[AngelCityOutlaw]

Originally Posted by Meteo Xavier

There is a lot of truth to that, but it doesn't make going cross-country to meet them face-to-face any more feasible to do.

True............

[DrumJ8]

Originally Posted by zircon

It really depends. I mean if they only have $200, that's all you're going to get. What genre of music is it? The average rate of licensing a piece of library music is about $500-600 if you were to SELL to the library (buyout), but that's kinda bargain-basement. You're writing custom for a client here. My own bargain-basement rate is $250/min for custom projects but keep in mind that might be way more than they have. I would ask WHY they want to keep the rights. Can you give any more information about the company? Are they famous? Do they have revenue already?

Hey thanks for the responses guys. Okay, the situation isn't all that hypothetical; nothing is concrete but here is what I know. It would most likely be electronic music. From what I understand, they want to own the music because they want it to be unique--they don't want to use existing music that can be heard elsewhere, and they don't want others to use their music. Not sure how famous they are .. 2,420 "seller reviews" according to google and my friend who works there says "around 10-11 million annual revenue" ..

[big giant circles]

I personally think a huge problem a lot of aspiring composers face is knowing when to decline a project. Or rather, when it's more beneficial to give a fair quote and have it turned down rather than selling yourself short.

If a company asked me to write 5 tracks @ 1 minute for a flat $200, the bottom line is that if they want to own that music, my answer is a polite yet firm "Thanks, but no, that's not even close to a reasonable compromise for standard industry rates." And then I would ask questions and make a counter-offer. For example, find out why they would be opposed to licensing new or existing music.

I totally understand that when somebody has maybe only a few $$ in their bank account, that writing 5 songs for even a low amount of money seems to make more sense than saying "No, sorry, I'm worth more than that," and risking losing the gig. But honestly, the road to better success is not always paved with screwing yourself over despite what you might think.

More often than not, the road to success is paved with hard work, competence, skill, professionalism, and confidence. And networking AKA communication. Like Andy said. When a company offers you peanuts for unreasonable working terms, ask them questions and work for a suitable compromise. Find out why they feel the need to own the music as opposed to license it. They feel their time is valuable, it's only fair for them to acknowledge that yours is too. If a company cannot realize that their payment is not even covering your expenses or the time it takes you to write the music for a reasonable wage, then the bottom line is they're not worth working for. They're not just going to accept your work for next to nothing and then next time offer you 10x more money like they should have paid you to begin with.

Anyway, I realize this is a bit of a tangent from the OP, but it's worth bringing up.

[zircon]

Well, it's not unreasonable for people just starting out to charge less. Web video isn't exactly like AAA gaming. $200-250/min is a lot better than what you would get paid from a middle-end buyout music library and that's how I started getting real $$$. If it were me I'd say $5-6k for the project. But I think they might balk at that.

[big giant circles]

Originally Posted by zircon

Well, it's not unreasonable for people just starting out to charge less.

Sure, that's understandable, but only to a degree. As long as the composer is competently producing quality music, the pay should still be reasonably competitive. And to clarify for those reading this, I don't mean that all aspiring composers should ask for $1500/minute for their music. I'm just saying learn when to say no when the wage just isn't respectable whether you're brand new, or a 30-year industry veteran.

That's my beef with this and so many other industries lately. People pay for names over quality/output. If someone can write top-notch music, they deserve decent pay at the very least. And it's sad to me that so many young composers accept such awful rates because they're either afraid to ask for more, or else they don't know better.