Leverage Music for Picture Placements

photo by judepics

In this final installment of the series of making money with production music libraries, we take the process full circle and use our music for picture placements as leverage to gain more projects and placements moving forward.  It’s all about using your achievements to snowball into more success as you roll along in your career as a music composer.

For composers who are new here, check out the rest of this series and be sure to sign up for free email updates or the RSS feed to keep up!

1. Introduction / What are production music libraries
2. Produce tracks that sell
3. Copyright your music
4. Register with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO)
5. Submit your songs to production music libraries
6. Leverage your music placements to gain future music for picture work

Your First Music for Picture Placements

If you have released a batch of songs to production music libraries and they have been in circulation for a number of months, you should have successfully landed some placements on television shows, films, video games, or other media.  But you may not know about all of them, or exactly when they aired.

The way you can find out is by looking at your statement from your performing rights organization.  Not only will this show you how much royalty income you have earned over the past quarter, but it will also list the names of the productions where your music has been placed.

These names may not always be very descriptive, but they often give you enough info that you can use to your advantage.  For example, it may say “Fox Sports”, or “Discover Channel” along with the name of the television program.  You may have received international placements.  The statement will show the country of origin for each placement as well.

There’s nothing like that bit of excitement you get when you realize your music was heard on the airwaves!  In fact, one time I was home watching television and I happened to see a commercial come on that used one of my tracks!  Great feeling.  A few months later, that placement was reflected in my royalty statement.

Turn Your Music Placements into a Marketing Tool

Now the key is to use these successes to your advantage and gain more work as a composer.  The way you do this is to promote the fact that your music has been placed on such widely recognized networks as “Discovery Channel”, and “Fox Sports” (for example).  People know these names.  This name recognition helps to support your credibility as a composer and serves to create the impression of success.

It’s OK to name-drop a bit in your bio and your description of services.  Work these names into the copy on your personal website, your social network page bios, your email signature line, author bio on blog posts, etc.  You might even want to consider dropping their logos somewhere on your site or in other promotional materials.  Use this stuff in your email marketing campagn.

Go ahead and utilize your successes in actual conversations with folks in your industry, friends and family.  Your music has been placed on television.  Be proud of that.  You can now be confident in presenting yourself as a composer of music for picture with placements on nationally recognized media outlets.

The music business is all about networking, promoting, networking, promoting, marketing yourself, promoting, and networking (oh, and writing some great music too).  Utlizing production music libraries gives you an easy point of entry into the music for picture business.  The successes you gain from it, like music placements on television, will help you take your composing career to the next level.

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Related Posts

• 10 Tips For Composing Music for Picture Tracks That Sell
• Everything You Need to Know about Production Music Libraries
• Copyright Your Music for Picture Compositions
• Make Money with Production Music Libraries
• Music Composers, Register With a Performing Rights Organization