End of Year number crunching & placements

[markhimley]

Wow, Matt!! You continue to kill it and bring tons of inspiration for us all. Can't say I'm surprised though honestly, you're a monster!

Thanks for everything and wishing you all the best!!

[VanderBoegh]

Thanks so much, everyone! I still remember being inspired by a lot of Taxi guys right here on this forum when I was getting my start. In fact, it's probably one of the things that kept me going through the bleak years of constant work and zero revenue. So, hopefully I can pay that back to the community a little bit.

Now, here is a question to you, that would help me as a newbie (with no placements and 1 single forward ) to understand these statistics a little better: Over the years, how many submissions became forwards, how many forwards turned into deals, how many deals turned into actual placements?

# submissions : # forwards : # deals : # placements

Not sure the statistics is that straightforward. But maybe there is a number such as, out of 100 submissions you got 5 placements, or similar. I think it would put into perspective how much work even a super-successful pro as yourself has to put in to actually get placements. Also, how long on average does it take a placement to actually happen, say, from submission to airing?

Tom, this is a hard question to answer. I do have statistics somewhere in a spreadsheet that tracks the amount of submissions, the amount of forwards, and the amount of deals. That info is saved on my studio computer, and right now I'm in my house typing this message during a rain delay for the Boise State / Boston College bowl game. Next time I'm in the studio, I'll look that up.

But, this part: "how many deals turned into actual placements?" is pretty much impossible to answer. The reason for that is because a forwarded song that turns into a library deal will almost inevitably turn into an open-door to submit that library more music. I don't know for certain, but am almost positive that I have library deals where the library has landed me tons of placements, but never placed the original track that spawned the deal.

When it comes right down to it, I've got 25 library deals. Let's say 15 of them came as the result of Taxi forwards (a guess right now)..... those 15 tracks were essentially "door openers" that lead to the signing of hundreds of additional songs.

Other deals came to me because of my posts right here on the forums, which led to a library owner clicking on my SoundCloud link and listening to a bunch of stuff, and wanting to sign me as a composer based upon my skill set. They didn't want to sign a particular track, rather, they wanted me to write custom music for them. In a lot of these cases, the library stumbled upon tracks that I initially made for Taxi listings.

So really, it's impossible to tell. This is why Michael is always struggling to put statistics on "success figures" from Taxi members. One forwarded track that turns into a deal might only go on to make a mere $5, but the other tracks that were created because of that deal might make tens of thousands of dollars. It gets too unruly to track all of that stuff after a while. So we just collect our checks and go back to work.

~~Matt

[CTWF]

[...] I don't know for certain, but am almost positive that I have library deals where the library has landed me tons of placements, but never placed the original track that spawned the deal.

When it comes right down to it, I've got 25 library deals. Let's say 15 of them came as the result of Taxi forwards (a guess right now)..... those 15 tracks were essentially "door openers" that lead to the signing of hundreds of additional songs.

Other deals came to me because of my posts right here on the forums, which led to a library owner clicking on my SoundCloud link and listening to a bunch of stuff, and wanting to sign me as a composer based upon my skill set. They didn't want to sign a particular track, rather, they wanted me to write custom music for them. In a lot of these cases, the library stumbled upon tracks that I initially made for Taxi listings. [...]

Hi Matt, very interesting information in these lines, and I totally understand there is no easy answer, but rather a very important message, which is, that Taxi opened doors for you that otherwise you would have possibly not even known existed, and this - in the end (and together with your talent!) - let to the success you have today. Many thanks. Tom

[robbiejhancock]

Congrats Matt and all! All the best for 2019!

[edmondredd]

Wow, Matt!! You continue to kill it and bring tons of inspiration for us all. Can't say I'm surprised though honestly, you're a monster!

Thanks for everything and wishing you all the best!!

Couldn't say it any better!
Merry Christmas and happy hollidays!

[SteveBaruah]

You're a constant inspiration, Matt! Huge congrats on your success!!

[stansongman]

Thank you for being so open with your stats, it's really inspiring!

[DesireInspires]

Good idea, Michael! And dang, I didn't even think how that might come across to people new to this forum. Like the old saying, "a picture says a thousand words", here's a screenshot of my ASCAP homepage this morning:



Last year, I finished with 1,288 episodes, on 168 shows.

So, that means that in this past year, I added 552 new episodes of 74 new TV shows. That's not counting the stuff that I know about which hasn't shown up in my ASCAP account yet - like the vocal placements I mentioned in the initial post. I keep an eye on that stuff with my free TuneSat account, which is just limited to tracking 50 songs. All in all, I've had music on more than 250 TV shows in total now.

Dude, how in the world did you get so successful? My ASCAP statements are dogcrap compared to yours. I am sending you a PM.

[annayarbrough]

Congrats Matt! Always impressed with how much you continue to give back and encourage others. Hope 2019 continues to be prosperous for you.

[ksutton1207]

Thanks for sharing, Matt! Your success has been a huge motivation for me, especially for a guy who’s ending the year with one cue sheet in his ASCAP report But hey, it came in December and I know it’s the first of many!

Keep up the great work, man. Looking forward to a productive 2019!

- Kyle