Self-publishing 101

The era of begging for music publishing deals is gone. The publishing business has changed thanks to technological advances and the DIY (Do It Yourself) trend. Before, very few big publishing companies dealt with composer societies such as BMI and ASCAP. With a little bit of work, songwriters can now keep the total income generated from royalties. 

To start your publishing business, think of three company names. Affiliate these three names with a composers' society such as BMI or ASCAP. A less common name will have a better chance to be accepted by the collector society. The reason of submitting three different names is to avoid similarities with other publishers that can lead to confusion when paying royalties. It is extremely important to do this step first. The entrepreneur could save some time and money by printing material and doing copyright registrations with a company name that cannot collect performance royalties. Once the company name is accepted by the collector society, the individual must also affiliate with the same society as a writer. The publisher and the songwriter must belong to the same composers' society. 

The forms necessary to affiliate the company are pretty simple. The applicant must submit basic information such as the name of the owner and address, among others, and all the information about the songs in the company’s catalog. The process takes approximately five weeks to get approved.

Once the process is approved, you need to run your publishing business as a DBA (Doing Business As). This means that you are not doing business under your own name, you will need this document to open a bank account and receive royalty payments. Next, you will need to register the songs with the Copyright Office under the name of the publishing company. 

You are ready to run a publishing business. You can always keep adding songs to your catalog increasing opportunities of collecting royalties through these composer societies. The only difference with the old publishing model is that you actually have to do the administrative work and claim the royalties yourself.