Doing Business: Virtual Shelf Space

Monday, August 29, 2011

This post originally appeared on the NewMusicShelf blog on August 6, 2011.

Virtual shelf space is a wonderful thing.

In a brick-and-mortar music store, of which there are sadly becoming less and less, shelf space is at a premium – a physical store can only hold so much physical sheet music. Of course, most music stores are now given over to instrument sales and rentals and audio equipment. Sheet music, if there is any, is relegated to a dark corner, and usually limited to the easy piano/vocal songbook of either X album by Y pop star or the latest Disney movie musical. In terms of concert music, you might find some Beethoven sonatas; possibly some Liszt; probably the Well-Tempered Klavier.

The new stuff – the stuff that you and I write – doesn’t have much of a chance there, unfortunately. Plus, you’re limited to sales in a single location if you even manage to get some of that premium physical shelf space for your own works.

A physical shelf can only hold so many scores. In a bookstore, you’ll notice that some books are faced spine out, and others are turned so that you see the full front cover. Those that are turned out are meant to sell well – new releases, intended bestsellers, whatever the publisher had decided needs to sell a lot this month. By being turned out, they’re given more shelf space – more prime real estate – because they’re supposed to get noticed. The spine-out books take more of an effort to look through because each book takes up less space, and you also have to tilt your head to the right to read the title and author. Here, those authors who have more books on the shelf, and are consequently taking up more real estate, will get noticed more and sell better. Scores, however, because of their size, never really get the luxury of facing cover out.

With digital scores, however, shelf space is virtual. And virtual shelf space is unlimited.

With virtual shelf space, as with physical shelf space, you want to take up as much as possible. People who are looking for scores may pass over the lone piece by So-And-So wedged amongst the rest of the scores on a shelf, be it in a physical location or online. The more you have available, the more likely you are to be noticed, and the more likely you are to be checked out and hopefully bought.

Think of it in terms of the signal-to-noise ratio. Your music is the signal, and everyone else’s is the noise. (This isn’t a value judgment on anyone’s music, obviously.) You want people to get your signal despite all the noise trying to drown it out. A weak signal – i.e., having only one or two scores available – isn’t likely to get you noticed. It’s certainly possible, but you’re more likely to be noticed if you have five pieces or ten pieces or your entire catalog available in any given market.

“Any given market?” you ask. By market, I’m not referring to the broader (albeit fairly small) “market” for concert music scores. Instead, I mean a virtual location. Your website is one of them. NewMusicShelf is another. If you have only one piece available through the NewMusicShelf, at this moment (there are 271 scores/parts available, and another 12 being added this weekend) you make up less than one third of one percent of the total available works/total shelf space. If, like me, you have about 40 scores/sets of parts available, you take up around 15% of the shelf space – you’re much more likely to be seen as visitors click around the site. Right now Allen Brings takes up the most shelf space on NewMusicShelf with a whopping 139 scores – that’s 51% of the current virtual shelf space on the site. I do recommend you check out his stuff.

I should also add: with my signal-to-noise analogy, I’m not implying that you don’t want people buying other composers’ scores. Whether they buy someone else’s music or not is a neutral matter. All you’re aiming for is to get your music in front of them and into their hands.

So my advice for today to composers is this: wherever you’re able to make it happen, take up as much of the virtual shelf space as you can. Make yourself visible. When you write something, put it on your website, put it here, make sure people can find it.

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JFund app update

Thursday, August 25, 2011

The application arrived in Minnesota yesterday. Before I left for the office, I finally checked the FedEx tracking number, and saw that it was out for delivery. Another anal-retentive check this morning confirmed that it had, indeed, been delivered and signed for.

I’ll spend the next week or so drafting up a letter for the MAP Fund’s inquiry submissions, which opens up September 1. And then maybe this weekend I can start actually writing the piece!

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The waiting begins

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

I spent the weekend being blissfully relaxed – lounging by the pool at my boyfriend’s parents’ house in Montauk, hanging out on the beach (and accidentally falling asleep – thank goodness I didn’t get sunburned!), eating and drinking rather too much – and generally not thinking about the commission or grant applications. Now that the week has started again and I’m back sitting at the day job, staying out from underfoot for the last two days of the yearly audit, I’m desperate to know whether the JFund application has made it to Minnesota yet. But silly me – I left the FedEx receipt at home, and consequently don’t have the tracking number available!

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Pricing: A Practical Approach

Monday, August 22, 2011

This post originally appeared on the NewMusicShelf blog on June 10, 2011.

In an effort to make pricing my scores easier and less subjective, I’ve been tinkering with a series of formulas to tell me what I should charge, and I think I’ve come up with some good stuff.

