Making a Living as a Songwriter- Part 3

While a songwriter might not perform his or her songs publicly, they are still an artist of sorts. However, any writer who wants to SELL their works has to take off the "artist hat" and put on the "business hat" sooner or later. This is usually where things get messy because most of time artists don't necessarily jell well with the business side. After all, most artists would agree that once you put a price tag on something, it's no longer art--it's a product. Usually when we first start out as songwriters, we do it because we love music and we want to express ourselves through our music. Not because we are thinking-- "I need to write this song so I can pay my mortgage." As I mentioned before in Part 2, a hit songwriter writes songs everyday. Out of all of these songs, that same songwriter would be lucky to get 1 hit/year and maybe a few album cuts. Nine times out of ten, at least 1/2 of the songs a pro songwriter writes is crafted to SELL. Meaning-- the thought process behind the song was -- "so and so artist is looking for a song. They like this sort of style, subject matter, & vocal range (melody). Here's a song that meets all of the required criteria." Boom--the artist loves it. Record its. Promote its. It becomes a hit/song/...product. Success for all involved--including the songwriter!

As much as we love music, there's marketing behind every pop artist that's out there and the song must fit the artist like a glove or else it will never fly. If you're a writer who has trouble listening to current pop music because it sounds "cheesy" or "too commercial",chances are you will be very frustrated trying to become a professional songwriter because you'll feel as though you are selling your "artist soul". Most professional songwriters would say that the best song they ever wrote is equivalent to the song that made them the most money. It doesn't matter if the song was "cheesy" or nowhere close to the quality of the best crafted song. This is all because in today's fast-paced/money-driven world, the songwriters who are making a great living are the ones that are wearing their "business hat" at least as much as they are wearing their "artist hat". Anyone can be a professional, if you can sell your product. It doesn't really matter what you think of the quality as long as the product sells. I believe it actually takes more talent to sell a song then it takes to write a song--so I try not to judge anyone who has pop success because I know that they worked hard to get there.

I know that my title above sounds redundant, but what I'm referring to are all the people who make money from songwriters. This is something that I'm not very comfortable with. We've all heard the phrase "it takes money to make money". Well, in the songwriting business, this can get taken to another level. It's more like..."We'll take your money, but we can't really guarantee that you'll ever make ANY money...and then if you're lucky enough to make some money--we'll take another cut". If you have ANY business sense, you'll quickly see that you have to be very careful about where you put your money or else you might find yourself wearing your "out of business hat" really soon.

I mentioned in my last posting, that the tools of the trade (in regards to the craft) were a pencil and paper and maybe a few other things. In regards to the business,depending on how resourceful you are, the cost could range from being a small fortune to next to nothing. There are a lot of businesses geared at taking the amateur songwriter's money. These business don't care how talented you are as a songwriter. They only care that you have money to buy their product. These products range from services that provide things such as tip sheets, publications, organizations or services, or even people known as song pluggers that claim to pitch or promote your music for you. I'm not going to go on record and state that these services are not legit--because most of them are legit. However, I do not feel strongly in regards to any of these services so I will not list them here for fear of promoting them and sending struggling part-time songwriters (songwriters with REAL jobs) to a place that will gladly accept a credit card and give very little in return. Also, there will always be companies that have reputations as "song sharks" that you should always steer clear from. These companies usually advertise that they need songs and they want to record your songs for you. In the end, you end up paying a lot of money for a bad demo and you could also possibly sign away your publishing!

If you want to be a true pro songwriter, before you get out your credit card and start subscribing to everything you can find, get out a directory and start calling publishers or contacting recording artists. Simply get in touch with publishers or artists, introduce yourself, and ask them if they're currently looking for songs and if so ask them "what sort of song are you looking for?". It's simple communication. Artists and publishers NEED great songs. The problem is that ,most of the time, they get bombarded with tons of songs that are not anywhere close to what they need. DO NOT JUST SEND DEMOS WITHOUT CONTACTING THEM FIRST. YOU'LL BE WASTING YOUR TIME AND MONEY. The key is to develop a relationship with your contacts. That's much more important than getting a demo into their massive bucket of CDs ASAP. Need contact info? There are quite a few publications that hit the shelves every year: The 2011 Song Writer's Market, or Music Connection Magazine, or the Music Business Registry (Check my links below). These are all useful resources full of contact information. These books are usually updated at least once/ year because the contact info changes so rapidly in this business. Don't be a dope and use a guide from several years back because chances are you'll end up reaching out to a contact that no longer exists. If you're super resourceful, you don't even need to buy a book. Just use Google to dig up that contact info. As tempting as it is to record a demo BEFORE you start calling around, simply communicating (by calling or e-mail) could possibly save you thousands of dollars. Once a publisher or artists agrees to accept your demo, and you have submitted a demo, follow-up communication is very important. You must call every week until you hear some sort of reply. Otherwise, it's likely that the publisher/artist will never listen to your song. Again, the key is to develop business relationships and these relationships will take an ongoing effort to maintain.

The best professional songwriters all start with the same pad of paper and pencil. Most didn't have their careers handed to them on a silver platter. Most of the time they got their first big break with an artist who was NOBODY at the time they made the deal. Don't think that you can just march right up to a platinum selling artist and hand them a song thinking they'll take it and make you millions with it. When looking for an artist, look for an ambitious artist who might not be popular now, but in a few years--could be solid gold. They might not make any $$$ for you right now, but the relationship you develop could prove to be priceless on down the road. IF AN ARTIST IS ACTIVELY PERFORMING YOUR SONGS--IT IS AS GOOD OR BETTER THAN GETTING A PAYCHECK FROM YOUR SONG. When an artist performs your song, he/she is promoting your career. It takes more than 1 semi-hit song to be a financially successful songwriter so you need as much promotion as possible. The money will start to trickle in as the artist(s) who are performing your songs become more successful. I would almost go so far as to say that if you wanted to invest money in your own career, you could consider financially supporting another artist who is performing your music (in some shape or form) before subscribing to tip sheets, etc. Of course, it helps if this artist is performing in front of large crowds, or on the radio/TV...but even if there are just a couple of people in the coffee shop, the feedback and fans you receive from the performance outweigh the value of some early royalty checks.

This wraps up my brief overview of Making a Living as a Songwriter. I hope you found the information to be useful. Hopefully, you have a better understanding of what it takes to be a professional songwriter. I will continue to have more postings in regards to songwriting, music, and the music business. Please follow me for more! Also--please leave your questions or comments and I'll try to deliver a quick response. Thanks to all who are following me now. I'm still new to this.It's a great way to connect with my readers.

Next week, I want to touch on the topic of MUSIC SCHOOLS or schools that promote a career in recording studios. The question being: "Should you go (or send your kids) or NOT?". I myself studied songwriting and recording engineering at a vocational music school once I graduated high school and I would like to share my thoughts on this interesting topic.