FAQ • The Most Frequently Asked Questions Put To ISA
International Songwriters
Association

By Jim Liddane

If you have a question not answered here, by all means
drop us an e-mail and we will be happy to answer it for you

Apart from copyrighting my material, what steps can I take to prevent one of my songs being stolen? In spite of popular misconceptions, it is very rare for a complete song to be "stolen"  - even an unprotected song. If you are going to have anything stolen, it is more likely to be an idea, a hook, or a phrase, and such thefts are difficult to detect and expensive to pursue, particularly if the material stolen is unpublished. Accordingly, you should take great care of your unpublished material. Not only should you copyright it to the best of your ability, but you should send it only to named people in the companies to which you are promoting, and deal only with reputable companies and reputable people. Finally, keep your unpublished material as secure as possible. Doing things like posting the lyrics on the Internet for all to see, leaves you open to wholesale theft by people based in countries with totally different copyright and legal systems. And in spite of what people tell you, it is extremely costly to sue for theft of copyright, and your chances of success, based on previous cases taken, are slim. The motto is - keep it safe. The music business is a closed shop, and no outsider can get a song published. Is not this the case? Most careers are closed shops to some degree, but the music business is a lot less closed than most. You do not need educational qualifications (although they might help you later on the business side of things), or money (although it helps too - particularly if you want to make good demo recordings!). But you do need talent, and that is in shorter supply than you might think. Secondly, newcomers do get songs published and recorded every day of the week, so if you are having difficulties breaking through, the problem with your career may lie more with the quality of your material, or your method of promotion, than with the music industry per se. Believe it or not, most executives really do want to find hits and keep their jobs. If your song is the hit you think it is, somebody will recognise it as such. It may take longer than it should (Janis Ian's first hit "Society's Child" was turned down by 22 companies), but in the end, it probably will be "discovered".  Remember, rejection is more frequent than acceptance, and if you have problems with rejection, this is definitely the wrong business for you. Ager all, Elvis was turned down the first time....the Beatles were turned down the first time...even Elmer Smach was turned down the first time. Elmer Smach? Who was Elmer Smach? I can't recall - he promptly gave up. How good does a demo have to be? Most publishers we interview say that if the song is good - they will recognise the quality in spite of the lack of sophistication of the demo.  However, nowadays, many demos are of a high standard, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to have yourself taken seriously if you promote a very basic demo. Having said that, remember that the demo is not everything. A strong demo will not sell a weak song no matter how much you spend, and frequently, the excuse of a "poor demo" is used to by publishers to turn down songs that are in themselves weak anyway. Where can I get up-to-date lists of publishers, labels and artists? Some libraries stock trade directories - many don't. In the USA, we particularly like Billboard Buyer's Guide (a very comprehensive listing of US labels and publishers, plus a less detailed but equally accurate listing for most overseas territories). They also publish the Billboard International Talent And Touring Directory, which lists management contact for a myriad of acts, although these are in the main, American acts. In the UK, Music Week publish an exhaustive guide called the Music Week Directory which we think is probsbly the best single-country directory in the world. In Ireland, Hot Press do the same for the Emerald Isle. Incidentally there are links to Billboard, Music Week and Hot Press on our Links page. Finally, International Songwriters Association publishes a number of directories specially for songwriters. These cannot be purchased by the general public but are supplied free to ISA members. A firm has suggested to me that my melody is not up to par, but that they will write a better one for me, for just $50.00. What do you think of this offer? Ignore this. Also ignore offers to publish your song for cash, to place your song on a compilation CD or cassette and promote it for you for cash, or similar schemes. We estimate that since 1945, over two million similar offers have been taken up by songwriters. but to date, we know of not one single hit resulting from such transactions. Having said that, let us make an offer. If hits have been produced, we would love to hear about them, and once we do, we will be only too happy to publicise them - and indeed the firm who made them possible. This is not a new offer. We put this offer up for the first time, on Wednesday, 20 January 1999. Today is and we have yet to receive one claim of any success whatsoever. Is there any case where a publisher or record label would require a lyric writer or songwriter to pay and fee or part with any money, or share in any expense whatsoever? Not that we can think of. Can you? I have received an email approach from a person describing himself as a song plugger, who seemingly has heard my work while visiting the offices of a record label, and now wishes to promote my songs for a fee. What do you think of this? This is very tempting, because you have indeed sent your song to a record label, and so, it definitely looks as though this person must have heard your song - how otherwise would he have your email address? In fact, getting your email address is quite easy - all he needs is a contact