Songwriting For Dummies

Chapter 18

Introducing the Business Players

In This Chapter

Assembling an awesome business team

Choosing a music attorney before you need one

Understanding the roles of a publisher

Considering the use of a song plugger

Looking at the roles of managers and agents

Managing your money and business affairs

Whether you’ve just finished your very first song or you already have a CD full of completed gems ready to go, your next step is choosing the right people to help your “babies” find a good home. Your success will depend not only on the quality of your song, but also on the specialized team that you assemble to market it. Your rock just won’t roll unless your business team is rock-solid and your common goals are unified.

In this chapter, we look at the job descriptions of the various business players and give you some criteria for judging them. We discuss methods of locating the right people and suggest a few questions to ask that’ll improve your chances of making all the right moves.

Putting Together Your Winning Team

A major step toward achieving success is choosing the right team to work together to get exposure for your songs and you as a songwriter. Granted there are some writers who thrive on the business side of this industry, but more typically, writers prefer spending their time creating new songs — not filling out forms, reading contracts, and making follow-up phone calls to record companies and managers. If you’re a songwriter in this latter category, you’ll need to find ...