Born To Be Wide - Music Publishing

Last night I attended a Born to Be Wide event on Music Publishing in Edinburgh which offered to explain the black art of music publishing.

Whilst this event was geared towards music publishers, I still think it very useful to have an understanding of how they work so as a songwriter you can work with them.

A packed venue showed how important a stream of income this was becoming in the music business, especially in light of new modern technologies. With this enthusiasm for publishing came words of warning from all the panel. There are lots of horror stories where people have in their eagerness to publish, have signed away their rights, or signed deals that could even cost them money, so legal advice is invaluable when entering into publishing contracts.

In one sited example someone had signed away there next 15 years of publishing for £3000.

From a performing songwriters point of view the no.1 one thing to do to gain the attention of publishers etc was to build an audience for your music so that your music becomes a commercial product with a market place.

It was also clear that fast food pop music culture with little substance but consumed en by the publics such as shows like the x factor created a demand for this kind of music by music publishers etc. So one way in gaining an income from your songs would be to write commercial pop music for the types of wannabes on the x factor.

For those of us that don’t do this, the road is not completely blocked but it certainly seems to be long, narrow and hard going- but that in itself is songwriting material.

Guest Speakers included.

Murray Buchanan - Lawyer

David Mcginnis – Mute Songs

Paul Shedden – Shed Publishing

Paul Harris – A&R Reverb XL Publishing

And representatives from The Music Publishers Association.