Music Publishing & Songwriting

Are you…

a songwriter and producer starting your own record company?
a singer-songwriter signing to an independent label?
a band negotiating its first major label record contract?
or a dj, manager, booking agent or club owner?

Whatever your role in the entertainment industry, you need to understand music publishing. Why? Because that’s where the money is.

In the online course, “Music Publishing 101” at Berkleemusic.com, aspiring songwriters, entrepreneurs, producers, and others can begin to understand the role that music publishing plays in their careers. Over the 12 weeks of the class, you’ll find all you need to know about how to make your music more marketable, license your songs, protect what you write, and collect the income you earn.

For those that don’t know, and that includes plenty of folks who’ve graduated from music school, have their music business degree, or have been in the music industry for decades, the fundamental role of a music publisher is to make music make money. Songwriters write the songs. But music publishers turn those songs into money, by licensing them to those who want to put them on records or ringtones, in a TV show, movie or advertisement, inside a greeting card or a singing stuffed animal.

Anyone can be a music publisher. There are large music publishers, which are divisions of the same corporations that operate the major record labels—like Sony ATV Music, EMI Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing, and Warner Chappell Music. There are medium-sized, independent music publishing companies—like Cherry Lane Music, Kobalt Music, or Bug Music. There are music publishing companies owned by independent record labels, artist management companies, prominent producers, movie studios, and advertising companies.

But most importantly, if you’re a singer-songwriter, a producer, the owner of a record label, or the manager of a band, YOU can be a music publisher. Anyone that works with songs and songwriters should be in the business of music publishing.

In fact, if you’re a songwriter, you already are a music publisher. You became one when you wrote your first song. As soon as a composition has been written, the songwriter is not only the composer, but also the publisher of that song—until he or she decides to assign those rights to someone else. You may already be a publisher. Now you have to learn to be a good one.

Music Publishing 101 was designed to be a step-by-step walk through the process of constructing your own music publishing company. Many students have found that by the end of the course, not only have they learned about this particular segment of the business, but also they already have become operating music publishers. After 12 weeks, their business is up and running, with an effective team to support the day-to-day needs of their company, and a strategy to start making money from their songs.

As the author of

“Making Music Make Money: An Insider’s Guide To Becoming Your Own Music Publisher”, as well as the designer of Music Publishing 101, I’m often asked why someone should take the course, if he or she has already read the book. Of course, the two are closely related, and “Making Music Make Money” is the textbook for the online course. Still, there are plenty of things that set the class apart from the textbook—the most important one being this:

Experience. Would you want to fly in an airplane with a pilot that had merely read a book about flying? Or would you prefer someone with some hands-on experience?

The assignments in “Music Publishing 101” go far beyond textbook examples. In one instance, students actually make a pitch call to their instructor, to get the experience of selling their material. In another assignment, we look at an accounting spreadsheet and learn to understand the income flow and the splits involved in a co-publishing or full-publishing agreement. In another instance, we actually try our hand at picking hits on the Hot 100, trying to estimate where some of the new entries may actually end up. These things are the real day-to-day work of publishing, and the experience of actually doing them can’t be replicated any other way.

The other key element that sets online learning apart from book learning is Interaction. Music Publishing 101 offers students an opportunity to interact with dozens of other musicians and songwriters, many of them already active professionals in the industry. In a classroom setting, you don’t learn only from the teacher—you learn from everyone around you, sharing their experience, insight, and mistakes. Plus, you can ask questions and get advice tailored to your own professional and musical needs in the weekly online chats with the professor.

Best of all, students leave the course with a support network already in place, as they go off to start their own music publishing ventures. Happily, I remain involved with many of the students I’ve had in Music Publishing 101—many of whom are now successfully using their skills in a variety of music industry settings. Their career development and success is a constant inspiration to me, and I always look forward to offering help or advice where I can.

It’s no secret that the current economy could make 2009 a challenging year for many of us. But the best way to face a challenge is head-on—and that means raising your own performance, knowledge and career ambitions. If you’re a songwriter hoping to make 2009 the breakthrough year, you might want to start by joining Berkleemusic’s “Music Publishing 101.” Enrollment is now open for the Winter Term, which starts on January 12th. Tell ‘em Eric sent ya…