Publishing composition

How many of you have got your compositions published, and how do you get your compositions published. Many big publishers seem not to take in new composers work, and are looking for establish composers work. Any recommedation of publishers to try

I was wondering the same thing. What way to take when you (eventually) want to get your compositions published (without taking some sort of agent to do it for you).

I was wondering the same thing. What way to take when you (eventually) want to get your compositions published (without taking some sort of agent to do it for you).

So you want to be part of the machine, but not fully? Sounds like you might be working at cross-purposes to yourself.

If you're not at the stage in your career to spend money on an agent, you might want to look into self-publishing. This is a more mild form of the DIY or Die sentiment that I wanted to initially reply with. Get your business going, then worry about publishing by major companies.

So you want to be part of the machine, but not fully? Sounds like you might be working at cross-purposes to yourself.

If you're not at the stage in your career to spend money on an agent, you might want to look into self-publishing. This is a more mild form of the DIY or Die sentiment that I wanted to initially reply with. Get your business going, then worry about publishing by major companies.

Self Publishing is a good idea, This is what I plan to do to start and maybe even forever. (Although, Im more worried about my stuff getting out there first). Set up a website, and sell the scores and rent the parts, or however you would rather do it.

I may be able to help with that actually...

I'm VERY serious.

For those who do not know me, I hold a PhD in composition, my works have been performed in Europe and USA and I'm a lovely guy in all! ^_^

If anyone is interested in publishing their works, please e-mail me at nikolasideris *AT* hotmail *DOT* com.

Exactly because I'm a lovely guy I can't:

a. Make any solid promises right now, without seeing the scores.

b. Make any promises that I'll provide feedback as to why or why not a work(s) is good/not good enough for publishing.

c. Can't spill any more beans right now, for commercial reasons.

But really, e-mail me and talk to me, it can't do any harm, can it?

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Self publishing (because I've tried it) is very limited and cannot reach the same people a publishing house would do. Nor shed the same marketing light... :-/ Plus 90% of the times the scores that are self published, are missing the actual part of the 'editor' which is crucial for an error free publication. :(

Sorry for the double post but this post seems to go to different directions than my previous post, so...

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Why would one want to get their works published?

- Because they think it will bring money.

- Because it will bring more commissions.

- Because it will bring fame.

- Because it will make their music reachable to the general public.

One should answer the above, before venturing into the publishing business...

In general terms, if I may say so, selling your scores through a publisher won't get you tons of money. It won't make you make a living. The % you may get from the actual sales are quite low... For example, in text publishing (which is better in monetary terms than music publishing), a deal I heard was that the author will be getting 25% (minus taxes, VAT, blah blah), AFTER the first 1000 books have been sold (so that the publisher will make their money back). Bad deal but that's the bottom line.

More commissions? This is tied to getting more famous and making your music accessible for the audience/public/interested partis. Nothing on its own will bring fame and fortune and more commissions and performances.

A personal example: I don't have any published works, as of now, but I do have live performances, commissions, etc. It's not necessary to get a work published.

Of course it doesn't harm and it IS the publishers job to push the works, but NOT the composer. Pushing the composer is a job for an agent, not the publisher.

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Main living for composers, at least in my case, can come from a variety of sources, including working as a composer for media, teaching, getting commissions, etc...

NOW I'm done posting in this thread for now! :D

I had a small music publisher cold call me (or cold email is probably more accurate) after listening to one of my early pieces at another website (my string movement in g minor). I had to transcribe it for a saxophone quartet, since he only published band music, but it did get published. I didn't make any money off of it but did get 5 free copies of the music and donated one copy to my university music library for posterity :happy: . So I guess I could say technically I am a published composer.

It's probably very, very difficult to get your works published by a major publisher. I agree that self-publishing is a better way to go.

I simply self-publish. Now, you're probably not going to be making much money that way unless you rent out parts (especially band music; scores themselves won't make you much money), but it's nice to have complete control of all your music.

If you live in the U.S. you can create your own publishing entity by signing up with a performance rights organization, namely BMI or ASCAP. I signed up with ASCAP and you create two accounts. One is for yourself as a writer (composer) and one is your publisher account. After you do this, register all your compositions that you think are worthy of being published under the publisher account. You'll probably want at least a nice .pdf copy of each score. Don't forget to add your publisher name to the bottom of all your scores. Ta da! You're self-published and you can now make money off of performances of your works by reporting performances to ASCAP (not all performances will make you money, but report the performances anyway by sending in a concert program). You can make money off of performances by simply being a writer member of ASCAP, however you will only make half of the money that you could if you were both a writer and publisher member (because the writer gets half the profit and the publisher gets half the profit; if there is no registered publisher then the writer still only gets half the potential profit and the rest is not collected). It seems very complicated at first but it's a pretty simple procedure once you dive in and get in the habit of reporting performances of your works.

