Seven Year Update

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cosmicdolphin
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Seven Year Update

Post by cosmicdolphin » Fri Dec 09, 2022 4:34 am

Seasons Greetings to all...I've gone early this year 8-)

As I now approach the end of my 7th year of my Sync Licensing licensing journey I decided it was time to post another update - If you would like to read my previous years posts on the subject they can be found here:-

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4 Year Update : four-year-update-t144067.html?hilit=yea ... r%20update

5 Year Update : five-year-update-t147037.html?hilit=update

6 Year Update : topic148673.html?hilit=5%20year%20update
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Turns out the 7th year's the charm ;) :

2016 - 87 cues produced - 1 Library Deal - Total Earnings £0

2017 - 70 cues produced - 2 more Library Deals - Total Annual Earnings - £50

2018 - 88 cues produced - 2 more Library Deals - Total Annual Earnings - £127

2019 - 50 cues produced - 2 more Library Deals - Total Annual Earnings - £763

2020 - 100 cues produced - 3 more Library Deals - Total Annual Earnings £ 700

2021 - 100 cues produced - No additional Libraries this year - Total Annual Earnings £582

2022 - 81 cues produced - 3 more Library Deals - Total Annual Earnings £3,347


13 Libraries in total ( three new ones which only have a small amount of my music currently so results remain unknown )

So year seven then of the 5yr plan ;) The retreat of Covid saw a return to somewhat normal working patterns in my day job and consequently my musical output has decreased. With less time in the studio I made a concious decision to quietly "jettison" certain publishers that I've given a good amount of my music to over the years but with very little ROI. They are all nice people to work with, and I appreciate them working with me as a newbie at that time but business is business so sometimes you have to get out of the comfort zone and find new opportunities.

The good news is 2022 saw a significant upturn in earnings which is 90% backend royalties. What do I put this down to ?

Well quite simply it's the Library I joined right near the end of 2020. They just get me way more placements than every other library and this is the result of those placements filtering through to my PRO. Around 80% of my placements are via them and this carries over to the backend royalties they generate with the top earning tracks each bringing in around £200-300 over the year but there are also lots of cues around the £50-£80 region which add up and a of course tons of sub £10 tracks. Being a European Library they are mostly landing domestic daytime TV type placements but they do sub-publish in the US and I've had a few decent US Networks show up in my Tunesat too.

After a relatively succesful 2022 there is more good news if we look at this year's actual number of placements :

2016 - 1
2017 - 1
2018 - 8
2019 - 29
2020 - 21
2021 - 145
2022 - 222

Total number of placements is now 427 from 570 cues. Once again this is WAY up from my 2021 results when I'd had 201 from 486 cues. In fact this year's placements total more than all the previous years combined.

As I mentioned this is mostly driven by one Libary which I spoke about more in my 6yr update but it just goes to show if you have the right music in the right libraries it makes a huge difference. You can be the best sync producer in the world but if the libary is not a good fit then your music will simply sit on the shelf. Or you could be in a fantastic library that just isn't a good fit for your music. So both things need to align to get any level of traction.

I think this is one of the less talked about subjects across the web when people promote sync, but there really is a right place - right time element to all of this that you just can't legislate for so best to go for the many baskets approach but unfortunately it takes a couple of years to know how things will pan out.

I've decided 2023 should be about incremental improvements so I plan to dive back into my piano course abd brush up on that, take some music theory workshops and possibly something on orchestration. I've invested in some Slate VSX headphones as several trusted colleagues who's mixes I admire seem to rate them so that's another way to improve my production.

Mystery Solved - Those of you who follow Taxi TV may recall my very long email that ML read out about one of our Taxi returns showing up in a German Supermaket Ad. Long story short, a bunch of our non-ex music got sublicensed to Adobe without us knowing and this is how it ended up in the TV Ad when they put it into their project via Adobe Premier's built in stock library. It's taken some untangling but through the process we've uneathered this extra revenue stream we were unaware of and although it won't be a large amount of money we've had a couple of hundred each for various usages via this Adobe platform and should get more.

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Some 2022 firsts this time around include :-

My first 4 figure royalty cheque for a Qtr

CNBC used one of my tracks as a theme for their CEO Council and it ran quite a lot https://youtu.be/iXWR239QBTk

I finally earned enough from music this year to pay tax on it ( Boo )

Someone finally showed an interest in the Post Rock Album I am working on with Telefunkin ! We are completing it as we speak.

