Author: SCI Members Mailing List
Subject: Placing music with sheet musicplus and other retailers
Dear Colleagues,
Below is a compilation of information about sheetmusicplus as a retailer for your music. Thanks to colleagues who graciously sent the comments that follow. I have edited the comments to eliminate repetition. Sheetmusicplus.com and a number of retailers will sell your pdf files (or in some cases, printed music). Essentially you are self-publishing and they are doing the retailing for you--something you can do for yourself. Advantage to doing it yourself: !00% of the sales price. Disadvantage: You get 25% -- 55% of the sales price (instead of 100%), depending on which website you go with.
One colleague commented that she had trouble getting actual printed music from sheetmusicplus in a timely manner; this should not be a problem for SCI members, since new music is offered via their pdf download service. The customer pays for the pdf and downloads it at that time.
The advantage to using a retailer is as described as follows by one SCI member:
I prefer having a retailer like SMP handle getting money from the customer and giving them the product. In the past I have sold my scores on my website using a method where people pay me directly using Paypal and then I send them the PDF score. I prefer having someone else (SMP and other retailers) handle this for me, even though they take more than half of the purchase price. The only real drawback is that I do not know who the purchasers are, so I have no way to ask them about performances. For this reason, I have started including a note on my score covers asking anyone who gives a public performance of the piece to send me a PDF of the concert program.
The following points sum up the basics supplied by other SCI colleagues:
You should be aware that SMP is not a publisher. When you sell your sheet music on SMP, you are the publisher and they are the retailer/distributor.
I prefer having a retailer like SMP handle getting money from the customer and giving them the product. In the past I have sold my scores on my website using a method where people pay me directly using Paypal and then I send them the PDF score. I prefer having someone else (SMP and other retailers) handle this for me, even though they take more than half of the purchase price. The only real drawback is that I do not know who the purchasers are, so I have no way to ask them about performances. For this reason, I have started including a note on my score covers asking anyone who gives a public performance of the piece to send me a PDF of the concert program.
SMP simply acts as the "store" for your music, and you must package and promote the music yourself.
Making a sharp-looking PDF score with an attractive cover is essential, and it is very helpful to have a good mp3 to post with the score.
The SMP system does not accept paragraph breaks in your product description, so it is best to keep these very brief. If there is a video performance of the piece, you can include the URL for the video in your product description.
The self publishing arm of Sheet Music Plus is called Digital Print Publishers and I found out they are actually an arm of Hal Leonard. The percentage for authors is 45%. The have, however, had some IT issues: i.e.: I found that I needed to make some corrections to a couple pieces and although I unpublished them, they were still listed on Sheet Music Plus. They were very quick to resolve that issue when I brought it to their attention. The are generally very responsive. Basically, you have your list of pieces on your dashboard.
SMP has an approval process and it usually takes about a week for the music to be listed on Sheet Music Plus once the music has been approved. You can change basic information and audio files after the score has been listed, however, one issue they have is that if you need to change the actual score, you have to un-publish it and then re-publish it from scratch. Generally, though, it has been a good experience with Sheet Music Plus and I would recommend them. It somewhat levels the playing field with the big publishers.
Other options include http://www.sheetmusicplus.com are jwpepper.com <http://jwpepper.com/>
A colleague provided the following information about MusicaNEO:
There is another site where I am currently placing my music as well. I first heard about it through a posting on one of my LinkedIn groups. It is MusicaNEO. They are based in Switzerland. They seem to have the IT issues under better control, the percentage is 55% rather than 45%, you get your own web page and can organize your catalogue as you see fit. I haven’t yet sold anything since I only became involved very late last year and had to jump through one additional hoop. In order to have anything listed, you have to provide your mailing address where they send a snail mail card with a pin. Once you get the pin and enter it on the web site, everything you have uploaded that has been approved, is immediately listed for sale. That is a one time hoop.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in! Hope others will find this helpful.
