Selling Ireland by the sound

These are changing times in the world of Music Publishing, that arm of the music industry that deals with the material artists record and perform, and which has a vested interest in developing the talents of Irish songwriters and composers and espousing their works before the great world beyond. The Internet and those naughty boys from Napster have created new dilemmas and new challenges which urgently demand to be faced head on by the Music Publishing community, while the opening up of massive new markets in Asia and elsewhere have brought fresh opportunities too for both publishers and songwriters.

These developments have an impact on Music Publishing in Ireland and have not gone unnoticed here where Peermusic is the only international music publishing house to have their own fully-staffed Irish office. The company’s Irish MD is Darragh Kettle who believes that there are now major opportunities for Irish songwriters in the international market provided they go about it the right way.

As Kettle put it to hotpress, “To date we’ve been very good at producing writers who follow the traditional, organic route and write excellent songs of a particular kind. But what we are lacking in so far are writers who can take their songs a few stages further with, perhaps the use of programming to produce a product that is nearly complete to be considered for inclusion in albums straight away”

Indeed one Irish writer has, with generous Peermusic backing, embraced the new technology. Kieran Goss has had several of his acoustic-based songs re-worked for specific markets. As Kettle explained, “One of Kieran’s songs is ‘Reasons To Leave” which has obvious Irish echoes in the lyrics regarding emigration, but it could equally apply to an Italian market, for example. So we’ve taken some of Kieran’s songs to Nashville, Scandinavia and Holland where we’ve re-worked them to fit those markets. Here’s a perfect example that proves the adage that a great song can be transposed into all kinds of settings without losing its intrinsic values.”

It should serve as a confidence boost to other Irish songwriters to hear that when representatives from Peermusic’s forty offices world wide gathered together to listen to their various offerings a Goss song was voted the most coverable song of the lot.

“Peermusic already have young writers in other territories writing songs that appear on multi-million selling albums and there’s no reasons why Irish writers can’t do it too”, Kettle claims.

As he readily admits, the Irish market is so small that Irish publishers have to achieve overseas success in order to make any kind of a living, so being able to plug into the Peermusic international network brings Kettle obvious advantages. Fortunately he also admits that Irish writers are now far more clued in to what publishing is about and have a less naive approach than heretofore, but adds one nugget of advice. “If they can only add some programming expertise to their existing talents they will open up greater opportunities for themselves abroad. International companies are less willing to put money into developing recordings from scratch and are looking for more than the old acoustic guitar demo in a lot of cases. Writers are also now more likely to get deals for a body of quality work rather than just based on one good song. “

Kettle is one of the key panellists lined up for the Careers In Music seminar at the Temple Bar Music Centre on 5th and 6th May, so any songwriter or would-be publisher should make sure they attend.

The co-organiser of the afore-mentioned get-together is experienced Music Publisher Johnny Lappin, Secretary of the Music Publishers Association Of Ireland (MPAI) and the author of The Need To Know Guide To Music Publishing. He concurs with Darragh Kettle’s views that Irish songwriters are now better informed abut the business and more realistic about their expectations than ever before.

“I recently spoke to an Irish songwriter who believed that if he could get one of his songs onto an album by an Irish artist that would sell about 40,000 he would therefore earn about £8,000. When I went through the figures with him he was amazed to find that his income would more likely be in the £1,500 to £2,500 area. This chap could have worked out these figures for himself with a pen and paper but he’d never bothered. Fortunately that attitude is less common than it used to be,” Lappin reckons.

Of course the potential earnings for all writers are determined by the parameters of the contracts they sign. As Lappin points out “There is no standard royalty split between songwriter and publisher, but the norm today is in the region of 60/40 in favour of the writer. But for a publishing contract to work best it should create a harmonious partnership between publisher and writer and both parties need to be satisfied with the deal negotiated.”

He also advises that other parts of the contract that should be given due consideration are the term (or length) of the contract, what territories it covers and what specific songs it relates to.

But as he told hotpress, “Most publishers will be unwilling to sign contracts for less than three years unless there are exceptional circumstances. This is for common sense reasons. Even if the deal starts to generate earnings immediately it may be nine months before the first royalties arrive from various parts of the world from the relevant collection agencies.”

He readily acknowledges that while songwriters may successfully collect their royalties by becoming direct members of IMRO or other collection agencies abroad there are many benefits arising from having your songs handled by a reputable publisher who should also be a member of IMRO. “Professional publishers will monitor airplays and other uses of your music so as to ensure that payment is received. They can help get your songs to record companies, key artists and producers as well compilation and soundtrack specialists. They can spot opportunities that may become obvious to the writer a long time after they have become common knowledge within the industry. Writers have to weigh up the pros and cons and act accordingly.”

Of course the afore-mentioned would find it hard to carry on their business without songwriters and other key components of the music business, and Songlink Intentional is one of the leading international publications catering for all parties whose work with songs, from publishers to artists, record companies, management, producers and, of course, songwriters.

Songlink International effectively operates as a filter service for publishers and songwriters, and one of their recent achievements was in assisting in the placement of ‘Come On Over Baby’ with Christine Aguillera which scored a four-week stay at number one in the US charts last year. It publishes hot leads every month, including up-to-date information about which artists, labels, record companies and producers are on the look-out for new songs, recordings and artists.

For songwriters planning to target publishers and others with their latest creations David Stark from Songlink International offers the following advice : “First of all they should make the best demo they can. It doesn’t have to be expensive but it’s important that the melody line and the words can be clearly heard. You shouldn’t spend all your budget on the recording as you’ll also incur expenses on packaging, postage, phone-calls and so on. It’s not necessary to give your demo a state-of-the-art cover design, but with CDs becoming the norm now for demos your submission should look professional with contact name and number clearly visible.”

According to Stark, too many songwriters are inclined to overlook the lucrative markets overseas which are constantly in search of hit songs in English. Unfortunately, writers here tend to think only of the British and US markets.

Asked to pinpoint that one mistake which he feels inexperienced songwriters are most inclined to make, he believes that too many of them just write a couple of songs and spend too long trying to place those songs instead of writing more songs. “If you look at most successful songwriters they tend to be extremely prolific. They write lots and lots of songs and that’s why they more often produce real gems that generate the big money”.