The Composing Process -- Royalties

The Creative is taking an in-depth look at the steps I go through in composing a piece of music, from first ideas clear through the end of the publishing process. Realize this is only my process -- this may or may not work for you, so use it only as a guide. This is the thirteenth and last post in the series.

And now we come to the end of the composing process, though this step isn't really part of the process, but rather the nice monetary side-benefit of all the hassle you've undertaken to not just create your piece, but to get it out to a publisher, get it accepted, get it corrected and fixed up properly, and make sure it sells well.

Yes, my friends, we're talking about royalties.  Just the word conjures up images of best-selling authors sitting in their private writing rooms of a morning, sipping coffee and churning out their latest novel, ending a hard day's work at 11:00 a.m. before spending the rest of the day watching TV or puttering in the garden.  How can they work so little?  Royalties, of course -- thousands and thousands of dollars just pouring in, the result of a publisher selling their brilliance.

Surely it must be the same for composers, right?  We work, we toil, we publish our pieces, and then we're on the gravy train for life. 

Um, no.  The royalties are a very nice by-product of the composing process, and on occasion are enough to actually register on the seismometer of our finances, but early retirement money, they're not.

How can this be?  Simple mathematics.  Here we go ...

On the sale of any given piece of my music, I make exactly 10% royalties (before taxes, of course, but that's another matter entirely).  Now, if a copy of my music sold for $100, we'd be sitting pretty ... but it doesn't.  Most of my pieces sell for about $3.95 each, meaning that for each copy sold, I see a paltry 39.5¢.

Fortunately for me, I write music for handbell choirs, meaning that rarely do I sell one copy of my music -- I sell between 10 and 15.  So, let's multiply...

39.5¢ x 15 copies =  $5.93

So, one choir buys my music and works it up, and out of that exchange, I make almost six bucks.

Let's up the ante -- say I was lucky enough to sell 500 copies of a piece (in the handbell world, with limited numbers of handbell choirs out there, this is a reasonable number, at least in my experience).  So...

39.5¢ x 500 copies =  $197.50

You begin to see the problem.  In order to make enough off that one piece of music to make a serious financial difference in your life, you'd have to sell thousands of copies.  Is it possible?  Yes.  Likely?  No.  Of all the pieces I've had published, I've only had one that has earned me over $1000, and that was the first one I ever got published (something which, I'm sure my publisher would admit, is a statistical fluke). 

Now, the good news is -- pieces seldom are in print for only one year.  I have some pieces that have been in print four years, others for three years, more still for two years, others for a year or less.  All of those pieces are out there earning me varying levels of income.  True, pieces tend to sell best in their first year, but even pieces that have been out there a while can bring in twenty or thirty dollars in a year.  Get enough pieces in your own personal catalog, and you might actually have enough to make a living.

How many pieces, you ask?  I know one composer who has well over 2,400 pieces in print.  I don't know for certain, but I'd place great odds that he could live on just the income from his compositions.  As for me, with 20 or so pieces from which I've actually earned some income, I make enough in a year to take a bit of a vacation, or take a bite out of some of our debt.  It's not a fantastic amount, but it's starting to be at the place where it's a noticeable addition to our household income.

But all that is beside the point.  The point is this -- you are making money from composing!  Some artists toil their entire lives and never make any sort of income from doing what they love.  If you receive a royalty check from a publisher -- no matter how paltry -- you are making money from composing.  That right there, whether the check is $5 or $5,000, is a humbling thought.  I still count myself lucky that not only do I get to take the time to compose music -- which I truly love doing -- but others enjoy my music enough to publish it, and still others love it enough to purchase it.

And there you have it -- the end of the composing process.  Of course, as I mentioned when we started out, it's really a fluid process, moving from one step to the next at whim.  Steps will overlap, others may be omitted.  Usually, I'm in the middle of ten or twelve different pieces at any one time, and all of them are at different stages. 

I hope this has been helpful for you in your own creative journey.  Until next time, keep on creating.