I hear from artists all the time saying, “I know all about my publishing! I’m gonna make sure I keep mine!” Unfortunately, that’s almost never the case. Although many more artist know the generalities of publishing today than 10 years ago, it is a vastly complex operation and even professionals, in the field for years, learn something new about it all of the time. Let me give you a brief insight.

First, let me explain what publishing is. To put it in the simplest form, it is how songwriters and music composers (or beat makers) earn there money. To own your publishing means that you own 100% of your song and ONLY YOU can decide what is done with your music. With this control, you can allow other artist to record your songs, perform your songs, put your songs in movies or on TV, and much more. This is the part that many people “know” when asked about publishing. However, there is much more to it than this, and that is where artists/songwriters often screw up.

To guarantee that you will control your publishing, you must be aware that there are two different areas that you will mainly be collecting from. Those are Performance Licenses and Mechanical Licenses. What’s the difference? Well, a performance licenses is the money you collect every-time your song gets played on the radio, TV, a club, the internet, when other artist perform your music, etc. This is why it is important to join a Performance Rights Organization (PRO) like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, or SoundExchange. A PRO will take on the hassle of collecting any money that is owed to you on your behalf for a small percentage. That is unless you would rather go to EVERY Radio Station, TV Station, Club, Web site, etc. and a) find out if they played your song b) how many times they played it and c) how much they should pay you for each play. This is what your PRO will do for you. Think of it as a labor union for songwriters (Although they ARE NOT unions).

So what is a mechanical licenses? Mechanical licenses are the monies owed to you by the Record Labels. This amount is regulated by congress and goes up every couple of years. As of 01/01/06, the amount is 9.10 cents per song. So if you have 10 songs on an album that you wrote (music and lyrics), then the record label will pay you 91 cents every time they distribute a record ( 9.10 cents x 10 songs = 91 cents). ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC will NOT collect this money. You can either work out an arrangement with the labels yourself (if you are also the artist it will be in your contract, pay attention to the section named Controlled Compositions), or your publishing company may take care of it, or if you have your own publishing company you can join the Harry Fox Agency. They will collect your money for you for a small fee.

Like I said, publishing is a very complex field and this is just a very, very small part of what’s involved. However, it is a very, very, VERY large part of your potential income (artist/songwriters can, and usually do, make more from publishing royalties than artist do from album royalties), and it is worth spending some time learning more about.

Want to learn more? Get the book – The Absolute Guide To Music Publishing: In 30 Minutes Or Less