Some thoughts on taxi after a few years

[JonathanE]

The 80/20 thing has so far been the most disheartening part of Taxi for me (among the MANY benefits). I've been a Taxi member on and off for years, in the last year have had maybe 5-6 forwards, but nil contact from libraries. I think the suggestion about an automated email would be great, but I can already hear Michael's voice saying the libraries are simply too busy to get back to everybody/send a response to Taxi for each track. Like you, it does sound like even people who have had many forwards often have a similar ratio, although that said, sometimes all you need is a couple of good library deals to set you on your way.

That's a great point, which is that just a couple library contacts can get you on your way. And so, if people were told at the beginning of their taxi membership that a lot of members have succeeded in the business and the 80/20 rule has been true for them, it might be more encouraging for new members to get through the discouraging part of not hearing back from so many forwards.

I'm curious... had you heard of the 80/20 thing before? Had it been mentioned on a taxi tv? Or is it just something that you noticed also for yourself?

[cosmicdolphin]

Thanks a lot for your thoughts Mark. I would be curious what your actual forward/hear back ratio is after all your time submitting if you ever end up calculating it roughly :

I was only a member for two years between 2016 - 2018 and then I went solo. It's little tricky to disentangle the info 100% accurately but the Taxi figures I have state 95 submissions - 38 Forwards, however it may have been more submissions than that originally because some of the returns got signed by libraries as I made more contacts and when that happened I overwrote the Taxi data with the library data.

I know I signed up with 2 libraries from Taxi but that 4 Libraries got in touch overall ( one of them came through several month's after the Taxi membership expired ) but out of those 4 one was a RF library which I'd already joined and anyone could sign up to for free and one library owner reneged on the deal after a bunch of Taxi members had received a contract or offers and ghosted everyone. I think Taxi were informed and they stopped running listings from him. So that made two directly from the Taxi forwards and I was accepted into a third Taxi friendly library by doing a bit of research and appyling directly myself when I was no longer a member.

Out of those two libraries one of them got me some of my first placemnts but is no longer in business and the other started by a former Taxi member has grown and gone from strength to strenghth. Both were non-exclusive at the time but the library that grew became exlcusive.

I've also ended up in other libraries as a by-product of Taxi, so via people I got to know in the forum and co-wrote with etc. It's not just the direct library deals but it's contacts you make along the way as well. I must say that I used other services as well. Sync Academy was where I learned a lot of stuff from. Taxi don't give sync production lessons, they just give you the briefs and feedback. Sync Academy is a bunch of courses on how to actually make the stuff in the first place which is obviously key and probably a better place to start than diving straight into submitting.

Mark

[mattbee]

The 80/20 thing has so far been the most disheartening part of Taxi for me (among the MANY benefits). I've been a Taxi member on and off for years, in the last year have had maybe 5-6 forwards, but nil contact from libraries. I think the suggestion about an automated email would be great, but I can already hear Michael's voice saying the libraries are simply too busy to get back to everybody/send a response to Taxi for each track. Like you, it does sound like even people who have had many forwards often have a similar ratio, although that said, sometimes all you need is a couple of good library deals to set you on your way.

That's a great point, which is that just a couple library contacts can get you on your way. And so, if people were told at the beginning of their taxi membership that a lot of members have succeeded in the business and the 80/20 rule has been true for them, it might be more encouraging for new members to get through the discouraging part of not hearing back from so many forwards.

I'm curious... had you heard of the 80/20 thing before? Had it been mentioned on a taxi tv? Or is it just something that you noticed also for yourself?

I don't think I've heard the 80/20 thing applied to Taxi, although I've heard enough anecdotes about writers having a few gems/unicorn tracks which often generate a lot of income for years etc...

And knowing the great quality of Cosmic Dolphin's work, and from 38 forwards only 3 deals, if I read that correctly... it's beyond discouraging for the rest of us haha.

I know that the Taxi rule is that for every listing, everything on target gets forwarded, it's never just the top 10% etc, so it's good that we know if it hits the mark, it'll get sent to the library to be listened to. But... knowing that there seems to be a very low rate of deals occurring from people with large amounts of forwards is really concerning to me in terms of whether or not I continue with my membership, knowing that even if I start to get a great hit rate of forwards, the chance of that actually resulting in deals starts to something where I question whether it's where I want to put my time.

[Casey H]

I think it would be wise of taxi to develop some sort of understanding with the libraries that receive their music, that the library would have some sort of mechanism (maybe a message sent through taxi so that the library or person at the library doesn't have to expose who they are), that a while after not hearing back from the library, a message from the library (maybe sent THROUGH taxi?) to the composer saying something to the effect of "thank you very much for your submission in response to our brief that we listed with taxi. Your track(s) are not currently what is needed for our purposes, but we have retained your track and contact info on file in the event that your track is needed in the future. Sincerely, unidentified music library person that you cannot respond to".

You have to keep in mind that Taxi isn't the only source providing music to the library. They've got other sources and lots of "go to" writers who they can count on. It's a very saturated music world out there and Taxi has to straddle the line between getting the libraries to run listings and putting more work on very busy people. Even the most Taxi-friendly libraries would not want to be burdened with more day-to-day work.

