example if your genre is rock and you will find a lot of indie rock artist on the web. Contact them.

Tip#13: Offer some of your music for free. You fans will think you are not only a great musician but generous as well.

If the music genre is on a decline or is not popular anymore, your music will also get a fewer opportunities to earn and attract business. This means less income for a songwriter or music publisher where you are talking about music business. For an artist, it means less fans and audience. There will be fewer places that accepts your gig offer or invites you to play because your genre is not that what most people loves to listen.

Therefore what is currently the most popular and the best music genre for the year 2011? This is a worldwide survey using Google trends(www.google.com/trends). But first, lets mention the top nominees. These are the most common type of music genre:

1.) Pop music genre
2.) Rock music
3.) Country music genre
4.) Hip Hop music
5.) Instrumental music

Below is the Google trends result:

When you examined the trend above, its a close battle between rock music and country music. These two are currently the most popular and the best music genre to target for this year, and possibly for the coming years. Other music genre did have some popularity but it cannot matched with the rock and country music genre. For example, pop and hip hop music are comparable. It is also observed that instrumental music is “slowly” becoming more popular. It’s because in the year 2004, it is the most “unpopular” form of music genre among the top 5 choices. Now it has attain similar popularity with pop and hiphop music.

One thing to take note is that “rock” music is a broad type of music genre. You might hear of sub-classication of “rock” music which are as follows:

1.) heavy metal music
2.) christian rock music
3.) punk rock music
4.) alternative rock music
5.) death metal music

So what the most popular form of rock music in 2011. Below is the trend comparison result:

You have noticed that its the heavy metal music which is the most popular form of rock music. And this is followed by alternative rock, punk rock , christian rock music and death metal music.

Recommendations:

1.) If you are a songwriter/publisher needing to maximize the exposure of your music catalog. You need to target the most profitable genres which are the following: rock and country music. The pop music is still popular but it seems that the “majority” of people nowadays are more inclined to listen to rock and country for primary reasons:

a.) In rock and country music; the artist are high calibre, talented and work hard in writing/producing great songs. And most of them have some great collection of songs with great live performances. This is different to what happen to pop music today.

b.) Think twice of the genre you need to select. Sometimes this requires expertise in your part. This includes your singing and performing style.

Profit = Sales – Cost

It’s very simple, yet a lot of musicians go broke before the business venture can turned into profit. Why? It’s because they do not do any risk calculations in advance. OK, let me give you a realistic data.

Recurring Cost:

Cost of domain registration (annual) = $20, so that you have your own “mymusicwebsite.net”
Cost of hosting (annual) = $4.5 x 12= $54, this is a pretty good estimate. Look for great hosting companies.
Total annual cost= $74
Total recurring monthly cost = $74/12 ~ $7

Fixed One-time Cost:

Website Design and development= $0, you will do this yourself.
Copyright registration of entire catalog = $35
ASCAP/BMI affiliation= $0, they are free
Sound exchange affiliation = $0
ISRC application = $75
Music production studio costs breakdown (assuming you do not have a home studio). You can save a lot by having your own recording studio.

Digital audio workstation computer = $430 (if you do not have your own computer)
DAW software = $300; this is the software for recording music. Free if you are using Ardour
Studio near field monitor= $400
Audio interface = $300
Vocal microphones = $100
Total fixed one-time cost= $1640

Assuming it takes you two years to get your website attract as much potential customers (realistic, assuming you do a lot of hard work in the marketing). Assuming in this two year start-up period; you still do not have any sales. Then, you need:

Total investment capital needed= Total recurring cost annual + Total Fixed one-time cost = $1640+$74*2 = $1788

What happens after this two year period? Supposing you attract 3000 visitors per month and if your website has a conversion rate of 1.0%. Also, assuming you offer your music for licensing at an average price of $30, then:

Total sales per month = 3000 visitors x 1.5% x $30= $900
10% tax assumption= $90
Net profit = $900-$7 = $893

Months it takes to recover the $1788 original investment = $1788/$893~ 2 months
Steady monthly profit after two months= $893

Summary: Starting from scratch, you need to originally invest around $1788 to get started in your own music business online. This will allow you to write and record your own songs at home. Assuming all of your songs is now broadcast ready. You are now ready to sell it online. The $1788 investment already includes the web hosting and domain but you will be the one to make the website. Then once that website is setup and all of your music legal documents are in place; you need to wait 2 years for your website monthly traffic to mature (of course in this 2-year period, you should never stop marketing your website!).

After this 2 year period, it only takes 2 months to recover your original investment. And then you have a steady income of $893 dollars from your music assuming your website attracts 3000 visitors per month and your conversion rate is 1.0%. Your still have more money-making opportunities: In those licenses issued, you can earn additional income from performance royalties. Depending on your song success, you can earn up to $1000 per month from selling your own music online, including royalties.

Financial and career advice:

1.) In any risky forms for investment such as music business, I would recommend that you will not invest more than 2% of your entire savings to music. This will let you recover any inevitable losses in the business.

2.) It will take time to succeed, but learning from all successful entrepreneurs, they start slow, learn from mistakes, be happy with what you are doing, work steady and stay patient and never stop trying.

Step1.) Write your music and lyrics. It is important to have more songs in your catalog (more than 20 songs for example) because your customers might be looking for a variety of music in your catalog. Write a variety of music, example low tempo songs, fast tempo songs, instrumental music, ballads, rock. Lyrics are very important, make sure they are meaningful and can relate to reality. Most customers are seriously reading your lyrics and assess whether it is the right music for their project. So make sure that whenever you write a song, you should keep in mind some theme, topics and story to your lyrics. Writing quality melodies is of course very important. But it is very hard to get this right. I recommend not hurrying in your writing process, instead spending a lot of time crafting it. Find the best melodies you can provide to your lyrics. Write with a “hit song” in mind. In music business; remember that quality beats quantity. If you have 20 great music is much better than to have hundreds of crappy written songs. Your music is your primary product, make sure it is competitive and can beat those music that are played on radio and everywhere.

