I've Made A Decision

Last week I wrote about how my application to a music library had been rejected.

Over the week I have been overwhelmed by how many responses I have had from you all sending me positivity and all manner of helpful advice. It's been lovely.

It has really highlighted that my audience, you, are completely awesome and I am so grateful for you.

As I prepare for a few week's time off I have been thinking about the direction my music should take as a result of not being accepted.

Do I try again with different music? Do I pursue other libraries? etc.

While I was mulling it over, it dawned on me that I have quite a lot of music that is not assigned to any publisher.

So I went to my computer and started compiling all the albums and tracks that I have created and done nothing with over the years and was astonished to find a library of over 300 pieces of music.

THREE HUNDRED TRACKS!

I'm not saying this to boast, I'm saying it to explain the decision I have come to.

I am going to create a (royalty-free) music library that hosts all my unassigned music.

Over the years I have made several false starts in this direction but have often been stopped by my own fears and/or impatience.

And as I look back at the last 15 years I realised that building my own library has been a quiet whisper that I have been (mostly) ignoring.

I got started on this and I have already managed to build the site and infrastructure (sort of).

At this point in time, it is little more than a domain and a heading but the plan is to use my knowledge of SEO and online marketing to start regularly uploading my tracks to that site and YouTube etc.

The plan is to gradually bring in micro-licenses and/or subscribers to my own catalogue.

I will of course be adding them to my PRO and distributing them to the aggregators (I will probably go through CDBaby because they have a licensing department that would take care of the bigger licenses and hopefully compensate for the 9% they take).

It's going to be a lot of work and it is going to take at least a year or two to see any signs of decent growth but at this stage, I don't mind.

I need to pursue this properly as a way to give myself some validation and approval and also to let all that music be used. And the only way this is going to happen is if I follow my own advice that 'little and often' makes the biggest progress and to...

Follow your curiosity and excitement and listen to your quiet whispers...

So yes, I am adding this to my ever-growing pile of projects, and yes, it is more work, but I am in this for the long run and I know that focus and perseverance pay off in the end.

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p.s. I am sure you won't mind but as I am taking some time off, I am going to keep these emails shorter until I get back to work in August.