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 disposition, 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 venture is imaginative and intuitive; the other requires red tape, legality, logistics and variables.

Aside from the creative process, it's necessary to consider strategy when considering where you want your sound to take you. Do you create audio as a career? Is music your largest type of earning? Do you produce music to market albums and gather a fan base, or do you primarily wish to have your music placed in film, television and video games? Perhaps you produce music for all three purposes.

Another essential factor to contemplate is what distribution approach will in reality make you money. Given the present landscape of diminishing download revenue and the excessive cost of antiquated physical distribution systems it is often a daunting process to discover the method that is suitable for you. In 2012, most musicians agree that the top 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 expense involved in planning, booking and carrying out 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 retain ownership of your songs is an essential ingredient for prospective music licensing deals in the future. You'll want to research what would make the most sense for your own music with a lawyer, but in general, you'll want to consider:

  1) You will want to keep your own publishing.
  2) It is easier to contemplate licensing contracts if there is one single
  songwriter credit for your music.
  3) It is easier 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 ideal to evaluate licensing agencies well. Have a lawyer
  examine any potential contracts. Should you choose a licensing agent, they
  generally prefer to be the exclusive agent—so choose well.

Musician Jennifer Clarke is one such singer-songwriter. 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 track, “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 begin new efforts to get the album licensed.

What can you do to pursue licensing? Get in contact with Music Nomad, ASCAP, or use your favorite search engine to seek 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.