Self-Publishing

[hazineju]

Hi Everyone, i was about to hijack Southpaw's thread about publishing and PRO's but decided to write a separate thread with some more questions. I've got my "This Business of Songwriting" book right here but am still unsure about some of this stuff. I'm registered as a writer and not a publisher. In the book, Jason says if you don't have a publisher, you ARE the publisher. My question is, does this mean i have to be REGISTERED as a publisher to collect publishing? If I list a song as "unpublished" on ASCAP, does that mean the publishing royalties won't be given, just the writer's share? Would you say starting your own publishing company is worth it or a hassle?

[slideboardouts]

I don't know about ASCAP but with BMI I just claim publishing on the track when I register it. Really simple. I only have 2 tracks like that though, and even though one has sold I really don't hold out much hope of getting any performance royalties.Most of the time you are going to have to give up publishing on whatever you sign, so I personally wouldn't worry too much about it. -Steve

[llama]

Hey Juliet,Just been through this situation. I have some pieces that I needed to self publish. As an ASCAP member I have to register separately as a publisher or I won't get publishing. Apparently at BMI you do not have to register as a publisher because if your the writer and you don't have a publisher then you will automatically get the publishing. But of course as Steve says above in most cases with production libraries the pieces will be retitled and publishing will be taken care of by the library. Though you should keep an eye on that too. So far I have various splits for how much publishing is shared between the library and I. Typically 50/50 or 60/40 depending on the library and of course I get all the writers share.HTHDerek

[billg]

Juliet, if you don't have another publisher and/or until your song is published by someone else you are the publisher. You should sign up with ASCAP as a publisher. Then when you register a song you assign the publishing to yourself at 50%. If you are the only writer then you assign all of the writing to yourself at 50% for a total of 100%. This can be done with the "quick form" and you can save the template & register a bunch of songs with the same info without having to scroll through all of those options.Hope this helps!

[jeffgreenleaf]

Yeah..I just did this, too. Registered with ASCAP as a writer only. Then when it was time to register a title, it became very clear I needed to register as a publisher, too.

[deantaylor]

Yep, Billg and Jeff are absolutely right.

[matto]

Hi Juliet! Dec 17, 2008, 3:32pm, jeffgreenleaf wrote:Yeah..I just did this, too. Registered with ASCAP as a writer only. Then when it was time to register a title, it became very clear I needed to register as a publisher, too. Of course, unless there's an imminent opportunity for a composition to generate performance royalties, there is really no point in registering it with a PRO anyway.So, you might want to wait until there is one. If you made it happen yourself, without the aid of another publisher, then you ARE the publisher and (in the case of ASCAP) would sign up as a publishing company, assigning your publishing royalties to that entity and the writer's to your writer account. If on the other hand someone else made the placement happen, they will most likely want part or all of the publishing...if they take all then there's no reason to sign up as a publisher.Sure, you could join as a publisher now and assign all publisher's royalties to yourself, but then you'd have to change it later if/when you sign some kind of publishing deal for one or several songs. You might as well save yourself that trouble.Of course, if you pitch your music directly to other artists for potential cuts, you would want to have a publishing company with letterhead etc as it would look more pro.But that's only if you pitch directly, for song pitches.matto

[flyingtadpole]

Different in Oz, and too confusing/complicated to run through here. Any Oz Taxis, talk to APRA/AMCOS about this. My understanding, based on the US model, turned out to be wrong...

[hazineju]

Hey thanks so much to Steve, Derek, Bill, Jeff, Dean, Matt, and Flying Tadpole, great to hear from you and your responses have been very helpful! The reason i'm bringing this up at this point is i'm about to send my cd to a bunch of radio stations---all the songs on which are currently unpublished. of course i'll also be sending some of them to music libraries and such and wouldn't feel the need to have publishing until then if i was just sending to the music libes. but in the event they do get radio play i would need to have the publishing accounted for to collect, right?thanks again you guys, you're the best!

[matto]

Dec 18, 2008, 10:58am, hazineju wrote:The reason i'm bringing this up at this point is i'm about to send my cd to a bunch of radio stations---all the songs on which are currently unpublished. of course i'll also be sending some of them to music libraries and such and wouldn't feel the need to have publishing until then if i was just sending to the music libes. but in the event they do get radio play i would need to have the publishing accounted for to collect, right?Yes you would, but remember that there is a delay of approx 6 months or more between a broadcast, and ASCAP payment for that broadcast. So if you do get airplay, there would be ample time to register as a publisher, before those royalties become due.Also, technically speaking the songs on your CD are "published" as soon as you "release them to the public", so to speak. The fact that you don't have a publishing company registered with ASCAP doesn't mean you don't own those publishing rights (until/unless you tranfer them to somebody else).You just cannot collect publisher's performance royalties from ASCAP, unless you become a publisher member.Make sense?