10 Biggest Mistakes Show Notes
5.22.17 ML
To all who read this: These are my NOTES, not an article! They might be a little sloppy or hard to understand. I wasn't trying to get an "A" on my notes... only on the interview 
• Talk about time, or lack thereof, how busy library owners are and what they do all day. Tagging, uploading, pitching, paperwork, tracking income, writing checks, PRO registrations, prepping for dashbox, soundminer, and whatever else. Mastering?
• How much does hand-holding impede Bob’s (or anybody’s) ability to pitch? Musicians often only see their immediate needs or questions, and although the library owners would love to be awesomely wonderful people and answer questions about all things music business related, for every minute they’re doing that, they’re missing out on a minute that should be used for pitching to make the composers income!
• How many pitch-related emails or phone calls do you make in a typical, average day?
The Biggest Mistakes!
Mistake: The follow up! TAXI has sent a member’s music to you. You ask them for additional stuff, and then “the follow ups” begin! Do follow-ups ever convince you to sign something or somebody? Do follow-ups ever make you feel like wish you’d never met that person?
Mistake: Do not attempt to reach out to a TV production company (or network) to follow up on a piece of music that you know was used in a show. For instance, a writer we know saw that one of his tracks had been used in a show, so he reached out to the network requesting a copy of the episode footage that his track appeared in. This hurts our relationship with the network or production.
Mistake: Do not badger publishers about whether or not they sent your track to a TV show, film or production.
Mistake: Do not badger publishers about payment. Most will pay only twice a year….it can take up to 90 days after the airing for the payment to even be sent to us.
Mistake: Badgering a library when they pass on something of yours. “Dude, I can’t believe you’re not taking this! My music is in 5 other libraries and I’ve had dozens of placements…” Libraries invest their time and effort in signing music they think they can make money with. They often pass on great music. Just because something is great, doesn’t mean it’s a high probability income-earing song or track. They invest their time and effort in signing music that will be requested most frequently.
Mistake: Posting comments or complaints about a music library, a music supervisor, a person in the industry, or any related company on Facebook, twitter, the TAXI Forum, etc. is a big mistake! Once those things are out there, they can easily be pointed out, forwarded, or spread to people in the music or TV/Film community.
Mistake: Trading or exchanging contacts or relationships with other musicians to gain access to companies you don’t have a relationship with. Even though you might like the person and have had no bad interactions with them, you don’t know how they’ll interact with your valuable contact or that the music they send won’t be a waste of the person or company’s time. And while you might not think you’re creating competition for yourself because you and the person you refer do different genres, they’ll also refer other composers down the road who very well may do the same genres as you. Explain the geometric aspect over time.
Mistake: TAXI runs a music search for your company. We find X number of songs or tracks and send them to you. You reach out to a member about something you’d like to sign. And even though our listing said, “you need to own or control the copyright and the master,” the member you’ve reached out to says, “Oh, sorry, my co-writer won’t let me sign that to an exclusive publishing deal.” Does that get under the skin of publishers? Why would this person even submit when the TAXI listing clearly says EXCLUSIVE at least TWICE in the body of the listing???
Mistake: Do not submit any piece of music without having the writer splits resolved, if applicable. If you ARE submitting on behalf of yourself and co-writers, be sure that your co-writers are on board with the deal that any given Publisher is offering BEFORE you pitch!
Related: On that note, ensure that any co-writers do not have publishing deals with major publishers (i.e. BMG, etc).
Mistake: Don’t ask what a publisher needs only to constantly deliver other things and say, “Well, I know you were asking for that, but I wrote this and I thought I’d see if it works for you.”
Mistake: When you reach out to our members—or any of the writers who are in your catalog—and you ask them to send you music, how much do you love it when they send an MP3, a folder of MP3s or WAV files attached to an email?
Related: How much do you love it when you ask what else they have in their catalog that you might be interested in, and they send you 24 soundcloud links?
Related: What are the preferred ways to send?
Mistake: Composers and writers not responding to industry people when they contact you. If we forward your music to Bob or any other entity in the music business, and they reach out to you, don’t ignore them or NOT respond! Ask Bob to what extent that affects his feelings about wanting to work with that writer or composer. ML – Tell the story about the guy who didn’t respond because he was afraid he’d get ripped off because he’s heard so many stories about how everybody in the music industry just wants to screw you.
Mistake: What’s the biggest mistake regarding samples? “Submitting music with un-cleared samples in your music and failing to notify the person you’ve submitted them to.”
Mistake: Assuming that just because you have music in other libraries or catalogs that your music is good enough or right enough to be in EVERY catalog.
Mistake: Ask him about using samples of your name: Quoting him... “If you are a Hip Hop producer, please don’t put an awful sample of your name through out your tracks…it’s obnoxious and you sound like an idiot. It kills the potential for anything that even might sound hip.”
Mistake: The “I can do everything mistake.” If he (or any company) connects with you and asks to hear more of your music, sending 50 pieces of music from all genres and saying you can “do anything” is a mistake. Focus on what you can do best and target your submissions based on your strengths. If you send too much music, we get bogged down trying to get through all of it.
Mistake: If you’ve been asked to send additional material by a company you’ve begun a relationship with, not tagging your files with metadata is a mistake. Publishers receive hundreds of submissions a week, which we cannot immediately listen to. If we download a song and pull it up a week later and there’s no metadata or contact information embedded in the song file, or the music is in a folder marked WeTransfer, we can’t get in touch with you. I’ve had submissions where the folder is labeled with our company name and that’s all the info I’ve got…oye!
Mistake: Sending mass emails without personalization: "if you can’t bother to do a few minutes of basic research on a company and personalize the email, why should we bother giving your music a few minutes?"
Mistake: Don’t submit your music to a TAXI listing for an exclusive Publisher if you’re looking for a licensing agency or a non-exclusive deal. It wastes everyone’s time.
Mistake: Submitting your music to a TAXI listing, getting forwarded, only to pull it back when someone expresses interest.
Mistake: "Asking a Publisher what kind of music they’re being asked for, because ALL kinds of music are asked for every day of the week. If a Publisher says they need Hip Hop, and you say “I don’t do Hip Hop,” you’ve just wasted their time."
Mistake: Not understanding that publishing deals for Film and TV are different from pub deals for “record” projects. It’s common, almost a given in many, if not most cases, that the publisher will get 100% in a film/TV deal. Newbies often reach out their friend who’s a real estate atty. who took some music law courses in school, and they tell them, “You should never give up 100% of your publishing.” While that might be good advice for songs you’d pitch to major label artists, in film/TV, 100% is the norm. Don’t pitch you’re a+ stuff for records to film/TV deals, then decline to sign because the song has real possibilities in the record business.
