My Piece of the Pi Day (Patreon)

As I sit here working on a mastering commission, I've been reflecting on this past week and just wanted to let you know how grateful I am that you're here. 

Why the slightly weird, cryptic title to this post? Well, two things, I started on this on the 14th (Pi Day) so the pun was funnier then... but yeah, let me share some indie/freelance musician braindump weirdness with you all... It's the ever-exciting storytime everyone looks forward to!

Before we do that, let's get everyone on the same page regarding my, uh, "business plan", if you can call it that. I've established a number of revenue streams, and I want to be able to support myself solely off of them, if at all possible. I play shows. I've got in-person and online music sales. I've got streaming royalties. I get commissions for both game titles and podcast/twitch/youtube intros. And of course, I have you. ♥

The success of any of these given streams can vary quite a bit. One downside is that stability is an issue and there are a lot of places where something can go wrong. The upshot is that usually, one thing getting screwed up doesn't affect the other things. Stability is also one of the reasons I switched to monthly. I've got to say, it's been one hell of a blessing! Before that, there were several months where I literally reported zero...and when you're applying for things like reduced cost medical care, that breakdown can matter. 

So what's today's story about? Lately, I've had a lot of adventures in chasing down royalties. I'm not big enough to be signed to a label, and even if I were, I don't know that I would want to be. I am getting big enough that things are getting busy, yet I'm too small to bring on management help. 

The fun(ny) thing about being in this middle-zone is that you become to get extremely intimate with the particulars of where you're getting plays, sales, etc. I even made a cool google map of where I've sent physical orders, which is really inspiring and motivating! Check it out:

http://i.imgur.com/Ovtlj1P.png

Once you're this close to the data, you begin to compare it to where you've spent effort and see if that is paying off. One of the things I've seen suggested often is getting your music on not just Spotify for streaming, but also Pandora, even though their platform is a bit different.

I can dig it. I signed up and it took what felt like a year to get my tracks approved. You see, the listener interface is all automated and tells you what you like to listen by figuring out which of their "musical fingerprint" items you like and don't, but that fingerprint is applied to tracks by a human, who manually listens to everything, and if I had to guess I got someone that liked chiptunes but didn't exactly understand what they were listening to.

Finally in 2015 I had an approved album live on Pandora. I also signed up for a SoundExchange account, because Pandora doesn't pay musicians directly, they hand a lump sum to SoundExchange and then report plays and let SoundExchange figure it out later. To make that task easier, you send in a list of tracks that you control the rights to (your "repertoire") and they play a matching game. This tidbit will be important in a minute. There are other things SoundExchange pays on, like general radio play, and really anything that is non-seekable or not controlled by the listener. Turntable.fm (remember that site?) even pays a blanket royalty and reports plays from MP3s if they're tagged correctly.

Fast forward to the end of 2016 — or rewind, if you're stuck in today's date — and SoundExchange (who will not send you your first payment until you're past a certain time or money threshold) has my first statement ready! Hooray! Three cheers for............wait a minute..........How come only three of my tracks out of the repertoire of over 150 I sent in on this statement? Maybe this is just a mistake, because a track I contributed to is on here, and it got a measly three plays, but it's on the report.

So I give SoundExchange a call, and they're on a holiday that lasts from before Christmas to after the New Year. Leave a message. Send an email just in case someone checks that but nobody's in the office. Call back after the recording says they're open again. The recording hasn't changed. Leave another message. After no call back, send an email. After no response, try calling again. Finally I get customer support. 

Now, a word on customer support really fast. Maybe it's just that I've worked customer support for quite possibly my entire life since I could speak, but these days calls to customer support must be even worse than when I had to tell people where to find the power button on their computers. I often get someone super friendly and ready to help me with my issue, I explain my issue thoroughly including the steps I've already been through, just to get led through those steps for the third or fourth time. There are some people that might need this and I am not one of them.

I am finally forwarded to my new research department buddy (did I mention we're into February now?) who wants to make sure my repertoire is up-to-date. Reasonable, except the stuff I'm asking about was on the first repertoire I ever sent, and I have a confirmation email that it was received. I re-send the link to the original google doc I submitted (which now has updated releases from 2016). Oh, apparently they don't take google docs (wonder how they got it in the first place) due to security concerns . But you know what isn't a security concern? An excel spreadsheet. Please excuse me for a moment while I go sob in the corner.

The repertoire is finally received, checked over, and we cross all of our T's and dot all of our I's. The Pandora track titles match what I submitted to SoundExchange. I begin a waiting process while I assume that All The Things are checked. Nothing. I am told to contact Pandora and ask if they reported the plays.

Now a word on Pandora support. There is NO phone support, not even a number you can call, just an email address. I email the address and it takes a cool week to get a response. The email says that they confirm they've reported my plays (and for some reason Pandora insists on the language "spins"), and by the way:

"For more information on Sound Exchange’s payment schedule and minimum threshold for payments, check out their FAQ here: http://www.soundexchange.com/generalfaq/"

DDDDDddddddddderp. I already mentioned in my introductory question that I received my first statement, and SoundExchange says they include all your royalties to date in that first payment. You didn't need to tell me I didn't have enough plays to earn a report because I'm staring at the report. Also, the link to the FAQ you sent me doesn't work, thanks for the outdated information. =[

I calmly collect myself and explain again that yes, I know what I'm asking and I know what I'm doing. The number of plays of what I am asking about exceeds single-digit plays. I see a single-digit track in my report, but I am asking about that thing that received (tens of) thousands of plays. Time passes. We're into March now.

I am asked if I use a distributor. Yes, I respond, but not for the purposes of getting my music to Pandora, it was all uploaded independently. Also, aren't the people at Pandora able to see how the track was uploaded? I'm asked if SoundExchange gave me a date range. Now we're going in circles again: The beginning of time to now; there was only one statement. Paraphrasing Pandora's response: "we're doing everything right; you should really talk to SoundExchange about all this"

At this point I'm worried I'm at an impasse with both Pandora and SoundExchange. Both of them insist they're doing the Right Thing and pass the buck to the other one, neither of them will talk to eachother (and Pandora uses a helpdesk system so CC'ing both of them on emails doesn't do any good). Yet, my plays are sitting there in limbo, waiting for a payout. I'm small peanuts, so I can't just yell at them (and that's not really conducive to getting helpful assistance, because it's not the fault of customer support).

In conclusion, I'm so incredibly thankful you're here.

Someday, if I get the motivation, I'll type up a fun (please tell me this sarcasm is making it through) adventure about how I signed up for Loudr to avoid putting my music on CDbaby, only to watch Loudr distribution get sucked up by CDbaby. We were told nothing would change. You can imagine how that went.

New music, videos, and stories coming soon. I'm playing a show with analog synthesizer folks in Pittsburgh this upcoming Saturday!