 There are many different types of publishing companies, and many different types of entities that  can function as publishers. and do all of these, you know, perform all of these services? You know, in terms of, of monetization,  promoting and collecting, there are traditional big publishing companies. There are small independent publishing companies. There are publishing, companies that exist within distributors. There are management companies that have publishing divisions.
There are individuals, business managers, attorneys, your next door neighbour who can set themselves up as a publisher and perform the functionality of music pub, of the music publishing business. So, there are also a lot of now artificial intelligence, apps and platforms that can help with some of this functionality, and I’ll address that in a little bit as well. And then there are also different  types of opportunities and different functions that exist within your own different regions of the world too.
So, there are a lot of opportunities and within that, there are a lot of different types of publishing deals that are available or that exist. And, I’m going down a little bit of a rabbit hole, but I will get to, to how this relates to you in, in another moment. the, the types of publishing deals that exist are dependent upon the different types of organisations, whether it’s a major publishing company and independent. There are deals called administrative deals, which, which basically for a, a service fee, taking a percentage of the income that, that you earn, a, a small fee, usually five to 15%, they will collect your income, they’ll track it, they’ll collect it, and they will perform all of the, you know, sort of administrative functions that, that you need to, you know, help kind of grow and monetise your catalog with them.
there’s also another type of deal called a co-publishing deal.
and the big difference between admin and coup deals, in a nutshell is, is ownership. you as the songwriter, or you and your collaborators are the owners of your copyright. if you enter into a co-publishing deal, the, the co-publisher generally shares in that ownership. and it’s a much more sort of protracted and complicated deal. We won’t be talking about that today. but that’s, but there, there are really good reasons, you know, for doing different types of deals.
A co pub deal can offer you a lot of different services beyond just the administration. They can offer lots of creative services, helping you pitch and promote your songs, helping your songs, you know, helping you get a, a, a record deal. If you are a songwriter and artist. There are a lot of different types of, a lot of advantages to potentially doing a, a, a bigger deal. but you have to be comfortable with, whatever structure publishing deal, you, you ultimately choose to, that you ultimately choose to, to do.
and  irrespective of that, when you’re just starting out,  some of these deals might not be available to you. the bigger deals often, you know, require bigger catalogs, bigger successful tracks, or even a couple of songs that are out in the commercial sphere earning a lot of income. so how do you get started? I’m going to presume that most everybody here, all of you panelists, and and and listeners today are kind of just getting started and are much more interested in, you know,  how to get off the ground with all of this, what all of this means.
there, we could talk a lot more about the publishing business, but for the purposes of, you know, sort of today’s conversation, do you need as a, as a aspiring new songwriter, do you need a publishing deal to collect this income?
No, you don’t. you, you need to have  created a little business model for yourself, starting your own publishing company. and, and in that you can perform a majority of these functions, that I’ve mentioned irrespective of, of whether you get big offers or small offers or no offers. and, and you can yourself  find a way through this publishing, through your own publishing company, to collect income, to pitch and promote yourself out there in the universe, and ultimately to have a very fulfilling creative career, creative career and, professionally, you  know, lucrative career as well.
So, it’s really entirely up to you as a creator, what your goals are, what your aspirations are, what your, what your circumstances are, what your financial flexibility is in terms of how you build and how you start and how you build your own company, around you.
But that being said, it’s important to do it even in the smallest  startup capacity. And, and we’re gonna start there, and I’m gonna talk about this a little bit more. because even if ultimately you decide you want a bigger publishing deal later,  your publisher or, or, or your team that you have around you, everyone is gonna wanna know that you are able to and have handled your business properly. If you co-write that your splits are, are, are clear and delineated, and, and if you’ve earned  money from music in the pa, from the music you’ve put out there, that that mu that, that that money has been collected and that you, you show that you are not just a great creative, talent, but that you actually understand the business behind it and you know how to run your business, that’s important to other companies as well.
even if they’re gonna take on the lion’s share of that administrative work, at a certain point, your, Â your affiliation with any company is going to, in large part, be successful based on what you put into it, Â even if you’ve got a great creative team, if you don’t do the work and the, and the, and the setup and, and the day-to-day, not just writing songs, but making sure your business is, is taken care of.
it’s gonna be harder for any partner to be successful if your, if your business is kind of messy. So, so all that being said, without  a publishing deal,  you yourself  can be  a publisher.
And, and so let’s, so let’s start, let’s, let’s start there. So, we’ve, we’ve talked about what publishing is and, and we’ve talked about why you need a deal, so that you can earn a living as a songwriter in any capacity. Let us go to  the action steps to be able to determine how to move forward. so the first thing, as I kind of said already, identify your goals. Like,  what, what is it that you want?
Do you just wanna write recreationally and never have your, your music, you know, out there too much in the, in the commercial sphere? or do you really wanna be a successful writer in some capacity, or a collaborator or a producer or a recording artist? identify your goals and start to really decide for yourself, like what kind of  structure, it is going to be most effective for you, and most comfortable for you to, to set up. if, if, if all it is is working as a writer for yourself and you want a means to collect that income, self-publishing is a really easy thing to set up.