Step2.) Do professional recordings of your music. Start doing recordings with your strongest music/songs. If you need to save money on music production and create your own recordings; it is possible but it can take some time although it is very rewarding. Some musicians nowadays have their own home recording studio; so they do not need to spend a lot of money renting a studio. Read this useful website on home audio recording for details about doing your own music production.

Step3.) Register your music publishing business with your government office. As a start; it suffices to select “sole proprietorship” as the business form. Decide for your business name, make sure it is original, short, and easy to remember and not trademarked by somebody else. You can ask for help with your government office for this. Example of business names can be “Ripple Wide Music”

Step4.) Copyright your entire music catalog that you need to publish. In this case, you need to use Form-SR in applying for copyrights. This will protect both the music/lyrics as well as the master sound recording of your music that you have created in Step2. You can even register for copyrights online here. Use your author name in registration. Do not yet use your music publisher business name in the copyright registration. Tip: If there are more than one songwriters or owners of the sound recording; make sure to list them properly in the registration. Failure to give proper credits can introduce some legal issues in the future.

Step5.) This step is optional if you are not the artist that performs or records your own song. This also applies if you hire musicians/bands/engineers in your project. Execute a legal agreement that clarifies the track ownership and credit details. For every music tracks released, make sure you have this document signed by all those involved in your project. Example:

Music track title: ______

Agreement: With my signature besides my printed name above. I attest that those track crew members listed above and performers are certified complete, true and accurate.

Step6.) Assign ISRC code to every master recording track in your catalog. You can get your ISRC code here.

Step7)Affiliate as a writer (if you have writing credits) in one of these performing rights societies: ASCAP(www.ascap.com), BMI(www.bmi.com), and SESAC(www.sesac.com). Use your copyright author name. You can only affiliate one organization as a writer. These organizations track your public performance music royalties whenever one of your tracks is publicly performed.

Step8.) Affiliate as a music publisher in these 3 performing right societies. You can affiliate in more than one organization as a publisher; although you can start with just one organization (same with your writer affiliation). Use your music publisher business name.

Step9.) Register all your works/titles in performing right societies (both writer/publisher).

Step10.) Register with SoundExchange; use your sound recording copyright owner name in the registration. During this registration, you need to upload your complete list of music tracks with ISRC code. You can list this down using an Excel spreadsheet. They will track public performance of your sound recordings and let you receive royalties for it. Don’t confuse this with ASCAP, BMI or SESAC; they will collect public performance royalties on the use of music/lyrics while SoundExchange collect public performance royalties for the sound recording of the music/lyrics.

Step11.) You are now ready to do business. You need a store where your customers can find you and licensed your track. There are two ways of doing this. The first method is to actually set up an office where your licensee can locate you. It does require some budget to get started. The other method is to start your online store by having a website.

#1: What will NOT work: An artist planning to create a marketing plan with only a few songs or even no really “GREAT” songs in his/her catalogue.

What will work: Before you start a marketing plan, examine your product first. To be successful, you really need to have a lot of great songs to offer. Music consumers are the most selective type of customers. If a proven major label artist releasing 12 songs in an album has only 1 great song or even no great songs at all. What’s more with an indie and unproven artist with only 6 songs? Or even 12 songs? Don’t even bother writing a marketing plan. You need to develop and design a great product first- your songs.

#2: What will NOT work: Recording and releasing albums WITH no customers ordering in advance.

What will work: This sound funny but it is really true. A lot of indie artist, rush to the recording studio and releasing albums without even to think twice if there are really customers that are really willing to buy it. You should only release records if a flock of your fans and listeners are screaming in front of you and asking, “Where can I buy your album?”. Then go to the studio, record and release some album. Learn what successful businessmen do, they are only willing to invest money in a proven product. Don’t dream, don’t assume. You need to hear the reality from your fans. If you cannot even hear from your fans and listeners about their plan to buy your records, then do not even bother planning to release an album. It will only be a waste of time and money. Of course, common sense will apply. If there are only 100 ready customers, why do you need to release 10,000 copies of your album? Or if you sell your album $10 each with 100 ready customers; a total sale of $1000, then why do you need to spend $10,000 recording and releasing the album?

#3: What will NOT work: Sending unsolicited demo to recording labels, music publishers, radio stations, etc.

What will work: This is classic, it’s love to have that feeling that someone will listen to it and then hoping they like it. Sorry but it’s not a reality. In music business, you should NEVER submit unsolicited demo. It is only a waste of time and money. These professionals won’t even bother to listen to it even a single second of their time. What will work is to develop relationships first and you need to hear it from them personally that they are asking for your demo. Only this time, you will send it.

#4: What will NOT work: Spending money in demo submission services in the hope of getting licensing and recording deals.

What will work: Stop spending in these services. You will never get a decent return in the long run; its like playing a lottery. What will work is to instead save your money, write songs and copyright it, play live, connect with “real” fans. If your fans demand you need to have a website, go and start a website, upload some songs; share it with fans, get some positive feedbacks.

Then apply rule #2. If there are fans willing to buy your records, go to studios, record an album. Sell it to them. If you are willing to spend x dollars for recording, producing and releasing an album, can you get a return which is more than x dollars? Of course, a business needs to profit in order to survive. Think like that. And then you can do even more. Since you have a website, offer ways on how other people can listen and download your songs, license it, etc. You can do and experiment anything, its yours. You can offer it for free first to attract a lot of first time listeners and users, then as the momentum starts to pick-up – you can then sell it a decent price.