When Should A Songwriter Do A Publishing Deal?
A publishing deal should be secured as soon as a songwriter has gotten interest from a respected publishing company and the deal is something respectable to the songwriter. Remember, you are giving up 50% of your ownership percentage in a composition. I meet with aspiring and established songwriters often, and I tell them that once you develop some value for your songwriting craft, you should then go and get a publishing deal. When I say develop some value for your songwriting craft, I mean that you should have a quality discography, with songs placed on national recording artists that are distributed from a major record label. Therefore, a songwriter will have money “in the pipeline” that the publishing company can go and collect. Outside of a songwriter’s potential, the money “in the pipeline” helps a publisher determine how much money should be advanced to the songwriter and what the publishing deal should be worth.

For example, a producer who has outstanding beats but does not have any placements represents nothing but potential, and the advance typically would not be as high as a producer who had really good beats, but has songs placed and released on artists on major record companies. The producer with the “good beats” already has money “in the pipeline,” and can justify a publisher giving him more money than the producer with “outstanding beats” simply because he has potential. The producer’s potential would be realized after the deal is done by the exploitation work of the publisher and producer together. I’ve done “potential” deals, and I’ve done deals where a songwriter or a producer had a lot of money “in the pipeline” already, and they simply needed help collecting the money and taking their career to the next level. Personally, I think that a songwriter should wait until they have something to show for their work. This is when a songwriter will get more money, and the deal will be structured better for them. If a songwriter doesn’t have any placements and just possess hot songs or hot tracks, I’m going to ask myself, “If your music is so hot, then why hasn’t an artist on a major label recorded to any of your material yet?”

Music Publishing is not based on hype, it is based on the numbers and the facts. Ultimately, a publishing company is similar to a bank. If you are loaned or advanced a certain amount of money, the bank wants to make to make that money back as soon as possible, with a return on their investment. Wait until your discography represents some quality placements and releases, therefore you will have something valuable enough to be well compensated for, before giving up half of your work.