Publishing Income for Indie Artists

Publishing Income for Indie Artists.

With fierce competition, ever-growing number of music available online and online sales at an all-time low, it is becoming increasingly difficult for indie artists to depend only on money from online sales to sustain in the industry. You can read about this in detail in my blog Alternative Income for Indie Artists. The younger generation does not want to purchase music or pay for it. They are more than happy with the pirated copies and free music available online. In this situation, only the most successful artists are able to make ends meet through just record sales. In this article I am going to write about income from publishing.

It is highly recommended that you find a publishing agent to help you with ways to use musical works and generate revenue from them. Publishers not only register your works with the right associations, they also create commercial opportunities and administrate your royalty income. Getting a good publisher is beneficial for both writers and performing artists. Of course, you don’t have to get a publisher and are free to manage your repertoire independently. However, the publishing landscape is intricate and highly technical. The amount of diligence required for publishing makes it a time consuming task.

Depending on the deal you negotiate, a publisher typically takes a 30-50% cut of a writer’s royalties. The more successful you are, the lesser is the publisher’s cut. In some countries like The Netherlands, a publisher’s cut is fixed to a rate of 33.33%.

Publishers will find you experts in all fields of work. These experts help you in making marketable music and improving your art. They have good knowledge about different fields of work in the industry. Artists can learn a lot from them and absorb their knowledge to be used in the future. Read my blog Publishing for Indie Artists, to know more about this. Publishers can also offer you an advance on your future royalty income, which may be quite helpful if you require funds for your recordings or to buy equipment. However, a larger royalty share is likely to be demanded by the publisher, as a result of this. A deal with the publisher is normally for a duration of 3-5 years. It is important to note that your contract will not expire unless you have earned back the amount taken as advance. It is advisable to keep control over your works permanently, instead of giving it away by complete transfer of ownership. Handle your intellectual properties with care. They are your most vital assets as a musician.

Royalties

The payments you receive in exchange for letting people use your intellectual property are called Royalties which are the cornerstone of an indie musician’s income. In exchange of royalties, the Copyright holders can grant licenses to others for use of their music. There are regulations of fixed royalty rates for certain licenses that have to be explicitly given or those that are compulsory to be granted, as determined by law. In my future blogs, I’m going to outline different royalty streams which can be generated with your music, and tell you how the royalty income is collected by setting these up. It is because of all these complexities that I say – a publisher is more capable of handling your work than you will ever be.

Artist Royalties

Labels always want to have control or ownership of the ‘sound recording’ of a track which is normally in the hands of the performing artist and author. When releasing a record with a label, they assign these rights to the label in exchange for royalty payments. These are called the artist royalties. As I have mentioned in my blog Types of Copyright for Indie Music, sometimes even the record producers are partial owners of copyright, along with the authors and the performing artist. A small share of master rights then goes to the Producers, typically up to 12.5%. It’s getting more common and easy for performing artists to record independently. In this situation, the master ownership belongs to just them, or them and the producer. In cases where a producer is also a copyright owner, there are producer royalties.

I am going to write more about assigning of copyrights to labels and publishers, in my next blog. Please share your experiences in the comments section and I will add them to my future posts.

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