OK Now What?
So you've decided to write tracks because you enjoy it mostly and would love it if somehow you got them signed and distributed globally. What next? Well as with damn near everything out there, its a numbers game. The beauty and curse about the state of the dance music industry today is that the cost of releasing a track is basically zero. This means that while I may complain a lot about all the crap music out there, there is no way to stop people from releasing anything and everything they want. If you send a track to enough labels it is bound to get picked up by someone eventually. So if you haven't gotten your latest creation signed yet, don't come crying to me, you haven't really tried yet.
Assuming that you have made the effort and you have gotten an offer from a label to release your track here are a couple of things to consider.
1. READ THE CONTRACT
Look for phrases like "in perpetuity" which is legalese for "Forever". Make sure you are not signing away more than you are prepared to give. I once got a look at the contracts that the contestants of the first American Idol all signed and you would not believe how many of their rights they gave up without even knowing it cause they didn't read the contract. Refer back to Part 1 of this post to get a general sense for what kind of compensation you should be getting. If the contract expires after a certain amount of time make of note of it. If the track(s) does well you will be able to re-sell it to another label after the contract expires.
2. Research the label before signing anything.
It is easy to get excited about your first signed track and forget to do your due diligence on who you are dealing with. Find out as much as you can about the label. Who runs it. Do they know what they are doing? Will the label fold before the release date? Will you ever get paid. It is easy for the label to give you a bunch of rights in the contract and then just fail to honor them. After all are you really gonna take em to court over 200 bux?
3. Keep it under wraps!
Don't expect to sign the contract and see your track on Beatport the next day. Odd as that might seem it can be a bit of a shock the first time you sign a track and realize that it won't be out for 6 months. Most labels are still only doing 1 or 2 releases a month which means that they usually have planned releases for the next several months before they will start shopping for more tracks. The biggest problem most producers have with this is keeping their now-signed-track under wraps till the release date. This means not giving anyone a copy, not putting it in a mix you make and generally not making it available to anyone prior to the release. Trust me when I say that you can lose a deal over this kind of stuff, I have.
I'll let you all digest that for now and hopefully it helps. There is more stuff to tell don't get me wrong, i just have to remember it all hehe.
2:cents
