Standard Library album deal $ ?

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shyof11
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Standard Library album deal $ ?

Post by shyof11 » Wed Feb 09, 2022 7:36 pm

I know this is a very general question but I am trying to gauge what amount of money and type of deals are industry standard for library albums. I am wondering this to know what types of deals are to be avoided and if there is certain amounts of upfront money per song that are considered fair and standard in the industry. I am also wondering if this amount of money differs for vocal songs vs instrumentals. I know alot of this is based on the quality of the music but I am talking about libraries that you would see on sites like APM & West One Music Group ect. Any insight would be great.

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Re: Standard Library album deal $ ?

Post by cosmicdolphin » Thu Feb 10, 2022 1:18 am

Generally the standard deal is zero up front and the rest of the revenue split 50-50 between library and writer.

So 50% of Sync fees, the writers share of the backend royalties which is half of the overall pie and if you're lucky a share of any blanket fees your tracks may have been licensed under.

On the rare occasions I have been paid some up front money it's come at a cost. Either you give up a % of the writers share to the Library owner or it's a sync buyout so you'll never see any sync fees. Or sometimes it's recuopable, so it'll have to be paid back from subsequent earnings.

I'm sure there's other deals out there , but if you're new to all this it's unlikely that you will find any libraries willing to pay for a production music album up front. You'll do well just to get it accepted into a good library for free and 50-50 on the income.

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Re: Standard Library album deal $ ?

Post by shyof11 » Thu Feb 10, 2022 8:14 pm

Thanks for the reply. I have had 2 deals with upfront money, one was a 50/50 split and the $ was recoupable and the other was a sync buyout and the $ was non recoupable. I just found the amount of time it takes to make a full production vocal track is not always worth the money you get when you calculate the amount of hours it may take to complete a song. I guess the hope is to get bigger placements which will earn more per song. I am just wondering if more experienced in demand composers get a decent amount of $ upfront or is the 0$ upfront thing most common even when you are in demand?

cosmicdolphin wrote:
Thu Feb 10, 2022 1:18 am
Generally the standard deal is zero up front and the rest of the revenue split 50-50 between library and writer.

So 50% of Sync fees, the writers share of the backend royalties which is half of the overall pie and if you're lucky a share of any blanket fees your tracks may have been licensed under.

On the rare occasions I have been paid some up front money it's come at a cost. Either you give up a % of the writers share to the Library owner or it's a sync buyout so you'll never see any sync fees. Or sometimes it's recuopable, so it'll have to be paid back from subsequent earnings.

I'm sure there's other deals out there , but if you're new to all this it's unlikely that you will find any libraries willing to pay for a production music album up front. You'll do well just to get it accepted into a good library for free and 50-50 on the income.

Mark

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Re: Standard Library album deal $ ?

Post by cosmicdolphin » Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:06 am

EraCollage wrote:
Thu Feb 10, 2022 8:14 pm
I am just wondering if more experienced in demand composers get a decent amount of $ upfront or is the 0$ upfront thing most common even when you are in demand?
They do but those Libraries are high bar and have their go to roster of writers, watch the credits at the end of any big budget shows and you will see which Libraries they are.

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Re: Standard Library album deal $ ?

Post by Paulie » Mon Feb 14, 2022 8:02 am

shyof11 wrote:
Thu Feb 10, 2022 8:14 pm
I just found the amount of time it takes to make a full production vocal track is not always worth the money you get when you calculate the amount of hours it may take to complete a song. I guess the hope is to get bigger placements which will earn more per song.
And there is one of the biggest issues that many composers seem to ignore (or deny). In my experience good paying sync fees have been rare... my best upfront payment has been a $900 check for a track that appeared on a USA Network show. Almost all of my revenue comes from my quarterly BMI payments, lots of tracks with low dollar amounts per play, but some have multiple plays. And the payouts vary widely... I had a minute long placement on a CBS show that paid $200, but a different one minute track on the same show but a different day paid $85 (same time, same splits). Many of my placements are $5 here, $9 there, plus a whole bunch that are tracked in pennies instead of dollars. If I compared the hours it take to make a track to the amount of money I made from that track, in most cases it doesn't make sense. Two hours (which is fast for many people) for a simple hip hop track that pays $4 per play, or $150 for a two hour cocktail hour live gig? Combining music and math can be depressing. :)

To make real money at this you need quality as well as quantity. I compare tv sync to a winery. You first have to plant the vines, they need time to grow, then you make the wine, age the wine, etc... eventually a revenue stream kicks in and grows. After doing this for almost seven years, I am most certainly not getting a good ROI, but I'm in for the long haul. Finding those good paying sync fees seems to be somewhat of a mystery to me, same goes for ad revenue. A single ad placement can get you four or five figures. You can't win what you don't chase, but big money can be elusive.