However, before I get into the math of it, I want to quickly paraphrase my post Pricing: The Goldilocks Zone where I talk about my philosophy on setting prices. Until now, I’ve set mine by asking myself two questions: 1) “If I were buying an identical score by another composer, what price would be most attractive to me?” and 2) “Is that price something I’m willing to accept for my own work?” It’s worked well so far, but is hardly objective.

I actually designed a whole Excel spreadsheet that does double duty as my catalog and a price calculator. All I have to do is plug in what it costs to print one copy of the score, and it spits out what I should charge for print scores on one sheet, and what I should charge for electronic scores on another. It took me an afternoon to create, and is a lot of fun to play with.

Let’s walk through an example of how the formulas work with a bit of math. For this example, I’m going to assume that the score costs exactly $5.00 to print and bind, and that there are no other costs associated with the production of the score itself. Your score will cost more or less depending on the number of pages and the quality of the materials. But for right now, we’re going to take $5.00 as our starting point.

The other assumption we’re going to make, aside from the starting cost, is that we want our works picked up by distributors like J.W. Pepper or Theodore Front; so we’re going to figure in the discount that distributors take, which is typically around 40%.

Print Scores
So we start out with our $5.00 cost to produce the score.

Step one is just about the only subjective step in the print pricing process: figuring out our base profit per score. This can be a set dollar amount, or a percentage of the sale. I prefer the latter because it’s flexible, and it helps keep the final price more reasonable.

For myself, I’ve chosen a 20% base profit*. Meaning: 20% of the price after adding the base profit to the printing costs. Not 20% of the printing price.

So: “Cost with Profit” = $5.00 + (20% of “Cost with Profit”).

The easiest way to figure this is to subtract your percentage from 100% and turn it into a decimal: 100% – 20% = 80% or 0.8.

Then divide your cost by this new number: $5.00 / 0.8 = $6.25.

I may have lost some of you already. Let’s do it backward to show you what just happened. 20% of $6.25 is $1.25. So we have our $5.00 printing cost plus our 20% ($1.25) base profit.

Cost with Profit = $5.00 + (20% of Cost with Profit)
$6.25 = $5.00 + $1.25

Good? Good.

Step two: we add the distributor discount, which is typically 40%. We add this into our price because we have to price our scores the same as the distributor sells them. The discount they take is their incentive for buying scores from you, as well as their profit. Why is theirs twice what mine is? Because they have a staff and I don’t.

So, we do the same trick to calculate the distributor price that we used to get our Cost with Profit.

$6.25 / (100% – 40%) = $10.42

C w/ P & Disc = $6.25 + (40% of C w/ P & Disc)
$10.42 = $6.25 + $4.17

One final step, just for the sake of aesthetics. Let’s round up to $10.50. It’s just a prettier number.

So there’s your print price for a score that cost you $5.00 to print.

If a distributor wants to sell this score, you sell it to them for $6.25 per copy (or $6.30 since we rounded up, and that counts for something), and they sell it for $10.50. Of the $6.30 you got from the distributor, you paid $5.00 to print it, and end up earning $1.30 – your Base Profit!

To sell it on your site, you sell it for $10.50 and make $5.50 after your production costs. Awesome.

A quick recap:

Printing Costs: $5.00
Base Profit (20% of Price net of distributor discount, or 12% of Gross) $1.25
Discount (40% of Gross) $4.17
Final Gross $10.42
Rounded Gross $10.50

* The base profit here is not 20% of the gross price, but 20% of the price net of the distributor’s discount. I figure it this way to keep the price more affordable. See “Another Approach” below for an example of how calculating the base profit against gross affects the gross price.

Electronic Scores
So let’s start with our final Print price of $10.50 and go from there to find the price for our Electronic score.

We have a few options of how we want to deal with this. You’re entitled to keep the same price, but I don’t particularly approve of that since you have no printing/binding costs for an electronic score.

I prefer to just subtract out the printing costs, so $10.50 – $5.00, leaving you with $5.50, which is pretty damned good for a product with no overhead costs.

Some other composers take half of the print price, which in this case would be $5.25. A negligible difference between this and what I do.

Assuming you sell the electronic scores on your own site and use PayPal as your payment solution, you’re going to pay $0.46 on $5.50, leaving you with a net of $5.04.

Or you can set your price taking the PayPal fee into account. If you want to net $5.50, you can set your price at $6.00 and net $5.53.

If you were to use NewMusicShelf as your distributor, the fee is 14% of the gross price plus the PayPal transaction fee (2.9% + $0.30). So if you want to end up with $5.50, you’ll set your price at $7.00 to account for the $0.98 NewMusicShelf distribution fee and $0.50 PayPal transaction fee, and you’ll net $5.52. (To start at $5.50, you’ll have a total of $1.23 in fees and net $4.27.)

Obviously there are lots of choices here, and a lot of wiggle room. There’s no overhead to take into account, although there are various transaction fees that you might pay, depending on where and how you sell your electronic scores.

