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Publishing
What Does A Publisher Do?
As a songwriter, you may be interested in business, but your talents are best spent in creating and writing songs. However, someone needs to take care of business, and that's where the publishing industry came from. A publisher makes the following speech to a songwriter. The publisher learns forward, rattling the gold chains on his chest. Your strength is writing songs, and mine is taking care of business. You assign the copyright in your song to the publisher and they find people to use your songs. You can make a pretty penny with a publisher if they are good and have clout. Traditionally, the publisher splits all income 50/50 with the writer (with the exception of sheet music and performance monies, which I will get into later). The publisher's 50% is for overhead and profit. The share of money kept by the publisher from each dollar is known by a sophisticated industry term: the publisher's share. Then you get the writers share.
Publishers Are Major
Publishers today are major players when making your own music. There role has changed radically. Some are great creative publishers, in the same sense that they put their writers together with other writers, help them fine-tune their writing, match writers with artists, etc. They also use their clout to help the songwriter find a record deal and promote their records after they have a deal. However, today major artist don't have publishers. They obtain their own publishing rights. This means you profit 100% instead of 50%. Publishing is a major concept if you are a new artist and something to consider when making your own music.
Mechanics of Publishing
1. An administrator to take care of registering copyrights in the songs, issuing licenses, collecting money, paying writers, etc.
2. A "song plugger" who runs around and gets songs recorded.
3. A creative staff person, who finds writers, works with them to improve songs.
Thus, unlike the record business, it takes only a small capital investment to call yourself a publisher. You don't need a large staff, and there's no need for the expensive distribution network, warehouses, inventory, etc. A vest pocket publisher refers to one person, with administrative help, acting as a publisher.
Next post, I will continue publishing for an artist.
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