Technically if you're posting a score on this site you are already self-published, but registering works with ASCAP or BMI gives you some money-making options and makes you seem more professional.

^The post right above me is very informative. Self-Publishing can be very successful if you do it right. You may or may not have heard of him but there is a very accomplished composer, John Mackey, who self publishes. He also blogs on his "publishers" website and one of his blogs is about self-publishing.

John Mackey's Insight on Self-Publishing

The link above is to his informative post on self-publishing through ASCAP.

Hope this helps

While the above post(s) ARE indeed very informative and quite correct, and so is John's blog post, I find that there are many aspects missing.

The main part about getting published is NOT to get your works on a piece of paper, fold it, staple it and send it... somewhere. It's not even about selling it, or collecting royalties, or anything like that. It's about exposure!

And it's already quite difficult to present yourself in a great, professional way, if you're self published, let alone gather all the exposure you deserve. The fact that you're self published, also means that you've never been 'judged', you've never put yourself out for exposure, in order to publish your works. I bet my son (aged 7) can publish his scores (should he write music and this IS too much, I know).

The promotion you will get when you enter a publishing house, should be big.

If you put down the amount of work it takes to market yourself, to present you in a decent, professional manner, etc, you might realise that things are not that easy after all! Not impossible but still.

And just to make myself clear: Self publishing IS great and IS possible. But if one is to do it, they better do all the research and do a GREAT job, which involves much more than just a printed and a copy of Sibelius/Finale... ;) (and an e-mail to ASCAP, ok...)

I'm a major proponent of self-publishing.

Going with a traditional publisher seems like a bad deal to me. They take forever to release your works, slap on a generic cover, ask *you* to do the engraving (or have it done at your own expense), and do zero real marketing. It used to be that publishers like Boosey & Hawkes would take a young composer like, say, Britten, and push his scores onto conductors and performers. They were instrumental in kick-starting his career. Publishers took on composers they believed in, and put their name and resources behind them. Now, even top composers are unlikely to get more than a press release sent out about their latest piece that has been published.

The idea is that publishers offer distribution and marketing in exchange for ownership of the rights to the score, plus a significant portion of the profits. Which was totally fair when they did all the work but the actual composing. A composer could spend his time writing, and leave the marketing of his works up to the publisher. But now publishers offer such poor service and pass off so much of the work back to the composers themselves that it just doesn't pay. Even the carrot of distribution is laughable at this point, thanks to the good ol' inter-wubs. A publisher used to be able to get X amount of music into brick-and-mortar music stores, and performers could find it there, or make a special order through the store’s catalogs. Now, independent music stores are either cutting inventory to the bone and stocking only Easy Piano songbooks of themes from the latest Disney release or Easy Piano/Vocal songbooks of hits by Nickelback or Shania Twain, or they’re disappearing entirely (RIP Patelson’s), leaving distribution almost solely web-based.

The only difficulty with self-publishing, as I see it, is getting noticed. But that’s always a difficulty, period. We can put our works up for sale (or free) on our own websites, but people have to know who we are in order to find our sites, unless we’re really lucky. At the same time, it’s hardly likely that Joe Q. Concertmusician would find you on Sheetmusicplus - or any traditional publisher’s website, for that matter - unless they were looking specifically for you!

I think the question today is less “to self-publish vs. to bash your head against the wall trying to get a crappy deal from a failing corporation that couldn’t care less about you and takes more of your money than they earn” and more “how to create, maintain and embiggen a performer and audience base over time”.

If a publisher is going to put more of the onus of their business on us, we might as well do all the work ourselves and take the profits with us.

Hi Dennis and welcome.

A very interesting post, yours is [/Yoda]

I just have a couple of pointers to make, if I may.

The only difficulty with self-publishing, as I see it, is getting noticed. But that’s always a difficulty, period.

The fact that you CAN self publish your works, doesn't make it good. When you get published by anyone big, or anyhow a publishing house, you do seem to get some kind of 'seal of approval' for your work.