Robert
Robert J Martin, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus Truman State University Kirksville, MO 63501 rmartin at truman.edu cell: 660 346-0074
Subject: Placing music with sheet musicplus and other retailers
Dear Colleagues,
Below is a compilation of information about sheetmusicplus as a retailer for your music. Thanks to colleagues who graciously sent the comments that follow. I have edited the comments to eliminate repetition. Sheetmusicplus.com and a number of retailers will sell your pdf files (or in some cases, printed music). Essentially you are self-publishing and they are doing the retailing for you--something you can do for yourself. Advantage to doing it yourself: !00% of the sales price. Disadvantage: You get 25% -- 55% of the sales price (instead of 100%), depending on which website you go with.
One colleague commented that she had trouble getting actual printed music from sheetmusicplus in a timely manner; this should not be a problem for SCI members, since new music is offered via their pdf download service. The customer pays for the pdf and downloads it at that time.
The advantage to using a retailer is as described as follows by one SCI member:
I prefer having a retailer like SMP handle getting money from the customer and giving them the product. In the past I have sold my scores on my website using a method where people pay me directly using Paypal and then I send them the PDF score. I prefer having someone else (SMP and other retailers) handle this for me, even though they take more than half of the purchase price. The only real drawback is that I do not know who the purchasers are, so I have no way to ask them about performances. For this reason, I have started including a note on my score covers asking anyone who gives a public performance of the piece to send me a PDF of the concert program.
The following points sum up the basics supplied by other SCI colleagues:
You should be aware that SMP is not a publisher. When you sell your sheet music on SMP, you are the publisher and they are the retailer/distributor.
I prefer having a retailer like SMP handle getting money from the customer and giving them the product. In the past I have sold my scores on my website using a method where people pay me directly using Paypal and then I send them the PDF score. I prefer having someone else (SMP and other retailers) handle this for me, even though they take more than half of the purchase price. The only real drawback is that I do not know who the purchasers are, so I have no way to ask them about performances. For this reason, I have started including a note on my score covers asking anyone who gives a public performance of the piece to send me a PDF of the concert program.
SMP simply acts as the "store" for your music, and you must package and promote the music yourself.
Making a sharp-looking PDF score with an attractive cover is essential, and it is very helpful to have a good mp3 to post with the score.
The SMP system does not accept paragraph breaks in your product description, so it is best to keep these very brief. If there is a video performance of the piece, you can include the URL for the video in your product description.
The self publishing arm of Sheet Music Plus is called Digital Print Publishers and I found out they are actually an arm of Hal Leonard. The percentage for authors is 45%. The have, however, had some IT issues: i.e.: I found that I needed to make some corrections to a couple pieces and although I unpublished them, they were still listed on Sheet Music Plus. They were very quick to resolve that issue when I brought it to their attention. The are generally very responsive. Basically, you have your list of pieces on your dashboard.
SMP has an approval process and it usually takes about a week for the music to be listed on Sheet Music Plus once the music has been approved. You can change basic information and audio files after the score has been listed, however, one issue they have is that if you need to change the actual score, you have to un-publish it and then re-publish it from scratch. Generally, though, it has been a good experience with Sheet Music Plus and I would recommend them. It somewhat levels the playing field with the big publishers.
Other options include http://www.sheetmusicplus.com are jwpepper.com <http://jwpepper.com/>
A colleague provided the following information about MusicaNEO:
There is another site where I am currently placing my music as well. I first heard about it through a posting on one of my LinkedIn groups. It is MusicaNEO. They are based in Switzerland. They seem to have the IT issues under better control, the percentage is 55% rather than 45%, you get your own web page and can organize your catalogue as you see fit. I haven’t yet sold anything since I only became involved very late last year and had to jump through one additional hoop. In order to have anything listed, you have to provide your mailing address where they send a snail mail card with a pin. Once you get the pin and enter it on the web site, everything you have uploaded that has been approved, is immediately listed for sale. That is a one time hoop.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in! Hope others will find this helpful.
Robert
Robert J Martin, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus Truman State University Kirksville, MO 63501 rmartin at truman.edu cell: 660 346-0074