I am a New York based A&R (artist and repetoire) person. I have, a long career of both A&R and music publishing experience, having worked at Sony and Warner, with artists, some which you may know, John Mayer, Brandi Carlisle, Bruce Hornsby, some you may not know that are more of the behind the scenes, world-class songwriters, Claude Kelly, Priscilla Renee, and countless others, in, in my long career doing A&R
and I am gonna talk today about  good. Great, thank you. Glad, glad to hear your fans. That’s wonderful. I’m gonna talk to you today about sort of the ins and outs of publishing from the perspective of, you know, how the industry looks at you guys and, and what are those sort of, best practices and things you can get ready for and, and, and why to do a deal and when, you know, might be right for you.
So, I, I will give you this. I’m gonna give you sort of the behind the scenes perspective from, the industry side, both with my history of sort of a and r and artist development and writer development, which is, you know, a bit more traditional. and also kind of, you know, a little bit more modern in today’s world because we are a very, modernized industry these days in so many ways in terms of technology and, and, and, and there’s a, a a little bit of a different sort of, you know, layout and, and opportunity there that I wanna kind of go through with you guys today.
Okay. So, so how, when, and why you should sign a publishing deal. Let’s ju let’s dive in. and  just as a point of starting why you should sign a publishing deal.
Well, let’s, publishing is, is a a $6 billion global business. That number kind of goes up and down. I think the pandemic may have changed that a bit. but essentially there are, there are different types of deals for every creator. and, and when you should show, when you should go after them, or when they come to you, come at, it comes at different times in your career. So, you know, in today’s market, there, there are competitive new artist deals. a young teenager, Olivia Jigo, who is probably the hottest artist on the pop music scene at the moment, is, is the subject of a, of a massive, bidding war in publishing.
There are unprecedented catalog sales, you know, in this past year of the pandemic catalogs have va have been valued so highly, and people that you would never think would sign over their publishing or give away their, some of their rights like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Stevie Nicks, and even more current artists like Bruno Mars selling portions of their catalogs. There’s, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of opportunity, at, at all different levels.
So, which is, which is why you’re here to learn about the, to learn about the options, and, and there really is like a, a lot that we can sort of talk about in terms of the different levels. So, as the current industry today, exists, there is a lot more technological advances in everything from the way we are currently watching. Well, you guys are watching a webinar, you’re watching me out of New York, talk and, and how you can create music in the comfort of your own home.
You can create remotely with other people in all parts of the world, independently, collaboratively. And as it relates to publishing, there are so many new platforms, AI platforms, artificial intelligence, and companies that are using technology and blockchain that can help you manage, archive, pitch your own music, publish yourself. There are so many different platforms, that, you know, we could, we’re we’re gonna talk as much as we can about everything, but, but really, what does this mean for you guys?
What it means is there are options, more options than ever before, and opportunities, more option, more opportunities than ever before in music publishing. So, Â not only to create, but the most important part of publishing really helps you manage and administer, monetize and protect your songs, protect your, your catalog, your intellectual property. So, just to sort of start out on that level playing field where there’s, where there’s opportunity for everyone that’s here listening today.
let’s dive in a little bit. there are, I’m gonna do, I think there’s another webinar coming, and there are some webinars where I talk about very specific types of publishing deals. I’m not gonna get into the nitty gritty of each deal today, but what I am gonna do is talk about sort of the entry points, giving a little bit of an overview. The two sort of  most  common publishing deals in the industry are administrative deals, administration deals, and co-publishing deals, and then self-publishing.
And, I’m gonna talk a little bit about those as it relates to how, when, and why. and then just give a little nod a little bit later to some of the other types of deals, because there really are a lot of different types of publishing deals that you guys have to consider. So, so let’s keep going. Let’s start. Well, we’re gonna start, I’m gonna start with self-publishing. So  as  I think in, in every part of our business,  self-Publishing is the first step that you guys should take.
It’s, you can take the simplest setup, which is just  archiving your music as you write your songs,  make sure you have what’s called metadata, your splits, your registration, whether it’s with A-P-R-O-A performing rights organization or a CMO. different territories have different, collective manage collective management organizations in your own regions where you register your songs, you submit your songs, you, that allows you to collect both performance royalties and mechanical royalties, depending on the, depending on the region.
and it’s really the first step in setting up your own publishing company that allows you to, whatever you do it  as you manage your, your business, allows you to present your best professional self, both creatively to your collaborators. Because when you’re gonna be submitting splits, when you’re, when you’re working with other writers, you wanna make sure that  all of your business is correct and appropriate.
It shows that you are on task and that you’re professional both to the collaborators and then to prospective publishers. So, I’m setting this up a little bit, but I, and some of this stuff I have talked be before in prior webinars, but it’s really, really important. Everything you do as a starting point prepares you for the next steps in  when you go after a publishing deal or when a, when a publishing deal presents itself to you.
So, so the first step in, in my opinion, is making sure that you have your business  sorted out properly and appropriately. And it, and, and it really is a very, very simple setup at, at the core of it. it can become more complex if you wanted to, but, I don’t wanna intimidate anybody by saying, wait, I don’t know how to do this. you can, it, it’s, it’s, it’s very, very simple to set up your own publishing company, in terms of  getting an administrative publishing deal and, and what that means and how that differentiates from self-publishing.
it’s essentially going to, if you do an admin deal, or if you decide you need an admin deal, and we’ll talk all about that in a minute, it essentially  helps you with those very basic tasks. An administrative publishing deal doesn’t necessarily have a whole lot of creative input, but it helps you manage your business, your assets, your, your writers shares, your splits, your registrations. what a, what an admin publishing company can also do is they can protect you from, copyright in, in help you with copyright infringement issues, protect making sure your, that samples are cleared.
In some cases, there are publishing companies that also offer some limited creative services like sync support, and that means pitching to, film and television and for advertising. And that’s a, that can be a very great source of income for, for that a publishing company can help with. again, depending on the type of company, some offer those services, some don’t.
So you can also do that yourself as a, as you self-publish, you can sign up with organizations online and platforms online that actually pitch your music, where they archive the songs that you submit and they pitch them for all of the same opportunities. so, so you can, you can do that, you can do basically all of this yourself, or if you want a, an admin deal, if you feel that you can’t do it all yourself, and that you need or want a a larger team assisting you with these basic functionalities in publishing.
that’s when an administrative publishing deal, you know, kind of makes sense. but when to do it. So here’s my thoughts,  and this is kind of the general thoughts of, of the industry  these days, when to do a deal. So in any case, whether you are gonna set up just a self-publishing company as a start before you release com music commercially in any capacity, you should have this basic business sorted out.
So whether it’s self-publishing and you’re gonna just do it yourself, or whether you decide you want an admin deal before you release commer music commercially is, is is really the right time to start, start acting this act acting out this part of your business, in terms of doing an admin deal versus a public, a self-publishing scenario that you set up for yourself. Â It’s, it’s a little bit of a, a a kind of a, a personal assessment for yourself, because if the volume of the administration is too large, if you can’t handle it, and it’s impinging in any way on your creative output, if you’re spending all your time registering all the songs you’re writing and, and you’re running out of time to write songs, then you might need a little bit of a team, to help you.
