One of the coolest things about licensing your music is getting passive income deposited directly into your account. I frequently get direct deposits from ASCAP and a variety of music libraries for songs I wrote, in many cases, years ago.
In the last quarter of 2019 I had dozens of placements, including 13 over a minute in length, for a variety of tracks, most of which I wrote and recorded two or more years ago.
I've often described music licensing as the antithesis of performing live. It takes time to build up a music licensing catalog to the point where it's generating substantial income.
Unlike performing live where you get immediate feedback about your music and, typically, get paid the same night, when you license your music you normally won't hear your music on television or in placements until at least several months, or longer, after you create it. After that, it will typically take around six months to get paid in full for your placements.
That's the bad news. However, the good news when it comes to licensing is that there is the potential to get paid over and over again for the same track. Unlike playing live where you have to perform again and again to keep getting paid, with music licensing once you create a track, you can keep licensing that track over and over and keep earning money for every new placement a track generates.
Music licensing isn't a get rich quick scheme. Music licensing is a long term endeavor, but once you get rolling you can generate money with the same tracks for many years.
I like to think of music licensing as sort of being like a 401k plan for musicians. I think of my songs as being like stocks, and my catalog as being like a portfolio. The idea is to create a catalog that is big enough and broad enough to work in a wide variety of situations.
