Have you been hearing a lot about music licensing without really knowing what it means or how to do it?
Would you like to understand how you can get your music working for you while you sleep?
Yep? GREAT!
You’re in the right place!
I’ll tell you exactly what you need to do to get your music licensed.
It’s not complicated. It’s not hard.
7 days is all you need to get started.
I can guarantee if you put the work in for the next 7 days, say 1 hour a day, you’ll start seeing results within the next 30!
You’ll get all the information you need with no boring stuff and legal talk to scramble your mind.
Before we get started, I want to make sure you have at least 3 tracks (songs and/or instrumentals) recorded and exported as mp3 files.
Ok so…
Option 1 – You don’t have 3 tracks ready to go…. stop reading this and go make some music!
Option 2 – You do have 3+ recorded tracks…. read on!
Here’s your challenge.
I’m counting on you working on this for ONE HOUR EVERY DAY FOR SEVEN DAYS.
Step 1: Get Your Tracks Ready
(Day 1 & 2)
To start with, sit down and pick between 3 and 10 tunes you’re going to be focusing on for the next 7 days.
These could be songs and/or instrumentals. It doesn’t matter as long as the production quality is good (friendly reminder: good does not mean perfect).
If you’re not sure about production quality, move forward anyway. You’ll find out soon enough 😉
Here’s what I want you to do for each of those tunes:
- Export an 320kpbs version of the tune;
- Export a WAV version of the tune (24bit; 48kHz if possible, that’ll have you covered for most of the libraries);
- Input the correct metadata (including song title, artist name, album name if applicable, year, genre, contact details in comments section with email address, phone number and website if applicable); and
- Create a spreadsheet where you write down the following information (song name, description, keywords for mood & genre, similar artists’ names). This is not exciting work but it is a REALLY important step. I do not recommend skipping it. The reasons why will become very clear once you start submitting to a lot of music libraries and each one asks you for the same type of information over and over again. Copy/Paste really comes to the rescue then 😉 It could look something like this:
Now this is all you need to do for day 1 and 2.
I’ve got your back if you need a little more hands-on guidance to find keywords for your music and add metadata to your audio files.
A quick note if your monkey mind is getting all worked up and starting to make up a host of weird reasons to give up now.
Try to keep these few things in mind:
1- don’t let the production quality of your tracks stop you (within reason of course: don’t go sending obviously flawed mixes). What I mean is don’t procrastinate with the excuse of being a perfectionist 😉 If you’re not sure, send them anyway.
2- don’t worry if you don’t have a professional looking email address. A gmail address has never stopped anyone from doing business!
3- NO, your music doesn’t need to be on Spotify, Pandora, etc. to be considered for music licensing opportunities.
Basically stop making excuses and working under silly assumptions like you need a website, a strong social media presence, an album, a big catalogue, an agent, a professional mastering engineer, etc.
You don’t need ANY of those things. They might help but you don’t need them.
Focus on the music and you’ll be fine. All the rest is mostly fluff when it comes to music licensing.
Ok, onto step 2
Step 2: Register your songs with a Performance Rights Organization.
(Day 3)
Make sure the tunes you selected are registered with a Performance Rights Organization (PRO).
If you already know what a PRO is and have already register