Self-Publishing

Rather than relying a third party to publish your work, why not publish yourself?

Find out here how to set up your own record label, produce your own record, publish a book or publish your work online. Read up too about whether you might be better off to go with a publisher or record label. This section takes you through the basics of music publishing and self-publishing. 

What are the benefits of self-publishing? How does it differ from traditional publishing? How can you go about self-publishing? This section will help you decide whether you need a publisher and how you can go about publishing your own work.

Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing

Pros of Self-Publishing

You have total control over your work, the look of it and how are things are done and the terms of business.

You keep all the income, whereas a publisher will take 50%.

The main benefit of self-publishing, of course, is that you do not have to share your income with a publisher.  If you are convinced that you can create good-quality performing materials and sufficient opportunities for your music yourself, and do not need the assistance of a publisher in doing this (and this would be appropriate particularly in the case of composers specialising in chamber music or electronic music or other small-scale forms), then self-publishing is an excellent route. The downside is that it will inevitably involve regular administrative tasks (for example, creation and production of performing materials and their dispatch and return, society registrations, promotional contact building and maintenance, invoicing).

– Emma Kerr, Head of Promotion at Boosey & Hawkes
Music Publishers

Pros of Traditional Publishing

You have moral, financial and practical support for your work. Being a self-published composer can be lonely.
You can have much more leverage in international marketing, facilitation of larger productions and administration. It is also possible, however, to find an agent to do this rather than a publisher.

It's always good to have critical feedback on what you do and good publishers supply that. The good ones also offer excellent artistic management, promotion, even counselling! And of course they take on at least some of the work of producing scores and parts and sometimes provide editing services too. If I wrote a lot of orchestral music I think it would be useful to have a publisher to manage the distribution and hire of performing materials, but since I don't think the symphony orchestra is an appropriate medium for what I want to do that's not a problem for me.

– Christopher Fox, Composer

[See: ‘Who needs a publisher?’ from The New Notes Symposium (Sept 2007) – attach PDF]

When is it beneficial to have a publisher?

I think it depends on what sorts of pieces you’re writing and who you need to be in touch with to get them performed. If you’re writing chamber music, it is contact with the musicians themselves that really counts. If you’re writing string quartets, you need to have contact with string quartet leaders; a composer can do that just as easily as a publisher. If you are writing orchestral music or opera or in other large-scale forms, that’s when you start to get into the more complex structures of the music business, where the decision-makers in larger organisations tend to be less accessible; whether they be the conductors/music directors or the artistic administrators of the orchestras. In those situations the unpublished composer can struggle, although there are many unpublished composers who have proved that it is possible to find significant opportunities despite the nature of the system.

– Emma Kerr

Self-Publishing

Top 5 tips for Self-Publishing
By Christopher Fox

1. Join the PRS and MCPS and make sure you get your royalties.

2. Be good to the people who perform your music – they're the best agents you'll ever find, because if they like your music, they will keep on playing it and tell other musicians about it.

3. Learn how to notate music. You will not learn this from computers. Read scores by other composers. Morton Feldman said he learned how to set out a page of score by watching John Cage. Compare John Cage's beautiful original manuscript of his piano piece In a Landscape with the new Peters Edition version of the same piece and you will see the damage that a publisher can do!

4. Make your scores well and make them distinctive. If you must use a computer then don't just use the default settings

5. Don't imagine that you are going to make money from selling or hiring scores. The commercial publishers regularly alienate performers by charging exorbitant hire fees – it's a waste of goodwill and it makes no business sense. I know some independent publishers who make their scores available as downloadable PDFs.

Words of Advice

I always recommend that people should look at what other publishers, both commercial and independent, do and borrow their best ideas.

– Christopher Fox

If you are self-published, do not underestimate the importance of professionally created and edited scores and performing materials. This can really make a difference when a performer or organisation is deciding whether to programme your music. Nurture your relationships with every player and every music professional you have ever met. Stay in touch via email or on Facebook. Be alive to opportunities. Be nice to people. If you are not happy with how a performer plays something or if there is any sort of problem, whether musical or practical, try to find a way of expressing it which won't damage your relationship.

Get the best possible quality recordings of your pieces. There is little chance of something being programmed for a second time if you don't have a recording of it. Keep records of performances of your music. Be aware of whether a future performance might be a territorial première: this can be attractive to a programmer. If a piece has been performed a number of times this can be influential in encouraging someone to take a look at it. If someone asks you to write them a new piece, listen to what they want from you and try to get them to put it in writing so there are no misunderstandings about the instrumentation, duration, delivery date or any other parameters.

– Emma Kerr

Case Study: Christopher Fox

“My music started to be performed in the late 1970s and in that period the major classical music publishers were still offering publishing contracts to lots of young composers – getting a publisher was definitely regarded as a necessary step in having a successful career. I was approached by a number of different companies, but nothing ever came of any of these discussions; I think there was a perception at the time that what I was doing wasn't easy to categorise and would therefore be difficult to market. At the same time the music publishing houses were beginning to be more commercially driven and were not renewing the contracts of many of the composers they had signed in the early 1970s. More or less by accident I became an independent music publisher, publishing just one composer's work. Occasionally I have written pieces that have been published by bigger publishing houses in anthologies of pieces for young performers.

I have always made the scores of my music to the highest standards and I like having control over how my scores look. I copy my music, either by hand or sometimes with a computer, print it on good paper in a photocopier and bind it. I have a website with lots of information about the music and I sell scores, at cost price, to people who make contact with me. The only limitation [in self-publishing] is time; an hour photocopying and binding is an hour when you're not composing. The great advantages are being in control of what you do, not being pressurised to take on commissions that are not in your best interests, not handing over rights to your work to people who don't care as much about it as you do.

I'm an independent publisher and in my case this only relates to printed music, not to recording. Music is only unpublished if you choose not to put it in the public domain, so if it's on a website or played in a concert it's published. I know lots of people in the classical music publishing business, who would, if they were being honest, acknowledge that a lot of the activities of the businesses they work for are not very commercial! More importantly, my music is published by a number of record companies – there are lots of CDs of my music that can be bought by a couple of mouse clicks on Amazon or iTunes or by going into good record shops.”

Christopher Fox (1955) is a composer based in London, UK. He studied composition with Hugh Wood, Jonathan Harvey and Richard Orton at Liverpool, Southampton and York Universities and was awarded the degree of DPhil in composition from York University in 1984. In 1981 he won the composition prize of the Performing Right Society of Great Britain; since then he has established a reputation as one of the most individual composers of his generation. Since April 2006 he has been Research Professor in Music at Brunel University.