Casey

[cosmicdolphin]

I know that the Taxi rule is that for every listing, everything on target gets forwarded, it's never just the top 10% etc, so it's good that we know if it hits the mark, it'll get sent to the library to be listened to. But... knowing that there seems to be a very low rate of deals occurring from people with large amounts of forwards is really concerning to me in terms of whether or not I continue with my membership, knowing that even if I start to get a great hit rate of forwards, the chance of that actually resulting in deals starts to something where I question whether it's where I want to put my time.

Maybe it's best not to think of it as a direct correlation betwen submissions, forwards and resulting library contacts.

It might be best to think of it more like you're doing the work needed to sharpen your skills, build upa library of useful tracks, learning how the the industry, connecting with other like minded folks and potential collaborators.

8yrs on I don't think anything directly via Taxi contributes greatly to my Sync income ( which I post in detail about every year for those who haven't come across it eight-year-update-t151428-10.html ) but everything is connected somehow. Whether it's someone I met via Taxi that got me into a good library, or some advice I received from experienced members as a newbie, or a style of music I found I enjoyed and was good at as a result of a Taxi listing.

All these things have contributed as well as learning to write to deadlines and how to de-code a brief etc. So there are lots of side benefits that will help you even once you've spread your wings from Taxi. But I would say if folks are rarely acheiving forwards then there is probably something else more fundamental that needs to be worked on.

Mark

[JonathanE]

You have to keep in mind that Taxi isn't the only source providing music to the library. They've got other sources and lots of "go to" writers who they can count on. It's a very saturated music world out there and Taxi has to straddle the line between getting the libraries to run listings and putting more work on very busy people. Even the most Taxi-friendly libraries would not want to be burdened with more day-to-day work.

Casey

Yes, it's just a suggestion to have something that is automated so that it doesn't burn the time of the library people. Whether it's feasible or not is beyond me, it does strike me as a bit strange though if an automated option hasn't been considered

[JonathanE]

Maybe it's best not to think of it as a direct correlation betwen submissions, forwards and resulting library contacts.

It might be best to think of it more like you're doing the work needed to sharpen your skills, build upa library of useful tracks, learning how the the industry, connecting with other like minded folks and potential collaborators.

8yrs on I don't think anything directly via Taxi contributes greatly to my Sync income ( which I post in detail about every year for those who haven't come across it eight-year-update-t151428-10.html ) but everything is connected somehow. Whether it's someone I met via Taxi that got me into a good library, or some advice I received from experienced members as a newbie, or a style of music I found I enjoyed and was good at as a result of a Taxi listing.

All these things have contributed as well as learning to write to deadlines and how to de-code a brief etc. So there are lots of side benefits that will help you even once you've spread your wings from Taxi. But I would say if folks are rarely acheiving forwards then there is probably something else more fundamental that needs to be worked on.

Mark

Great points. That's exactly what I mean, to not get discouraged, be clear about the other benefits, so that when you don't hear back from the majority of your forwards, you won't throw in the towel. congrats on your success Mark, pretty amazing how that progresses.

[JonathanE]

knowing that even if I start to get a great hit rate of forwards, the chance of that actually resulting in deals starts to something where I question whether it's where I want to put my time.

Yeah, as Mark said and I also mentioned, it's not just about the forwards, but also about the process of refining your chops and the feedback. Taxi and the feedback and the forums has definitely made me a better composer. I guess it really depends on what you want, like I said. For Mark, he's finally have much success through different avenues after a very long slow build.

I myself am less hellbent on the full time sync career thing and have other things I want to focus on. But even for me, the process with taxi has been worth it, and I'll probably renew in a little while. For me, the biggest benefit has been "developing my ears".

But also too, I'm glad Mark responded to my thing about being willing to take on literally any type of music request. If you are willing to do that, you could probably do well in a sync career. For me, there are some genres where my answer to the question to make music there... would definitely be NO. I realize how this limits me, and I'm ok with that ahead of time.

[RickElliott]

Thanks for your insight. I've only been with Taxi for a couple years. I'm really not counting one year because I didn't submit much that one year.
On your accounts and opinions, I agree with you in as much as I don't have as much experience as you.
All I know is, though returns "bite", I usually end up agreeing with the screener after some time. "My GOD! The screener was right! I submitted THAT??" It's definitely a learning experience.
The 20/80 rule seems to jive. I've gotten about six forwards with one deal. It's been over two years and it was never placed. Kind of wish I could get it back as it was an exclusive deal. It was one of those I KNEW was going to get forwarded. Funny thing is, my other forward (got forwarded several times by a few screeners as I submitted it to several requests at once), I submitted it again for another, and it seems to have soured as it sat on my computer because this screener says all kind of things were wrong with it. It was "too" something or other. Lol I didn't change a thing.
Now, I DO feel lucky because I did get that one deal. Makes me want to keep trying and maybe get another and make my wife happy about buying all those "higher quality samples" the screeners keep saying I need.
I'm just going to keep banging them out and get better at writing for the brief!