Making Money: Royalties And Publishing

An essential aspect of professional musicking is navigating royalties from performing and recording.

For us musicians, royalties generally fall into three main categories: those earned from writing music, playing on recordings, and mechanical royalties from producing physical products (back in the good old days).

The ultimate prize in this realm is the elusive 'sync' deal, where music is featured in an advertisement, film, or similar media. I’ve been fortunate to secure a few of these, but the process is intricate and involves numerous stakeholders. This is where the publishing sector of the music industry becomes crucial. Some musicians make this their primary focus, choosing to forgo touring or live performances to specialise in sync opportunities or composing for film and television.

While this eliminates the pressures of live performance, it introduces additional challenges such as navigating the complexities of the publishing world and managing a more solitary lifestyle. This can also be hard on our mental health where the isolation of being stuck in a studio takes its toll. 

Anyway, once we’ve completed our musical recording, we can choose to lean into the commercial product world, a physical or digital thing to try to sell through streaming or a tangible item in a shop. This process might involve pressing vinyl, CDs, or even cassettes (yes, I’ve done this) or working with playlist people to get our music placed in certain environments to attract attention. If we do manage to make a physical product, we generally have to use distributors who transport to and from manufacturers to the (now limited) retail outlets.

These distributors can also offer artists individual deals (more so in the past). I was lucky enough to have my first solo album signed (paid to manufacture) and distributed as part of a record deal which made my life far easier. On subsequent album releases I had to approach distributors myself and pay them a cut of the profits.

This was in the times before the demise of the mythical record shop. I can imagine it being even more difficult now! Unsurprisingly, each step of this journey is marked by slim profit margins. We all know how much stress can be caused by financial precarity. These days, platforms like Bandcamp offer much better direct selling to fans but I still do regular trips go to my local record shop and give back. 

For me, the record shop experience is a key part of my musicking history and probably where I cultivated my dreams of ‘making it’. It was also a place where like minds (weirdos) can share their musicking community passions and obsessions with each other.

High Fidelity anyone? And... not forgetting, it was also the most exhilarating feeling to see my own products racked in these transformational spaces of sonic love.

Next week I’ll talk about the dreaded digital world.

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Adam Ficek hosts a monthly show 'Tonic Music' on Totally Wired Radio, where he talks to various guests about music and mental health. You can listen again to any of the previous show on the Tonic Music Mixcloud page.