(This commentary is taken from the REPORT: 5 Do’s and Don’t’s in Nashville which is part of a larger ebook entitled, “Heartaches, Heartbreaks, and Making It in Nashville” - you can get a FREE copy of this report by signing up to the NashvilleHype! Newsletter)
Do: Pay for recording, musicians, demo singers, and marketing.
Unless you are signed under a publishing deal or a production deal, paying for these things are part of your responsibility.
Don’t: Pay to be published. Pay for someone to turn your poems into songs (scams! run people!)
NashvilleHype!, even as late as last week, received an email from someone who had sent their poem through the mail to a place who, for a small fee, would turn their “lyrics” into a song for them – and then pitch the song to well known national artist. It’s a SCAM.
Oh, they’ll take your poem, and they’ll make a few changes here and there, and they’ll place music to it and record it, and yes, it’s even likely that they’ll place it on a compilation disk and mail it out to however many contacts they have – the scam is, you’re never going to get an honest to goodness real cut from these services YOU PAID MONEY FOR.
Here’s a question, did you know that even worthless copyrights are worth something? That’s right. There are ‘publishing’ houses that do nothing but collect copyrights, build their catalog, and sell out to another company based on those copyrights. It works like this:
Publisher “A” has a catalog of 5,000 songs. Within this catalog they have 3 songs that have been major hits on the radio, meaning those copyrights are still bringing in some residual income to them and the writer (and boy do they ever trumpet those songs!). Here comes the sucker with a poem who is willing to PAY publisher A to turn their poem into a song and pitch it. Publisher A gladly accepts the payment, does an hour of work, and keeps the publishing (their share of the copyright). Now they have 5,001 copyrights. Eventually publisher A has 10,000 copyrights (with those 3 songs being the only hits) and publisher “B” comes calling. How much are those 3 hit songs worth? Answer: The whole company. There are actually people in the accounting field paid to do ‘due diligence’ on copyrights; and there are figures and tables, and graphs to show how much a publishing catalog is worth. One with 10,000 copyrights is worth more than one with 3 hit songs. Regardless if those other 9,997 copyrights are trash.
A copyright is a piece of property. It can be sold, licensed, and leased, just like property. You wouldn’t pay someone to come paint your house and then give them the house! The best thing you can do is not pay someone to take your property off your hands. So what do you do? How do you get your poem turned into a song?
Locally. It’s the best way. You must do the hard work of actually getting out of the house and going down to the bar, or church, or where ever music is played live, and you must talk to the people who are playing it. It’s your job to convince them that they should help you by writing together, recording together, and pitching together. It won’t be an easy sell, and you’re likely to face your first rejection, but eventually you’ll find someone with whom you click and you’ll be able to turn that poem into a song – at virtually no cost – and better yet, you won’t lose your property. If your song is actually good enough, you’ll be able to make another ’sell’ – either to a publisher, or an artist.
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