So, youve written a song...now what?

  • Thread starter Thread starter JohnDeacon
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JohnDeacon

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How do you go about 'selling' your song?

And lets say you sell it and it becomes a hit (unlikley in my case), will you still get roalties for it?
 
In most cases. the best next step would be to flush it down the toilet to avoid comtaminating the atmosphere.

Otherwise, assuming you are a Real Songwriting Genius, try to read some books on the Music Biz, and the legal aspects of contracts.

Also, I hear the real money is in what they call the "publishing rights", i.e. sheet music, or chord/tablature books. Do NOT give up these rights!

READ any contract offered, and if you do not understand, DO NOT SIGN! Take a copy to a lawyer and ask him to advise you. After you understand how they are trying to fuck you, make them change it per your lawyers recommendations.

Alas, if you are a newbie (AKA "Fresh Meat") you may have ZERO bargaining leverage, and may have to accept a bad deal in order to "break in" to the Biz.


El Lamo
Somewhere in LameLand

Life Sucks and then You Die
 
Not just one song........

You need a few...
Copyright all your tunes....
Start giggin'..........
establish a fan base.........
market the music in local music stores and at your gigs...(don't forget to bar code the CD's you sell to establish a proven sales record...)
keep giggin'.................
More fans..........more sales........

They will come to you....
If you have a proven track record for sales of your music and have a solid fan base....you will have better leverage with the labels....
Oh yeah, almost forgot...
Most important thing....get a good Entertainment Attorney...


It ain't easy....
Joe
 
hmmm

Yea I have quite a few ideas knowcking about here and there..lyrics, tunes....

I only started playing music of any sort in June of this year when i got a bass guitar, then i got an acoustic and an electric, and i really enjoy writing my own stuff. The best thing for me would probably be to get a band together at some point, so I had people to bounce ideas around with and a way to promote the music (ie gigs).....
 
Depends on your prioritiies. many songwriters write songs and sell them, they don't want fame and do not neccesarily preform the songs.

The key to this is a publisher. If they take an interest, they will pay you for your songs and if your good enough they'll make sure you earn enough so you can dedicaate your time to writing songs. They will then own the rights on your songs (the ones they publish). It's the publishers that have the links to the record companies/artisits.

You may get a fixed fee, there may also be a royalty rate in there as well. You may feel pissed off if you sell a song to a publisher for $25k and it goes on to be a number one hit and makes a million, of which after the artist/record company the publisher ends up with the bulk as they own the rights to the song. But if this is the case you'll be in demand to write more songs, and face it; without the publisher would you have made a hit of it.

You need to have the basis of the song. Not heavily produced at all, just the arrangement in it's basic form, the jist of the song and the overall melody-the producer (not publisher) will do the rest.

Here's a couple of links that describes it well, I remembered where i was writing this stuff from:

http://www.guitarnoise.com/songwriting/20010501.html

http://www.guitarnoise.com/songwriting/20010406.html
 
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