Then it's the editing. I've very rarely seen scores, non published professionally, that are great to look at. (I have to admit that the newmusicshelf.com features some great scores though...).

Now, independent music stores are either cutting inventory to the bone and stocking only Easy Piano songbooks of themes from the latest Disney release or Easy Piano/Vocal songbooks of hits by Nickelback or Shania Twain, or they’re disappearing entirely (RIP Patelson’s), leaving distribution almost solely web-based.

There are, still, stores that stock contemporary music, and the fact that stores go internet based doesn't make it less of a store. Perhaps more difficult to sell a physical item, but still amazon has shown the way.

Finally, the idea remains: You can vouch for yourself and your own scores. You can't really sell successfully your music, unless you have some way of proving you are good and others have told you. As I said, anyone can make a decent recording with GPO/EW/VSL/whatever and make a score with a cutdown Finale/Sibelius/Notion/other software. (Not to mention some AMAZING free alternatives like repear (free trial, not free, but extremely fairly priced), lilypond, or even better musescore! But unless the public, the people PAYING you make you good, you can't claim you are good! Even a degree is not enough!

Quality control is heavily missing from anything self published! Not to say that it can't be done, or that slef publishing is bad in itself, or even that there isn't some AMAZING music out there that is self published (or even not that) and deserves a fair chance.

But at least have a very solid idea (not you, Dennis, generally speaking), what goes around in the world...

Then it's the editing. I've very rarely seen scores, non published professionally, that are great to look at. (I have to admit that the newmusicshelf.com features some great scores though...).

I hadn't heard of that site, glad you mentioned it! It's quite a skill to create quality scores, but if you've been composing and studying scores for long enough it becomes second nature. Creating really nice hard copies of scores is tricky (you aren't going to want to go to Staples and say spiral bind my .pdf printout with the typical clear cover and black backing - you almost never see that type of binding in scores you purchase from stores).

dtobenski is the founding member of the site I mentioned and it's on his signature! This is how I found it! :D

And of course printing out scores from your printed, and comb binding them is not exactly a pro job...

Hi Nikolas, thanks for the welcome!

I do a lot of reading about self-publishing ebooks, and I feel that the similarities (aside from the sheer volume of sales) between that world and our own is uncanny.

One of the arguments - often put forward by authors themselves - is that publishing needs gatekeepers, someone to vet novels and short stories to make sure that only the best are made available. And yet many of the top-selling ebook authors are self-published. The cream has somehow managed to rise to the top without a corporation telling us that it's good and that we should buy it. Instead, readers have taken chances on reasonably-priced books with good covers and good descriptions, enjoyed what they read, and recommended those books and authors to others. Consequently, authors like Joe Konrath and Amanda Hocking are selling hundreds of ebooks daily, and making in excess of $20,000 a *month*.

Which is a long way to say that I think that reasonably priced (who can say that anything out of a big publishing house these days is anywhere near reasonably priced?) scores that are presented well - no mean feat, that, and something we're not often taught how to do - will rise to the top. There will always be crap out there, noise that many feel drowns out the good stuff, but the good stuff still manages to get heard and appreciated. Like these self-pubbing authors, we can and should bring our scores to our friends and colleagues as proofreaders. We can't always catch collisions or unclear notation ourselves because we're too close to the material. What's to stop us from hiring proofreaders to look over our work before we send it out to be our representative in the world at large? To let our music out into the world, to set it down in front of professional performers, and have it look anything less than completely professional does us and our music a disservice, and yet many of us still do it. I think that those who do should be knocked lightly on the head and sat down to learn about basic professionalism and courtesy to performers. Engraving in particular is a hobby horse of mine that I love to ride.

One thing I do with the NewMusicShelf is to require that all scores be engraved to a certain level of professionalism. It's a subjective thing, absolutely, but it does enforce a minimum level of presentational quality. It's also a form of gatekeeperism, but one that allows the music to speak for itself. I don't reject people completely - I ask that they clean up their scores before they (please) resubmit.

At this point, I wouldn't dream of giving my scores away to a publisher. I have far too many friends who have been badly mistreated by their publishers – major publishers, to boot. And these aren't no-name composers, either – they have Pulitzers, are members of the Academy of Arts and Letters, have sat on Guggenheim and Pulitzer selection panels. And their publishers still treat them poorly. Not the way to run a business.

Before I blather on for too too long, I should end by saying that I don't think that composers being inept at engraving and presentation shouldn't ba reason not to self-publish – it should be a reason to educate composers better in those areas.