within the record label who will supply him with a list of songwriters who have recently submitted songs for consideration. He then emails them saying he has heard the material, is very impressed by it, and would like to plug the songs. However, unlike most agents who take a percentage of your income once successful, he only wants an advance fee. If you are tempted - ask him to take on your song on a percentage basis and see what is response is. If he is genuine, he will do agree to do this. If not..... I submitted my song for possible inclusion in a movie but did not hear further about this. Now some months later, I have received an email from a different, but well-known movie producer, telling me that he has already used my song in a movie he has just made, thinking that his company could get the rights from the firm I originally sent the song to. Now however, lawyers for the original company have warned him he must pay me the fee for usage as they never signed a contract with me. He cannot release the movie until he has cleared this matter up and has even sent me a photocopy of a bank draft for $ 489,000 which is made out in my name. All he needs from me is my postal address, and/or bank details, in order to send me the money. What do I do? This is not really a songwriting scam as such, but a variation on a long-established internet fraud which some crooks with more than a passing knowledge of the music business, have "borrowed" for the time being. Although you did send your song to a genuine company originally, they obviously did not use it - but somebody has handed over your email address to a fraudster. Now, this "movie producer" has contacted you, and when you check him out on the internet, he is genuinely famous, with a string of hit movies to his name. But the problem is - you have not received the email from him - just somebody using his name and forging his email address. So where is the scam? In fact, there are many wonderful possibilities for the fraudster. He may only want your home address and bank details to sell on for use in an identity theft scam, but more likely, he does really want to send you that draft for $489,000! So, you send him the address, and some time later, a bank draft arrives, for $498,000, with a letter telling you to lodge it immediately. Which of course, you do, and if your banker knows you well, and trusts you, he may even credit your account with $498,000 there and then. But remember, bank drafts are not "as good as cash" - or at least, they are not if they happen to be forged. A few days later, you receive another communication. This may come from the "secretary" who sent you the draft. She has made a terrible mistake. The draft should have been for $489,000 - but she typed it as $498,000 so she is in trouble. Any chance you could as quickly as possible, send her $ 9,000 to save her being fired? Alternatively, you will be told that there is a fee of two percent owing to the lawyers who forced this producer to pay up - could you please send $ 9960 immediately? The possibilities are endless. You being honest and helpful - and the amounts requested being so small in comparison with the total sent - you rush to help. Then four weeks later, your banker tells you the original draft was a forgery. An email is nothing but an email. It can be made to appear to come from anybody. But if you're still tempted, why not contact us? We still have London Bridge for sale (going cheap to a nice home). In other words - if an offer looks too good to be true - it probably is. Is there any point in entering song contests? Song Contests have little to do with the mainstream music industry, which does not however mean that they should be ignored. Usually, they offer cash prizes, and operate by collecting entry fees from songwriters, and then paying back a percentage of these fees as winnings. Sort of like your local lottery really, but with musical accompaniment. Now and then, the winning songs make it to the record market, and even less frequently, one of them actually charts. However, apart from the Eurovision, which launched Abba and Johnny Logan, most contest finalists are never heard of again. The Eurovision Song Contest, UniSong, the John Lennon Song Contest, and some others are worth looking at. Our Contest page has a list of some of the current ones. Most are honestly judged by genuine judges, but a few take in $50,000 in fees, pay out $10,000 in prizes, and are not too concerned who wins. How about Uncle John this year? How difficult is it to make money in songwriting? Extremely difficult. If you do not believe this, then look at the statistics published by the various rights organisations. These show that only a small minority of published songwriters (perhaps as few as 5%), make enough money each year to be able to devote themselves full-time to songwriting. Given that published songwriters constitute a minority of those actually writing songs at any one moment, it is obvious that a vast body of writers exist who earn no money from their talent, and never will. To put it in another way - suppose I told you that only 5% of all doctors, made enough money to devote themselves full-time to medicine - would you still want to be a doctor? Of course I am well aware that if a songwriter is really successful, no doctor ever will come close to the writer's earnings - but that is not the point. The point is that your average common-or-garden doctor starting out, makes a full-time living from his profession - the average common-or-garden songwriter starting out, more than likely does not. In spite of these dismal statistics however, songwriting remains a remarkably competitive business. Given the rewards enjoyed by those at the top, I suppose that this is not perhaps surprising. After all, when one hit song can quite literally set you up for life, writers naturally enough prefer to concentrate on the possible rewards, and not the far more likely pitfalls. Because the