How To Make Money From Your Songs

Ernie left a comment earlier today.  It said "pay your dues".   That's true, but his comment reminded me about a workshop I attended last week with Rick Garvin.   The workshop was about licensing your songs.   After the workshop was over, people were asking me what I learned.  This is the second workshop I attended about song writing, and more specifically selling your songs.  First one was with Skip Ewing.  

The answer I've been giving people is "give workshops on selling your songs and charge $10".  What I learned from both of these fellows is that don't expect to make your fortune, although the two ladies who wrote Happy Birthday made a fortune.  The lady who wrote Hockey Night in Canada (the one that CBC was too cheap to keep using) did pretty well too.  So there is hope!!!  But I'm not counting on it. 

Few things I did learn though:

• you are one of probably billions of songwriters in the world.  Not everyone is trying to sell their songs, but the competition is huge.  I'm starting to think luck is how you might first 'sell' a song, and then if you are fortunate enough to sell a few songs, your reputation might carry you forward.   Like Bobby Braddock who has been writing country songs for 30 years and is in the Country Music Hall of Fame.  Oh, and Skip Ewing - but then he's still doing workshops for $10 a head.
• If you try to sell your songs to some recording company, two things are likely to happen.  Well one actually - they just say goodbye.  apparently they don't buy songs because of fears of copyright theft.  and if you are able to crack that door open, you have something like five seconds to get their attention to your song.  Apparently, and I believe this to be true, the record companies really aren't interested in selling music, their business is selling little plastic discs, and the only way they can do that is put something on them. 
• copyright in Canada is quite simple - write your song down on paper, put your name on it, and include a date (mostly so you remember when you wrote it), file it (I keep hard copies and electronic files).  I also share it with my playing friends, so they have copies.  that way I have witnesses. 
• you can register your songs on SOCAN.  If your song is registered, every time someone plays it (for money), and IF they log it in that they played the song, you get paid a royalty.  Sounds simple enough.  I guessing that it could be hard to chase after everyone who might play your song, unless they record it or something.   Not something I'm going to count on, but I'm going to register my songs anyway - Just in case!
• If your fortunate enough to sell your song to some corporation like CBC, or a movie studio to use your song, you can license your song to them.
  From what I gather there's different ways to do that. outright sell, or make some agreement that you get paid every time it plays.  So if you write a theme song for a TV show, or even a bit of music that is used in a TV show. you could get paid each time that episode plays.  Cool!   Not something I'm going to count on.  
• When you perform a song and every time it you play it live and get paid for it, you are supposed to log it into SOCAN that you played it.  Supposedly the venue pays the royalty fee, or I supposed whoever made the money from the fact that you played the song.  The song writer then gets paid a royalty (a few cents for each time its played).  If the song is recorded and get airplay on the radio, the song writer gets a royalty each time the song is played.  The performer gets nothing.  So that's probably why you see a lot of performers doing their own songs.  Taylor Swift must be making a fortune.  I'm not a fan, but she's a smart girl. 
• So the other thing I learned is that if you perform your own song, and lets say you get paid by a venue like a nightclub to play.   When your done, you go to SOCAN with your log that you played the song, and you'll get the royalty for playing the song, and the venue pays the royalty.  Of course if you play someone else's song, you need to record that too, so the writer gets his dues. 

Remember, all of this is my own interpretation of this stuff.  Seeing that I haven't collected a penny for anything I've written, obviously I'm no expert.  So if you really want to find out how this works, attend some of those $10 dollar workshops from a songwriter that needs to supplement his income, or hire a music industry lawyer at $600/hr who doesn't need to supplement his income.

As for me, next time my niece is in town I'll have a chat with her.  She worked at SOCAN.  I'll ask her.  Maybe pay her $10 for the conversation.