How to Publish a Song - Tips for Getting Your Song Published

How to Publish a Song

• First, make sure your song is good enough. Perform it (or if you're not a singer, have someone else sing it) for your friends and family. Get their honest opinion. Do they like the song? If so, find out what they like about it. If not, rework it until a consensus of opinion tells you that you have it right. Make sure your song is honed and polished.

• Create a manuscript of your song. You'll need this to obtain your copyright. The manuscript contains the lyrics and the melody (with each chord name written out). If you can't write music, find someone to do it for you. You cannot copyright a song idea, but you can copyright the sequence of notes and lyrics that comprise it.

• Copyright your song. This is your insurance policy. Songs are stolen—sometimes by industry professionals. A copyright proves that you own the rights to the song and protects you should anyone try to claim it as their own. If you wrote a song ten years ago and were unaware of the importance of obtaining a copyright, get it now.

  How to publish a song: first and foremost obtain a copyright

  Copyright your song online and you will be protected for the next 28 years. Since you can extend it for another 28 years once your copyright is almost up, make sure to assign it to your heirs as part of your estate.

• Once you have your U.S. copyright, be sure to follow the format when distributing your work: copyright symbol, year, songwriter's name. Or if you're not using the symbol, write out the word "Copyright." Examples: © 2007 Lisa Miller or Copyright 2007 Lisa Miller.

• Now that your song has been copyrighted, you need to take the next step in publishing a song. Publishing is not the same as a copyright. Publishing a song involves selling and distributing it, collecting the money and taking care of the paperwork. (In many ways, a music publisher performs the same function as a book publisher.) Although you can publish a song yourself, most music publishers have large staffs to take care of all these tasks. In exchange, they usually take half of the profits.

• Seek like kind. Find a music publisher who publishes your type of music. Go to the library to research (get help from the librarian at the reference desk) or look on the back of CD covers for the name of the music publishing company. Don't pick just any music publisher, find someone who believes in you and your music(because there is a better chance they will do all they can to promote your song) and who offers the kinds of services you'll need. Always, always, get a music attorney to review your contract before signing anything.

Stay tuned for our next article in the series on how to publish a song: different types of music publishing contracts.