We would love to answer definitively ‘yes’ to this question. Some of our users seem to experience success straight away whilst others after several months and sometimes after several years. Our considerable experience of music licensing teaches us that there is no set formula to guarantee sales but that there are things we can do or avoid doing to boost our chances of selling.

In our experience, clients will nearly always choose professionally recorded/produced songs over ‘rough demos’ and tend not to ‘see the potential’ of a good song, particularly when there are faults such as  tuning, timing recording/production issues to have to ‘see past’. With this in mind,  as a songwriter, ensure your song is recorded and produced to a high standard and use mastering tools such as compression to balance levels. If the vocals sound like they have been recorded in the garden shed or have been stuck on top of a ‘loop’ or ‘backing track’ using a $5.00 microphone, we would say your chances of selling are slim!

For lyricists, our clients tend to go for poignant, moving, catchy or humorous lyrics . We advise using devices such as metaphor, alliteration and personification in your work. If you do not know what these things are, we would advise researching! Lyrics which lack depth or rhyme for the sake of rhyming are almost always overlooked.

We give each user an artist page. So please make the most of it’s functionality. It’s a great tool to get your work noticed and to be taken seriously as a songwriter. Therefore, ensure you complete the ‘Resume’ and ‘Information’ sections which are presented to buyers. The information you present here helps us to promote you.

Promotion

Please ensure you have also completed the ‘social media links section’ (in the ‘Enhanced Profile’ area of Songbay). If you do not have a Twitter account, we highly recommend creating one. We have a huge following on Twitter and along with other social networks, use it regularly to promote the work of our artists.

So back to the question of Selling,,

A common misconception by sellers is that their newly uploaded song or
lyric will be sold straightaway. Experience shows that this is not the
case, that joining any music or lyric library should be considered more of a mid to
long term commitment. It’s simply not possible to put a time frame on when someone will
have a specific requirement for a specific song or lyric. That said, clearly the more high quality material you can upload to a music/lyric library, the greater your chances of being discovered. Similarly, the more people searching the library, the greater the chances of sales. With regard to this, Songbay gives genuinely wide exposure to it’s artists, we are ranked extremely high in original music searches from all Internet search engines and No1 for original lyric searches on Google. As a result, every day music and lyrics are traded at Songbay-from simple poetic verses to complete film scores (Songbay  subscriber Kevin Nevel has been writing songs for for Keith Urban, TimMcGraw, and Joss Stone.  Kevin Nevel on Songbay>>)

To further enhance sales, we allow our users to contact each other directly. Songwriting
openings can then arrive through networking and collaboration offers. There are plenty examples of this happening on a daily basis at Songbay.- Artists receiving work offers at Songbay >>

Other Benefits of  being on Songbay

Many Songwriters are happy to use our service simply for the related benefits:

Whilst your music and lyrics are being hosted and advertised on our
library, we provide you with additional unique  services. Including:

• Free Copyright Protection for all your uploads
• Free Publishing (Your work is published worldwide directly from our site)
• Music Industry Contact Lists ( A comprehensive ‘who’s who of the music industry, helping you get your work to the right people).
• Songwriting Opportunities
• Songwriting Advice
• Contract Advice
• Promotion
• Artist Page (a networking hub with direct contact links, etc to your work)

Posted in: Frequently Asked Questions