I went to the PRS Day in Manchester and met some actual real people and did some networking with other musicians who mostly know nothing about sync but would like to.

I started writing a book although I've not worked on it for a while it's called " 100 reasons Why You Suck At Sync Licensing "....I I should carry on with it.

I joined a Zoom seminar over at 52 cues and got to speak directly with a Library owner who gave me some feedback but that's the first time I've ever spoken directly with anyone in the industry other than my composer friends.

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Thanks as ever to @Telefunkin for buying me lunch in the Summer and listening to endless track revisions. To the very lovely @helenrobertson who I've worked with this year and gotten some nice placements with.

To Paulie - MarkH - AndrewJ - JellyCrackers and everyone over on the Discord chat thanks for giving us somewhere to talk shop somewhat privately.

And to CaseyH for upholding the moral principles of the forum despite my best efforts, thanks for reaching out and sharing your knowledge and insights this year.

Here's to 2023

Mark
Last edited by cosmicdolphin on Sun Dec 25, 2022 9:58 am, edited 4 times in total.

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cassmcentee
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Re: Seven Year Update

Post by cassmcentee » Fri Dec 09, 2022 5:11 am

Congrats Mark!
Nice Update... Cheers
Robert "Cass" McEntee
"Making music on a spinning ball of Magma"
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cosmicdolphin
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Re: Seven Year Update

Post by cosmicdolphin » Fri Dec 09, 2022 5:31 am

cassmcentee wrote:
Fri Dec 09, 2022 5:11 am
Congrats Mark!
Nice Update... Cheers
Thanks Cass !

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Casey H
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Re: Seven Year Update

Post by Casey H » Fri Dec 09, 2022 5:48 am

Hey Mark
Thanks for the update and shout out! Your critiques on this forum are the best and we are lucky to have you here. 8-) Yea, we butted heads early on but people learn and grow. Life is short. We all have something to offer each other. Good to see the revenue increasing. Hope 2023 is great for you.

And remember, it's all in the phrasing and marketing. Your business saw a 567% increase from 2022 to 2023!! ;)

Best,
:D Casey

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superkons
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Re: Seven Year Update

Post by superkons » Fri Dec 09, 2022 7:14 am

Well done, onwards and upwards!
Marco - Pianist, keyboardist, composer for film/TV/games/media

https://musicalwizardry.com
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cosmicdolphin
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Re: Seven Year Update

Post by cosmicdolphin » Fri Dec 09, 2022 7:43 am

Casey H wrote:
Fri Dec 09, 2022 5:48 am
And remember, it's all in the phrasing and marketing. Your business saw a 567% increase from 2022 to 2023!! ;)
Or....I've now exceeded £1 per hour for time spent :lol:

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Re: Seven Year Update

Post by Telefunkin » Fri Dec 09, 2022 8:02 am

Huh, you got lucky! ;) J/K of course.
I've watched the last 6 of those seven years and I know how hard you've worked. All that effort was bound to pay off eventually, so I'm glad its happening now for you. Well done Mark and I've absolutely no doubt that even better things are coming. Next year's update should be a doozy!
Graham (UK). Still composing a little faster than decomposing, and 100% HI.

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Re: Seven Year Update

Post by melodea » Fri Dec 09, 2022 8:05 am

Thanks so much for the post Mark!
Finally some clear signals from the voids of the sync-licensing universe!
You prove loud and clear that it takes a LOT of time to make it in the sync licensing business.

Good luck with continuous exponential growth.

Chris
[glow][/glow]Melodea a.k.a. Chris Moser

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Re: Seven Year Update

Post by VanderBoegh » Fri Dec 09, 2022 9:21 am

Great update, Mark!

~~Matt

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Re: Seven Year Update

Post by gitanosoy » Fri Dec 09, 2022 9:50 am

Congrats Mark!

Thanks for all the education and honest feedback on what ever topic, always look forward to reading your posts,I have learnt so much from you and Graham and yes pints are in order if we cross paths one day.

Say hi to the kids on Diskord.


..and good luck in the world cup 2022 you are going to need it.. :lol:

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