Five Year Update

Did you get a deal through TAXI? Lets hear about it!

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SubRivers
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Re: Five Year Update

Post by SubRivers » Fri Feb 12, 2021 10:53 pm

Good numbers
I think you posted when you got your first PRS payment as it was around the same time I got mine (Jul 17)

I think you have a bunch more money coming though as it snowballs - 2017 coincides with me taking my foot right off the gas musically due to day job - but even my limited experience I can see that royalties flow for years after I was productive.,

So ramping it up numbers of cues like yours with quality should be close to linear unless the market has changed !

End of the day one quality track earns more than dozens of good ones.
Hard thing is judging which is which and in there lies taxi nirvana

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Re: Five Year Update

Post by JuanMacias » Sat Feb 13, 2021 6:54 am

Hi Mark

Thanks for sharing this. I´m Curious; what´s your PRO?


Juan

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Re: Five Year Update

Post by cosmicdolphin » Sat Feb 13, 2021 7:16 am

JuanMacias wrote:
Sat Feb 13, 2021 6:54 am
Hi Mark

Thanks for sharing this. I´m Curious; what´s your PRO?


Juan
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Re: Five Year Update

Post by MBantle » Sat Feb 13, 2021 12:20 pm

cosmicdolphin wrote:
Thu Feb 11, 2021 11:03 am
Hey all

I've just gone over 5 years of Sync Licensing now - I posted an update last year here : four-year-update-t144067.html?hilit=yea ... r%20update

So I figured I should share where I am up to now a little over a year later :

2016 - 87 cues produced - 1 Library Deal - Total Earnings £0

2017 - 70 cues produced - 2 more Library Deals - Total Earnings - £50

2018 - 88 cues produced - 2 more Library Deals - Total Earnings - £120

2019 - 50 cues produced - 2 more Library Deals - Total Earnings - £720 ( mixture of Royalties - Sync Fees - Up front fees and blanket splits )

2020 - 100 cues produced ( extra time at home due to Covid meant more studio time ) - 3 more Library Deals - Total Earnings £ 700

10 Libraries in total

Although less than last year this is all backend whereas last year almost half of what I earned come up front in the form of consideration fees where they give you a small amount for each cue in advance. However to get those the Library took a cut of the writers backend which I'm not prepared to accept any longer so I've stopped supplying them with music ( just to be clear this was NOT a Taxi Library )

Total number of placements is now 50 from 380 cues in various Libraries ( this is up from 30 from 295 in 2019 )... some of the stuff from last year hasn't been released yet as they are holding a ton of stuff back due to the production companies being quieter because of Covid.

Some firsts this time around include :-

A placement from a cue in the same month it was published :shock: ..Submitted December 2020 - Released January 2021 - placed about 2 weeks later that month ( burbling synth arpeggio type thing ) on science-y covid section on a news/current affairs show.

Library owners contacting me personally and asking for music after hearing my stuff elsewhere

Attending a RR finally even if it's only virtual

Getting a warning from the Forum Admin :lol:

Having some of my feedback taken onboard by the Dev Team of my preferred DAW Cakewalk and implemented in an update

Some of the main placements are here if anyone wants to listen : https://soundcloud.com/user-45178330/se ... eard-on-tv

Thanks as ever to my friends @Andygabrys and @Telefunkin for humouring me and my terrible puns and endless mix revisions.

Mark


Congratulations!! I think you have a very good placement vs. cash ratio and I am wishing you all the best!! I expect nothing less than a solid 'quit my day job' in less than 5 years from now!! Cheers, Matt

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Re: Five Year Update

Post by Telefunkin » Sun Feb 14, 2021 5:29 am

MBantle wrote:
Sat Feb 13, 2021 12:20 pm
I expect nothing less than a solid 'quit my day job' in less than 5 years from now!! Cheers, Matt
Ahhhh... that'd be the '10 year plan' then? ;)
Graham (UK). Still composing a little faster than decomposing, and 100% HI.

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Re: Five Year Update

Post by cosmicdolphin » Sun Feb 14, 2021 6:16 am

Telefunkin wrote:
Sun Feb 14, 2021 5:29 am
MBantle wrote:
Sat Feb 13, 2021 12:20 pm
I expect nothing less than a solid 'quit my day job' in less than 5 years from now!! Cheers, Matt
Ahhhh... that'd be the '10 year plan' then? ;)
I'm calling it 20

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Re: Five Year Update

Post by melodea » Tue Feb 16, 2021 10:15 pm

Hi Mark, your stuff sounds awesome! Keep it up!
[glow][/glow]Melodea a.k.a. Chris Moser

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Re: Five Year Update

Post by Kolstad » Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:27 am

Hi Mark,
You seem very produdctive, creative and consistant with the cues and signings. Really well done!

