My best year- and my (2nd) 5 year plan

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Susanstunes
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My best year- and my (2nd) 5 year plan

Post by Susanstunes » Tue Dec 28, 2021 8:46 am

Greetings friends,

2021 has been my best year in music licensing for tv/film and it's fascinating how it went.

But first, a bit of history:

My 1st 5 years began with setting up my home studio after paying professional studios too much to help me record my first few songs. I joined Taxi and began submitting random creations to whatever listing looked interesting. I barely knew how to use reverb and what my DAW was all about.
But I was very excited about the process and the dream was alive in me to get a forward. In reading the forum, etc, I soon realized I was super slow in finishing tracks AND FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS but plugged along at about 2 per month.


To give you an idea how slow and not quite on the mark I was, it took me TWO AND A HALF YEARS to get to 3 forwards.

So already we're now in early 2019. My husband and friends were asking me if I was getting anywhere in this.....

But-THE 3RD FORWARD GOT ME A DEAL. I was incredulous and happy to be alive, and filled with awe and the wonder of it all.
Working with a Publisher who wanted a lot more music was the thing that made me a bit anxious, because, as I said, I'm very slow at finishing tracks.
As has been mentioned here before, Publishers can be a lot like Taxi screeners, except you know they already are interested in your creativity and stuff, so it's bit different. I was happy that this Publisher was kind and super encouraging, and oh so patient.

By the end of 2019, I had my first placement on TV, which I was sure was a mistake when I saw it on Tunesat. Then when I listened to the audio clip and figured out what it was, I started crying like a crazy person, down in the basement. A big TV news channel in France used my music under the story about the recent killing of a terrorist by the US. Was I dreaming all this, I asked myself....

2020 came and I had a few more placements, which were all thrilling because other music of mine was now getting used in various places, like lovely documentaries about the environment in Germany, etc. Since my released tracks were all ethnic, it was really interesting to see how they were used. I had a total of 6 PLACEMENTS including a couple of re-runs. I thought, ok, its the year of the Pandemic, so I'll live with that.

(Sidenote: I did write out my 5 year plan back 5 years ago, and now know I was about 500% under what I was expecting...so I have since adjusted my thinking, based on all the evidence I now have of my ability to deliver quality tracks at record speed (not) and the state of the world of News and entertainment....and the rather large log-jam of Music in Production Catalogues, laying in wait to be released)

Now, this year 2021. Still with not very many tracks out there, the placements are trickling in, and I see one track is being used over and over on various travel shows,... I was happy that people from different countries were digging that weird little jazzy tune. Again, it's the Pandemic, so I was patient with the 8 or 10 usages I was seeing.

Flash forward to September I see a Placement on ESPN on an AWARD WINNING News magazine show called E:60. I have no idea what this is, but it was a long placement, coming in at 1:45. Wow, great! And it's a track from 2019 I think the 3rd one I delivered to the Publisher, that I always thought was super cool.

Then the re-runs came in on ESPN News and ESPN 2 and most of them were even longer than that, about half of them at almost 2 minutes EACH. Wow, great!

As of today, that E:60 placement has been used 23 times since September at a total of 41 minutes of airtime. WOW GREAT! And, because I don't have much of a life, I check TV guide regularly, and see it is scheduled into January too.

Now, I just need 100 more of those (every year) and I'll be feeling pretty sassy.

But, realistically, my new 5 year plan is to continue increasing my AIRTIME which I feel is probably the most important stat in this business, but maybe I'm missing something. Anyway, by 2027 I hope to be at 100 usages of my music per year, and I figure that will get me the satisfaction I so crave. Still might be too big of a reach. But I now am in my 2nd library, waiting for the release of the logjam of music for mine to come out. And I am in the process of signing with another, being my 3rd Catalogue.

TAXI WORKS, HELLO. Thank you Michael, for having the foresight to create this amazing business.

Happy New Year everyone!

Susan

www.susanhillmanmusic.com
www.instagram.com/susanhillmanmusic

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Re: My best year- and my (2nd) 5 year plan

Post by funsongs » Tue Dec 28, 2021 9:40 am

What an awesome report... (I still like & listen to your 'Moon Over The Cactus' song).
Reads like you've got some solid momentum rolling into the New Year.
"Cheers!"
Peter Rahill - aka "funsongs"
NOW, back on YouTube (2022)
https://www.youtube.com/@peterrahill9263/featured
https://soundcloud.com/funsongs-1
https://peterrahill.bandcamp.com/

“The future aint what it use to be.” - Yogi Berra

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Re: My best year- and my (2nd) 5 year plan

Post by Cameloide » Tue Dec 28, 2021 9:51 am

That's awesome! Thanks for sharing.

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Re: My best year- and my (2nd) 5 year plan

Post by melodea » Tue Dec 28, 2021 10:06 am

So good, honest post! Way to go! Good luck for the future🍀
[glow][/glow]Melodea a.k.a. Chris Moser

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Re: My best year- and my (2nd) 5 year plan

Post by cosmicdolphin » Wed Dec 29, 2021 5:35 am

Susanstunes wrote:
Tue Dec 28, 2021 8:46 am
As of today, that E:60 placement has been used 23 times since September at a total of 41 minutes of airtime. WOW GREAT!
That's awesome , congrats. Sounds like someone who edits that show really likes that cue. To get a track that gets used to that extent is a great achievement especially if you're saying your catalogue is relatively small. I've had a track that's been used an awful lot this year as well but it was my 415th cue written for licensing and my 10th library.

You're right that the amount of airtime is one of the most important metrics ( and the $ rate per second of those minutes ) but it's a really difficult one to focus on increasing as there are just too many variables. All you can really do is keep writing useful cues for good quality libraries and hope they land.

Generally I would say if you've found a library that is getting you those kind of placements, keep supplying them with as much music as you can as not every library will get you the same results. Out of my 10 publishers, I would say 6 or 7 were a bit of a waste of time in all honesty so if you've found a good one keep feeding them.

Well done and good luck for 2022

Mark

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Re: My best year- and my (2nd) 5 year plan

Post by Telefunkin » Wed Dec 29, 2021 12:30 pm

Absolutely well done Susan! You've persevered, overcome difficulties, learned new things, and with dogged determination have started to see the rewards. Congratulations on making these things happen for yourself.

You have some sound advice from Mark. A library that gets you placements is far better than one that signs a load of your tracks only for them to gather dust. Therefore, I'd echo his comments, to make the most of that opportunity in front of you. If you continue to create good music for a good library the airtime will accumulate, and as you get faster at producing good tracks it'll become easier to continue submitting to appropriate Taxi listings at the same time, with the potential to expand your library portfolio. I wish you lots of luck and fun on the way. :)
Graham (UK). Still composing a little faster than decomposing, and 100% HI.

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Re: My best year- and my (2nd) 5 year plan

Post by Susanstunes » Wed Dec 29, 2021 4:05 pm

Yes, that advice to focus on libraries where the placements are coming from makes sense. Since I am not super prolific (understatement), that will be easy for me. And I have a bunch of tracks in the clogged pandemic pipeline.

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Re: My best year- and my (2nd) 5 year plan

Post by Casey H » Wed Dec 29, 2021 6:19 pm

Congrats, Susan! :D 8-) :mrgreen: :D


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Re: My best year- and my (2nd) 5 year plan

Post by Goldeneye » Thu Jan 20, 2022 6:54 am

Great Story Susan. Veryinspiring to. I dont have many tracks myself, but I'm trying to build up some Quality tracks before starting to make approaches to synch libraries, and hopefully get onboard with TAXI as well.

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