How much should I pay?

Kleudde

New member
Good morning,
I'm looking for someone to write lyrics for me and I already found two person who would be interested. The problem is I don't know how much it's worth, how much should I pay them for their lyrics?
Does it pay per word, per hours, per songs? It's a concept projet so it will be a story not really lyrics, something more like a novel shrinken to 100 pages.
I just want other's opinion about this to know if what they will ask for is fair.
Thank you
 
The usual is to pay nothing and share songwriting credits with the lyricist.

But if he agrees not to claim credit for the lyrics, then you should pay up front and he gets no royalties or songwriter rights. he would basically be work-for-hire.

100 pages is A LOT of writing, especially for a musical project. I think the big variable would be market appeal. Will this project garner enough revenue to pay you and the lyricist? If no, then pay him upfront. If yes, then you guys collect royalties from it. It's a gamble.

If you paid the lyricist upfront then the value is not something that would be determined easily. That would be between you and him. How much time does he put into it and how much is it worth to you? Only you and the lyrcist can determine what is fair.
 
you're right, 100 pages is too much haha
I've settled to about 30 pages and he offer me 1050$ for that. (much better than 4200$ for hundred of pages, imagine how much would of cost me to print that many pages for the cd booklet on top of that! hahaha)
 
I'll write you 30 pages for US$500, and even have my wife (she's a writer, too) proofread and edit. Tell me more!
 
i’m starting a project in a music style that usually as Tolkien (Lord of the rings) as theme. I love the music style but i don’t want to be one of the many bands that talks about Tolkien in their lyrics, I want to be original. So I wanted to ask a writer to create a similar story but be original at the same time. I mean still in medieval with battles, magic, monsters etc. But I would it to focus on an evil race, for exemple the dark elves.
The music is sound a bit like the music in horror movies (atmospheric black metal). And in the story when characters will talk that is when there will be singing so the real lyrics. Well singing will be black metal screams so would fit more with evil race you know what I mean? So that’s why I need a writer.
 
This sounds like a sort of opera. Like Tommy, even Bat out of Hell, or more traditional like Marriage of Figaro. Is that what you are aiming at?
 
I don’t know those you named but yes you could say it’s like an opera. A bit like Ayreon. Except it will be far from those kind of voices and even music. It will be black metal a bit like Summoning and Limbonic Art.
 
Are they writing the lyrics or the back-story?

Fiverr looks like the usual price is $50-100 per whole song (Fiverr / Search Results for 'lyricist')
Those would be work-for-hire lyricists where you have full rights to the music afterwards.

Chili is right that splitting songwriting royalties is probably the more common thing among professionals, but in order for that to be worthwhile you should be able to guarantee some kind of return on the investment.
 
The writer will be writing both the back-story and lyrics. He will be writing a 30 pages story and in that story when characters will talk those would be the lyrics. When a chapter will change that's when the song will change as well. So i need more like a novel writer than a lyricist for this project.
 
We're min the middle of a project - write and record over 30 short pieces of music from scratch for a children's publisher. Each one has very specific tempo and length. None more than 2 mins long. We laughed when they said it's only an hour of music in total - we're months in now, and are about 60% complete. The price agreed as a straight buyout fee, represents two people and probably three months work. Beware of giving away rights. In this example - we have already been approached for use of one of them, and it's annoying to have to tell a prospective maying client they have to go to somebody else and pay them. We are doing it in spare time - so whenever we have a few hours spare, we do a bit more, sometimes it can be entire days, other times, maybe 3 hours? Good downtime work.
 
I don't think it's honest this thing of "not claiming" author rights; this could be done for pure "technical" work. But when art, creativity is involved, I find the law is quite brutal even on allowing it. It makes me remember the famous Dostoievski case - he lost authorship rights for one of his famous novels for many years, what became a world known scandal.
The important thing for me is keeping at least a percentage of authorship rights for the writter.
 
I don't think it's honest this thing of "not claiming" author rights; this could be done for pure "technical" work. But when art, creativity is involved, I find the law is quite brutal even on allowing it. It makes me remember the famous Dostoievski case - he lost authorship rights for one of his famous novels for many years, what became a world known scandal.
The important thing for me is keeping at least a percentage of authorship rights for the writter.

Hi Siruiz,
I understand your point. I already found a writer and signed a contract with him. But you have to understand two things here. I was asking for a short story to someone who write novels. So a little 30 pages compared to the 300-400 pages he is used to do is a tiny sample kind of like a single for musicians or a letter they write in journals or magazines not a full novel that they are known for. I will pay him what he asked for and put his name in the booklet so I’m not stealing anything. Second point is it’s a new project for a music style that is really underground and that I will print maybe 50 copies so it won’t get me any money from it that is for sure, it’s only something I want to do for my pleasure and satisfaction.
 
Yep - but you need to protect for the future. You're planning for 50, but what happens if it's picked up unexpectedly and you SELL 50,000! Sure - it probably won't happen, but what if it did? Did you make sure the contract contained the usual buy out clauses, and is watertight - did you cover all bases? It's this kind of thing that ends up in court when money becomes serious!
 
Back
Top