Your success as a singer-songwriter depends a great deal on the strategic way you position your self as a musician. The artistry of composing great new music—your vision, your mood, your intuitivesense of rhythm and musical figures—is a vastly different beast than the regularly daunting legal and financial landscape of music in this new era of digital distribution. One undertaking is imaginative and intuitive; the other involves red tape, legality, logistics and factors.

Aside from the creative process, it’s important to contemplate strategy when considering where you desire your music to take you. Do you produce audio as a vocation? Is music your most significant form of funding? Do you create music to promote albums and gather a fan base, or do you primarily desire to have your music placed in film, television and video games? Perhaps you create music for all three reasons.

Another crucial aspect to contemplate is what distribution approach will actually make you money. Given the present landscape of diminishing download revenue and the excessive cost of antiquated physical distribution systems it generally is a daunting task to find the method that is suitable for you. In 2012, most musicians agree that the main two ways to make money from music are to tour, or to license music for film, television and video games. After examining the effort and cost involved in organizing, booking and executing tours licensing definitely emerges as a preferred revenue stream generated by music. If placement in films and television is your main goal, please keep reading.

The way you control ownership of your songs is an essential element for potential music licensing deals in the future. You’ll want to research what makes the most sense for your own music with a lawyer, but in general, you’ll want to keep in mind:

  1) You'll want to keep your own publishing.
  2) It really is easier to consider licensing contracts if there is one single
  songwriter credit for your music.
  3) It is less complicated to work with licensing agents if you release your own
  songs as an independent artist. In general, the less parties there are
  in a contract, the better.
  4) It is best to evaluate licensing agencies effectively. Have a lawyer
  review any possible contracts. Should you choose a licensing agent, they
  often prefer to be the exclusive agent—so choose well.

Musician Jennifer Clarke is one such . She creates her music primarily as an emotional pursuit. Her productions are deeply personal and soulful. Yet once the album is mastered and printed, Jennifer becomes all business. She licensed her song, “More Than I Have,” on the FX Series starring Denis Leary, Rescue Me. Her current album, Trinkets in Rubble, is slated for release in March 2012, when she’ll start new efforts to get the album licensed.

What can you do to pursue licensing? Get in touch with Music Nomad, ASCAP, or use your preferred search engine to lookup companies that specialize in the field. Most importantly, never give up. If you knock on enough doors at some point one of them will open.
Singer Songwriter