Music Licensing Update: Placement Round Up (Success)

 

As promised here are all the placements I’ve received utilizing the 90 Day Music Licensing Challenge for 2013. 10 months ago I made a post sharing my first placement (actually 2 placements) utilizing the material offered in the music licensing challenge. Since then I’ve been updating you all with my progress and goals, and through those, I’ve hinted about other success stories.

The goal was to update you with those in real-time, but that didn’t work out as planned, had to toss it on the back burner. Balancing projects, life, and my site… Something had to give 🙁 (Sorry about that).

So, let me give you a clear rundown of what has been going on “placement wise” utilizing the 90 Day Challenge

 

Placements From Music Libraries

March/April 2013: Absolutely nothing! Nor was I expecting anything. I know libraries are a hit or miss, and it takes time to get things rolling. Uploading, tagging, approval times… It all takes time, even more reason to get on the ball with this stuff. The sooner the better.

May 2013: Still no placements from music libraries, but I did have a successful moment when I reverse-engineered the norm. I was able to get a little over 200 paying clients from music licensing companies who rejected my music.

Sounds wild right? → I explain in detail (down below) how I was able to turn the tables in my favor. From those contacts, I landed 9 gigs and 3-4 of them paid me upfront.

What About The Other 5

Right now I’m set to start 2 of them next month (Jan 2014) and was able to negotiate 20% upfront, and the rest on the back-end. Those payments should post to my account 1st week of Jan 2014.

The remaining 3 are still up in the air, 2 companies are trying to figure out a few things, and 1 is negotiating with their HR to give me access to their software 🙂

More on this later though. I don’t want to jump back and forth between dates too much.

June/July 2013: 5 library placements, all sync (no back-end) for a whopping → $117.00. Yea, those fees were a little low, especially after the library took their cut. But, seriously, it’s $117 I didn’t have to begin with, and I still own the rights to the music, so nothing to really complain about here.

August/September: Near the end of August I collected $2,700 in upfront payments from 4 clients (mentioned above). Aside from that NADA! It would have been cool to match or beat the previous placements, but I wasn’t going to get my hopes up.

It can be a roller coaster with music libraries. 1 month you might have 17, the next → nothing. Or, your gains may climb for a few months, and then drop  → Just like a roller coaster.

October/November: 11 more sync licenses (still no back-end) totaling $340 (I’m rounding here). That’s not a lot, but I mean, it is a car payment, some bills, or extra $ I can toss in an interest-bearing account. In my case, I used it for XMAS gifts! 🙂

December: Only 1 so far, but the month isn’t over! I’ll update this on New Years Day :). Oh, and my cut was around $10.00. That’s barely 2 gallons of gas where I live.

Update (12/31/13) – So it looks like $10.00 was it

 

Placements From Music Supervisors

Where to begin… Well, 1st off, I had a little success with small placements at the beginning of this challenge, both coming from music supervisors.

February/March: You already know about my 1st couple of placements →  here is that link once again. I made nothing throughout the rest of the year, but an interesting update in April and May.

April/May 2013: Judi (one of the supervisors) contacts me out of the blue to update me on our last project. Turns out she cut ties with the company, and the project they were working on. The music was never used, and she wanted to know if she could use it for something else and if she’d have to pay another sync fee.

Why did she bother asking? Because in our agreement the music was meant for the corp vid and nothing else. I found this to be very professional of her → sign of good business etiquette.

Did I charge her a 2nd Sync Fee?

No, I didn’t. I didn’t charge her anything we just added an addendum to the previous contract. Was this a smart move? I think so. I was more interested in securing the business relationship than making a few more extra bucks.

I’m sure I could have done both, but I felt my choice was the right thing to do.

What Would You Have Done?

Let me know what you would have done in this situation. I’m interested in reading everyone’s response.

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