If you’re serious about getting your music licensed and want to potentially make substantial income from licensing your music, then you need to be serious and diligent about getting your music into the hands of people that license it. Makes sense right? Of course, how often and how many people you
contact is up to you, but in my experience the results you get will be directly correlated to the effort you put into this.
So, if you are serious about getting your music licensed, you should be reaching out and connecting with people on a regular basis, ideally every day, or at least most days of the week. There are a lot of people working in this business and there are a lot of people who
can potentially help you license your music. But, they aren’t going to be able to help you if they don’t know about you and the music you make. Your job, really, when it comes to licensing music, apart from obviously making music, is to network and connect with people in the industry. If you’re doing this all the time, it’s easy to lose track of whom you’ve pitched your music to and when and what actions you need to take.
I keep a spreadsheet of all the places I send my music that indicate where I sent my music, when and notes on any follow up or actions I need to take.
It’s also a really good idea to follow up with everyone you send your music to three to four weeks after you send it. A lot of people working in
this industry are inundated with music submissions on a daily basis. It’s hard to get back to everyone. Most libraries and music licensing companies are relatively small. It’s usually just one or a handful of people dealing with hundreds or even thousands of submissions a week. I spoke to one music supervisor recently who told me she averages a thousand email submissions a day! When you’re dealing with this high of a volume of music it’s impossible to get back to
everyone.
Don’t assume because you haven’t received a response that it’s an indication that whomever you sent your music to, doesn’t like your music. It might mean that, but it could also mean they simply haven’t heard it yet. Or it could be that they heard your music, loved it, and just haven’t had a chance to get back to you. Politely following up with someone does the recipient
of your music the favor of reminding them about your music and it shows them that you’re serious about your career. Nothing bad will come from following up with someone, but not following up could mean they simply forget about you and your music and move on to someone else. So, always follow up!
There are a lot of people trying to break into the music business. It’s always been
that way and it’s probably even more so the case currently than it was in the past. It’s never been easier to record music and at least attempt to become a professional musician and there are a lot of aspiring musicians out there. So do everything you can to set yourself apart from everyone else by being professional, organized and persistent. And of course, always focus on writing great music.