There are plenty of people making money at this, I would love to see a distribution graph that shows annual music income from the top 100 Taxi members (anonymized of course). My guess is that there are not a lot of people here making more than $20k per quarter, which I think is a living wage in the US. CAN you make money doing this? Absolutely. But the business continues to change, to get more competitive/saturated, and the rules seem to be changing to the benefit of big studios and detriment of composers. And don't get me started on AI-generated music. ;)
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Re: Standard Library album deal $ ?

Post by cosmicdolphin » Mon Feb 14, 2022 8:37 am

Paulie wrote:
Mon Feb 14, 2022 8:02 am
To make real money at this you need quality as well as quantity. I compare tv sync to a winery. You first have to plant the vines, they need time to grow, then you make the wine, age the wine, etc... eventually a revenue stream kicks in and grows. After doing this for almost seven years, I am most certainly not getting a good ROI, but I'm in for the long haul. Finding those good paying sync fees seems to be somewhat of a mystery to me, same goes for ad revenue. A single ad placement can get you four or five figures. You can't win what you don't chase, but big money can be elusive.
Yeah same here really - I post up my annual figures but a little over £2k in 6 years ..my best sync fee being $300. My rate must be pennies per hour.

I had a really strong year on placements last year though so things may be looking better when that comes through.

I listened to the latest Synconized Podcast the other day where they interviewed the head of music for Ep*****c Sounds. They only use Non-Pro affiliated composers and I see a lot of folks in Facebook Groups say they are the devil incarnate due to their business model but they pay a minimum of $1k up front per track ( it goes up to as much as $5k but they don't detail how you would get that amount ) and a 50% share of any streaming revenue.

Granted that will the be the only money you will ever see from that track but from my 450+ cue back catalogue I've only ever had one track that's come anywhere close to that amount, and of course 80% of those cues will probably never be used at all. Given the choice I would seriously consider joining them, I'd certainly apply and see if I could get in. Sadly they don't work with UK composers so I can't even try.

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Re: Standard Library album deal $ ?

Post by shyof11 » Mon Feb 14, 2022 10:24 am

Thanks for your insights guys. As you said doing the math when it comes to hours spent vs money made can be depressing at times for many I suppose. Some ppl have told me to stay away from the sync buyout deals with upfront non-recoupable money but to me getting cut a cheque for $3000 upfront for an album and hoping some back end money from my PRO comes through seems ok with my limited experience in this game. Sadly it works out to around minimum wage perhaps or less when you do the math but beats the hell out of flipping burgers I suppose! There also has been some instances where a decent cheque comes through from the PRO making it more worth it but this work is for the crazy music obsessed folks like me who really dont want to "work for the man" i guess :lol: Then you read the stories of ppl sticking with it and finally after years of grinding making decent $... this line of work is not for everyone thats for sure. ;)

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Re: Standard Library album deal $ ?

Post by VanderBoegh » Mon Feb 14, 2022 11:59 am

Combining music and math can be depressing. :)
Ain't that the truth, Paulie!!

To get back to the original question, here's the telling line:
Some ppl have told me to stay away from the sync buyout deals with upfront non-recoupable money but to me getting cut a cheque for $3000 upfront for an album and hoping some back end money from my PRO comes through seems ok with my limited experience in this game.
That part in yellow - "with my limited experience in the game" - is the clincher. Most people can't command upfront payments from libraries unless they are a big player in the business with a huge list of placements, or if they are a well-known name in the mainstream music world that has decided to dabble in library music for some passive income. Sadly, upfront payments are extremely rare for people just getting started in this world. I suppose it CAN happen, but it's doubtful.

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Re: Standard Library album deal $ ?

Post by shyof11 » Wed Feb 16, 2022 8:59 am

I wanted to ask something to the more experienced composers that have worked with a decent amount of international libraries. How common is it to come across established libraries that ONLY do exclusive sync buyout deals that give the composer a small non recoupable advance($300-$400) per song for both vocal and instrumental songs plus 100% of writers share? Is this a rare business model or is it something you have come across frequently? From what I can tell the most common deals are the 0$ upfront 50/50 split across the board but I am wondering if this type of sync buyout deal is common as well.

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Re: Standard Library album deal $ ?

Post by cosmicdolphin » Thu Feb 17, 2022 3:26 pm

shyof11 wrote:
Wed Feb 16, 2022 8:59 am
I wanted to ask something to the more experienced composers that have worked with a decent amount of international libraries. How common is it to come across established libraries that ONLY do exclusive sync buyout deals that give the composer a small non recoupable advance($300-$400) per song for both vocal and instrumental songs plus 100% of writers share? Is this a rare business model or is it something you have come across frequently? From what I can tell the most common deals are the 0$ upfront 50/50 split across the board but I am wondering if this type of sync buyout deal is common as well.
If you ever find this deal let us know :shock:

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