Forwards - I love them...but what next??

[jlizerbram]

Now that I've finally begun the wonderful experience of getting forwards, I'm questioning...what next?? What steps should I take to make sure they go further? Most of my forwards are for music libraries, which contain vast amounts of tracks, and I'm concerned mine will just get lost in the ether. Should I contact the library directly? If so, what do I ask?

[mazz]

Congrats on the forwards!!

First of all, before you contact the library, read this thread:

http://forums.taxi.com/topic20394.html

Second of all, keep writing and submitting, even submit the ones that were forwarded if they fit the listing. There's not much you can do right away to influence the library to listen to your music on your schedule, they probably have tons of music to listen to. Hopefully yours is near the top of the stack because it came from TAXI, but either way, they'll either get to it or they won't, and contacting them out of the blue may only serve to piss them off if they are really busy.

You can take solace in the fact that your music getting forwarded means that it's competitive in the marketplace, so use that as impetus to continue to create tracks at least of the quality of the ones that got forwarded, and keep submitting them.

It can take months or years to get a reply, but if you're studying the business and have your business chops together, as well as a nice catalog of pieces, when they call, you'll sound professional and if it's been long enough, the piece they want will have already been signed but you'll have another similar (probably better by now) piece in your back pocket you can offer them.

Focus on the process, you've gotten your foot in the door, wait for them to invite the rest of you in.

Good luck and congrats again on the forwards!!

Mazz

[jlizerbram]

Mazz, thanks for the guidance. Wow, I read through that topic you linked me to. Sure don't want to step on anyone's toes!

One more question - I'm affiliated with BMI, although I haven't registered hardly any of my songs yet, especially the crappy ones. Once a song gets to the "competitive level", i.e., gets forwarded, should I go ahead and register it in my BMI catalog now? Seems like "duh" question, but just want to know any further steps to be prepared in case that phone call comes in one day

Thanks.

[crs7string]

Mazz, thanks for the guidance. Wow, I read through that topic you linked me to. Sure don't want to step on anyone's toes!

One more question - I'm affiliated with BMI, although I haven't registered hardly any of my songs yet, especially the crappy ones. Once a song gets to the "competitive level", i.e., gets forwarded, should I go ahead and register it in my BMI catalog now? Seems like "duh" question, but just want to know any further steps to be prepared in case that phone call comes in one day

Thanks.

The library will register the tracks you sign with them. This is especially true if the library re-titles your tracks. When they register your tracks, they register as the publisher and you are registered as the writer for, typically, a 50/50 split.

You can then look on BMI's website and review your catalog that the publisher(s) have registered.


As Mazz said above one has to be patient and just keep working. I think it takes a critical mass of forwards that lead to a critical mass of deals signed that leads to a critical mass of placements. The "critical mass" part will vary from composer to composer based on skill set and genres one composes.


One of the neat things that happens after a relationship with a publisher is established, is that you then are one of their composers and they do look to the people they know that they can rely on to be professional, deliver good music, and do what they say they will do. Many libraries go directly to their stable of composers when a need of one of their clients pops up.

In real estate it's "location, location, location"

In production music it's "patience. patience, patience"

If one is patient (assuming the music is good) everything I've outlined will and does fall in place.

Forget about the forwards and focus on "critical mass"


HTH

Chuck

[jlizerbram]

Great advice from both of you. Thank you very much.

[farfisa]

[quote="mazz"]Congrats on the forwards!!


It can take months or years to get a reply, but if you're studying the business and have your business chops together, as well as a nice catalog of pieces, when they call, you'll sound professional and if it's been long enough, the piece they want will have already been signed but you'll have another similar (probably better by now) piece in your back pocket you can offer them.


One of the mysteries of Taxi forwards is how long it takes for a library to make contact with the writers. If you go directly to any of those libraries (and they ALL take submissions from composers) you usually get an answers and deal within a few days to a few weeks. Hardly any company takes months. Makes you wonder if Taxi writers are really at the top of the listening pile.......

[mazz]

Congrats on the forwards!!


It can take months or years to get a reply, but if you're studying the business and have your business chops together, as well as a nice catalog of pieces, when they call, you'll sound professional and if it's been long enough, the piece they want will have already been signed but you'll have another similar (probably better by now) piece in your back pocket you can offer them.


One of the mysteries of Taxi forwards is how long it takes for a library to make contact with the writers. If you go directly to any of those libraries (and they ALL take submissions from composers) you usually get an answers and deal within a few days to a few weeks. Hardly any company takes months. Makes you wonder if Taxi writers are really at the top of the listening pile.......

I actually don't think that either of our blanket statements are 100% true. I spoke to a library owner at the Road Rally who I had just been forwarded to and he was still in the process of adding MetaData to all the pieces he had received and hadn't even gotten around to a lot of it. He's a smaller, but well connected library, and he's a small business, doing a lot of it himself. Other libraries may have a bigger staff to listen to stuff, or you may have hit them right when they had a project and they were going through a lot of stuff, or whatever, which may have been why they got to it sooner.

I heard from another library 25 months after getting a forward. I have also heard within weeks or even days, it just depends on the need and the type of project they are involved in at the time, it seems.

So I think we're both saying the same thing from different ends of the spectrum. Either way, it can take a while, or not.

I don't know if TAXI writers are at the top of the pile or not, my experience has been that it's working for me so far. Your experience has been different, but there's many ways to skin that cat, and TAXI is one of them.

Good luck.

Mazz

[fusilierb]

Ha, this is a funny, good thread. What next indeed. The magic of the forward can wear off quickly.

I say firstly enjoy it. Congratulate yourself for passing some industry level scrutiny and bask for a while. Then, completely forget about it. I have very little real world experience with what comes next as I've only been at this for a couple of years now. I will say that getting forwards is a milestone. It means you can compete.

But the next step is really all over the map. I've had lot's of forwards from over a year ago that I haven't heard anything at all from. Maybe they listened to the music and didn't like it? Maybe they haven't listened to it for whatever reason? Who knows. Just crickets chirping.

And then, just when you think its all a joke something will break. You'll get that contract in the email and then you're off into the next step of this multi step game. Who knows how long that will take. For me it was a bit over two years. First year, no forwards. Second year forwards and at the last second of the second year, my first deal.

But, what I did while I was waiting was to go beyond Taxi to start to see who I could pitch the stuff that was being forwarded to. And that worked, and you should look into it. I was in three libraries that I had gotten into on my own before I got into the first one as a direct result of Taxi. And I learned a lot in finding them and getting into them.

But the most important thing for me was that if it weren't for the Taxi listings that I was writing for, the pieces that I landed on my own wouldn't have existed. Taxi and these boards have a way of focusing you in. It helped me to create my base catalog of pieces that I could pitch. I figured if they were good enough to be forwarded, they were good enough to go somewhere. So use the Taxi listings as a motivator. Take your forwards where you get them and seek out other paths while you wait.

It's a multi-step journey that's going to require you hitting every angle available. The main reason I still really like Taxi is that it keeps me focused on writing something. That and the deals that did start coming, which obviously became another motivator.

What's next is really up to you.
HTH's
B