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A reader suggested this topic and I thought it was a good idea.
How do you keep track of your submissions to the various music libraries and projects? Who accepted and who rejected? What songs are placed with what companies and the alternate titles for each song? What other relevant data do you track?
I built a relational database (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_database) using Alpha 5 Software (http://www.alphasoftware.com/). I like going this route as it so easy to massage the data. When I need to I can export the data in whatever format someone needs, Excel, PDF, etc. I also use it to create addendums to contracts as I add music to their catalogs.
So what do you use?
Reader Bobby Cole has been kind enough to post his solution. Thanks Bobby, awesome job! Right click on the below links to download.
Bobby, thanks so much for sharing this solution. Am looking forward to implementing it ASAP!
No worries at all! Glad you all like it.
It is still a work in progress, got a few other amazing ideas to get even more organized including the following –
Expenses tab for tracking your expenditure if you do this full time and you are self employed
Under Track details tab I am planning to sort out moods for each genre so that they are automatically entered in an adjacent column (i.e. when you type in horror for the genre, a list of appropriate moods are automatically entered in another column, things like dark, scary, tense, e.t.c.)
For the general info Tab I am going to add the appropriate Meta Data fields for some of the most common libraries that accept CSV as a form of getting your meta data in, very handy to have it all together.
Under the overview tab, I am planning to collate the income and expenses so that you can clearly see how much you made each month, and how much you spent. Will also be adding in some clever formulaes for working out things like average monthly income and expenses, total income and expenses. Also under this tab all income is in blue, all expenses will be in red. Will also be adding in a formulae for UK tax records so you can work out how much you need to put aside to pay your taxes (easily changeable for other countries, you simply change the rate, at the moment it is 22% in the uk – I think haven’t checked this for a while now!)
Will email ART another updated version when it is sorted
Keep up the good work, and lets all get organised!
Great stuff Bobby. I use a spreadsheet as well, but not nearly as detailed and informative as yours. Thanks for sharing.
Glad you like it!
It is still a work in progress, am going to had a whole taxation tab outlining gross and net income, IR reserve, e.t.c. and another tab outlining the various formats of CSV that companies request…….
All the best
Hey Bobby, thanks so much for sharing that – you’re an excel maven. I’m wondering – do you not re-title your tracks? Keeping track of the various names I’ve given my tracks is one of my biggest concerns.
I do re title my tracks but I am currently only one library that requires re titles. Yes this is something that I would like to get into more, and what I will do is create additional coloumns under the track details tab outlining what titles for what tracks, on what websites.
It is a mamoth spreadsheet, and one that has taken me ages to put together!
Kind regards
Hi Bobby:
Great info here.How many tracks do you have and how many are exclusive deals only and how long have you been in this game if you dont mind me asking.
I can see when the track counts and deals go up keeping track makes a world of sense,thanks!I keep hearing about non-exclusive deals going away as well if you care to comment on how that may affect your spreadsheet.
Hey, thanks for your comment.
Have been doing this for 12 months so far….. am slowly building up my library (up to 600 tracks so far), and am really keen to do it full time within another 12 months.
I don’t have any exclusive deals at all. Everything I do is non exclusive. I suppose you could create a tab for exclusive tracks, and another for non exclusive tracks….. that would work!
But yes, I suppose the way that I have it all set up now works best for non exclusive.
How long have you been doing this for? And what other sites would you recommend as the best ones?
Hi Bobby;
I have been doing this for a couple years but dont have near that many tracks.
Worked freelance for 15 years and had a very successful run from 92-08 but not doing library.Been composing for a long time though.Are you representing other writers,to get those kind of track counts that have viable production on them is nearly impossible in 12 months unless you are cutting up your tracks into stingers and cutdown versions and retitling.Then you can increase how many pieces you get from one full length track?
I found some deals through Taxi and Film Musc Network and the rest right here at MLR.
Sorry, should have mentioned.
I have been recording and producing music for about 8 years, and have built up a large library of tracks, only started distributing them over the last 12 months. Recorded an awful lot of tracks at uni when I had three years to do nothing else but make music which was great!
All the best
I just added the download links for Bobby Cole’s spreadsheet template. Go to the original post at the top of this page for the links.
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