However, I find your earnings quite depressing. Can you elaborate more on what type of deals and libraries you have made? Do you make instrumental cues only, or full songs too? Is it mainly from low tier libraries, or do you have music in higher tiers too? Have you done albums? Have you done blanket deals?

The ROI seems awfully low from all of that work, imho.
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Re: Five Year Update

Post by Telefunkin » Thu Feb 18, 2021 4:28 am

Kolstad wrote:
Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:27 am
Hi Mark,
You seem very produdctive, creative and consistant with the cues and signings. Really well done!

However, I find your earnings quite depressing. Can you elaborate more on what type of deals and libraries you have made? Do you make instrumental cues only, or full songs too? Is it mainly from low tier libraries, or do you have music in higher tiers too? Have you done albums? Have you done blanket deals?

The ROI seems awfully low from all of that work, imho.
Hi Kolstad, Your comments are most interesting, especially as I know how much hard work Mark puts into making music. You make the same point about ROI that I was making earlier - Mark has done very well, but a ton of effort to make very good music and do the right things has not yet brought huge returns.

By the way, I'm not grumbling or on some sort of negativity crusade. I don't consider myself to be sufficiently talented or hard working to be highly successful, and besides, the business doesn't owe anyone a living so its up to all of us to find our way through. However, for many of us making sync music is a labour of love rather than a serious earner. We all see things differently based on our experiences and those of others we know about, but I'm intrigued by the gap between expectations and the reality that many of us experience. Your comment suggests that some of this might be as a results of making poor choices, so I'm most curious to know more. I'd always choose to put my tracks in 'high tier libraries', but opening those doors can be a lengthy endeavour :).
Graham (UK). Still composing a little faster than decomposing, and 100% HI.

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Re: Five Year Update

Post by Kolstad » Thu Feb 18, 2021 7:08 am

Telefunkin wrote:
Thu Feb 18, 2021 4:28 am
Kolstad wrote:
Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:27 am
Hi Mark,
You seem very produdctive, creative and consistant with the cues and signings. Really well done!

However, I find your earnings quite depressing. Can you elaborate more on what type of deals and libraries you have made? Do you make instrumental cues only, or full songs too? Is it mainly from low tier libraries, or do you have music in higher tiers too? Have you done albums? Have you done blanket deals?

The ROI seems awfully low from all of that work, imho.
Hi Kolstad, Your comments are most interesting, especially as I know how much hard work Mark puts into making music. You make the same point about ROI that I was making earlier - Mark has done very well, but a ton of effort to make very good music and do the right things has not yet brought huge returns.

By the way, I'm not grumbling or on some sort of negativity crusade. I don't consider myself to be sufficiently talented or hard working to be highly successful, and besides, the business doesn't owe anyone a living so its up to all of us to find our way through. However, for many of us making sync music is a labour of love rather than a serious earner. We all see things differently based on our experiences and those of others we know about, but I'm intrigued by the gap between expectations and the reality that many of us experience. Your comment suggests that some of this might be as a results of making poor choices, so I'm most curious to know more. I'd always choose to put my tracks in 'high tier libraries', but opening those doors can be a lengthy endeavour :).
Hi Graham,

I did not mean to accuse anyone of making poor choices. When you are rolling, you are rolling. That is why Im posing some follow-up questions, because the retrospect analysis may reveal something that could be done differently. It would be interesting to hear more thoughts about that. It may be that the options were poor at the time, the insight into deals or the library market was low at the time, or something else. Also are all the placements in the US market, or are there EU placements as well?

Regarding earnings, yes, I was looking at the numbers from a business perspective only, and that may be different from you and Mark. It may be worth hanging there for the love of it, but that value is personal and relative. Again, it would be interesting to hear more thoughts about ambitions. Are the earnings important, if no, it's all good, no more questions asked. But if earnings are important, where to go from these numbers?

If only looking at these numbers, I would dismiss this as sustainable all together, but more detail might reveal some premises that can keep hopes up.
Ceo of my own life

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