chances of success are low, most aspiring songwriters drop out after a year or two, but on a slightly more positive note, in our experience, writers who keep plugging away will eventually succeed in getting material onto the market. However, let us again stress that since the vast majority of even published writers (i.e., those who have managed to get some material onto the market) still make very little money from their talent, the achievement of getting published - monumental in itself - is still only the first step on what can be a very long, and rocky road. Why is it that everybody joining the International Songwriters Association, has to take a month's free trial membership first? Songwriting is not a "get-rich-quick" scheme, nor is it for everybody no matter how keen you may initially be. Songwriting is a business, and has to be taken seriously if you want to succeed in what is, after all, a very competitive field. "Wannabe Songwriters" are all very well, but their enthusiasm soon fades whereas the real songwriter is in it for the long haul. Insisting that all comers take a one month free trial, during which they receive everything a full member receives, and can read all the ISA Publications and use all the ISA Services, means that they can see for themselves if this business is quite what they thought it might turn out to be like. That is why we insist that anybody joining the International Songwriters Association for the first time, must start with our free trial membership. That way, you do not waste your time, and we do not waste ours. Can songwriting be taught? Anything can be taught - and certainly, the basics of songwriting can be imparted, but the ability to achieve success with what you have learned, cannot be taught. How many people take golf lessons? Millions. How many Tiger Woodses are there? That's right - one. We have never met a successful songwriter who said that he owed his success to some book he once read or some course he once took. Of course, he might have gained some knowledge along the way or picked up a few techniques from some book he read or course he took, but in real life, success has to be earned - not learned. Would joining the ISA help me to become a successful songwriter? Only in the sense that joining your local golf club could help you become the next Tiger Woods! (And no - that didn't work for me either!) If you can write commercial songs, then you could obviously profit from the advice, the information, and the contacts which are on offer - otherwise we would not have songwriters staying with us year after year (in some cases, back as far as 1967), but we do not write your songs - you do. In other words, you have to be able to write commercial songs in the first place. If you could sum up the single most important quality for an aspiring songwriter, what would it be? In one word - "perseverance". Great songwriters have succeeded, and indeed to be honest about it, some fairly average songwriters have made it too. I mean there are some terrible hit songs out there, although having said that, you should never forget Irving Berlin's advice to a songwriter who did nor like one of his songs...."Never despise any song that has sold half a million copies"! Now there was a man who understood the business. But having interviewed hundreds of the world's most successful songwriters - ranging from the really great to those who seem to have just got lucky - the one quality we notice all those songwriters seem to display, is the ability to persevere - no matter what. We may not all have the gritty determination of Neil Sedaka, who decided to learn songwriting by writing one new song every day for a year, but that is the mentality which seems to be required. (OK - it possibly helped that Neil Sedaka was a musical genius as well, but you get my drift.) Why do I get the impression that ISA tries to discourage songwriters? I have no idea. We do not try to disourage songwriters - but we do try to discourage dreamers. There is an awful lot of money to be made from songwriting, but only a minority ever get to earn it. Dreamers write songs because they love the thought of of making money, but songwriters write songs because they love the thought of writing songs. Dreamers will eventually give up anyway - all we are suggesting is that they give up now and save themselves disappointment. Songwriters will not give up - they love what they are doing, and nothing we say will discourage them. Are there any cases where ISA will refuse membership? We do not like to refuse membership to anybody, but we made a decision many years ago, not to accept songwriters under the age of 18, nor do we offer a "provisional membership" for those under 18. This is no reflection on the talents of young people (indeed, where would the music business be without teenagers!), but we do feel that younger writers are not ready to engage in what can be a fairly robust industry - even apart from the fact that people under 18 are not always in a position to sign publishing contracts anyway. Looking For A Hit ISA Songwriter? Singers, bands, music publishers, record labels and managers seeking hit songs, contact us daily. If you are looking for unpublished songwriting product, our songwriters will happily oblige.  Just click the pic! Join The ISA Free For A Month Would you like to join the International Songwriters Association free of charge for a month? Click below to learn more Already An ISA Member? A member already? On your registered PC? Log-in here to the Members' Site ISA • International Songwriters Association (1967) Ltd PO Box 46 • Limerick City • Ireland • Tel 061-228837 • Fax 061-2288379 ISA Website  http://www.songwriter.co.uk • Editorial E-Mail  jliddane@songwriter.iol.ie International Songwriters Association Limited Registered In Dublin, Ireland • Company Number 38917 Registered Address • High Chaperal, Raheen Heights, Limerick City, Ireland Postal Address • PO Box 46, Limerick City, Ireland