Another approach
Another approach that can be taken is to calculate the base profit and the distributor discount together. This changes the price because the profit in the example above is not calculated against the final gross price. Instead, it is only calculated taking into account the overhead costs. Calculating the profit and discount together looks like this:

Gross = $5.00 + (20% Gross) + (40% Gross)

Or

Gross = $5.00 + (60% Gross)

$5.00 / 0.4 = Gross

$5.00 / 0.4 = $12.50

Cost $5.00
Base Profit $2.50
Distributor Discount $5.00
Gross Price $12.50

I prefer not to do it this way because it actually raises the price more than I’m comfortable with. Because I don’t expect to have a print distributor for a while, and because I anticipate selling the bulk of my scores through my own website anyway once I do get one, I’m content for the time being to have a profit of $1.25 on this example score sold through a distributor. After all, I’ll be making a $5.50 profit when it’s sold on my own website.

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One down…

Friday, August 19, 2011

The application is in the mail!

After work yesterday, I printed out a pretty copy of Letter from a Young Poet and made nice color labels for the CDs, and everything was ready to go!

The only hiccup happened when I went to check the CDs to make sure that they played properly. I tried them out on my laptop, where I burned them on my lunch break (which took FOREVER – it’s an older lappy, and will need replacing in the next year or so), and it sounded as though it were being played over the radio with lots of static. Scary. I panicked for a moment, but was thankful that I’d remembered to bring extra blank CDs from home. Then I remembered the boombox in the office, and decided to try them there. Perfect. And I asked one of the girls in Education to test them out on her computer, and they played beautifully. Must just be my lappy, whose optical drive is most likely slowly failing, as is not unusual in computers of a certain age.

Now we wait and keep our fingers crossed.

And, y’know, put together more applications. All while starting up the new concert series, preparing to perform for the American Opera Projects next month, working on several website designs, and trying to sit down face to face with some composers I should know better.

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Final application tweaks

Thursday, August 18, 2011

The day job approved the time off for the VCCA residency, so I’ll be there from Nov 4 to Nov 13. Very excited to be going back!

Tuesday evening, sent my personal statement off to Chet for a look-over. I value his opinion highly in all things, but I value his opinion above all others in the realm of applications since he’s been on so many panels throughout the years. He only offered a few minor criticisms, and otherwise said that it was “very much you – very personal, very detailed, and very smart”.

I sent the whole package to Darien to look over, as well. He had some good suggestions about nitpicky things: consistency of language in the personal statement (I did a whole thing about “focus and range” in the direction/development of my work sections); having the words “really” and “real” in the same sentence; slightly awkward parsing of a sentence where I’d set off a parenthetical with commas rather than dashes, as I typically do. The biggest change was to flesh out the project description a bit more to include the language I’d used in the cover letter about how I see the project as “the orchestral equivalent of an It Gets Better video”.

I feel much more confident about this application than I have about any other I’ve sent out for grants or competitions. I think that my passion for the piece really comes across, as well as my intense personal connection to the subject matter. My previous application to them (was there more than one? possibly. probably.) I approached more from the angle of, “Oh, hey, there’s some grant money here – let’s see, what can I do to try to get some grant money? Oh yeah, that’ll work. I’ll try that.” And it came across in my materials. This is a piece I’ve been wanting to write for almost a year now, but haven’t had the outlet for it. So now I’m approaching the JFund from the angle of “Here’s a project I’m really into, and here are people who are excited to do it – oh, hey, there’s some potential money that can help make it happen!”

After this app is off, I’ll send a letter to the Secret Music Foundation to request their help in funding the piece, as well. Then I’ll research the MAP Fund, which seems ideally suited to this project, and which Dr. Block is very interested in applying to, as well. The MAP Fund apparently has the ability to fund the entire project, which would be great, especially as a fall-back position should the JFund not work out.

As of right now (mid-afternoon), I have two things left to finish before I can send off my application: print a saddle-stitched copy of my shorter work sample, and print off CD labels for my audio samples. All of the written materials are done and looked over and revised, ISU’s materials are ready to go, and I bought large envelopes at lunch today to send the app in. I’ll finish the last two parts right after work, before I run down to Brooklyn to hear DDT’s Haddocks’ Eyes.

I’m champing at the bit to get this thing done and out of my hands!

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JFund progress

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Work at the library last night went quite well. I think I’ve got the personal statement in its near-finished form. I realized that I’d left my notes at home, so I referred back to these posts since I had mentioned my bullet points here. It clocks in at just under a page, which is perfect. I’m debating over keeping headings for the different sections. One one hand, it’s more easily scanable; on the other, it doesn’t have a full flow down the page.

My budget and budget description for the Enhancement Funds are basically done, as well. The question here is whether or not to acknowledge that there will be expenses beyond the $1,500 Enhancement Funds. It’s not completely germane to the application process, but I do want the panelists to know that I’m cognizant of the larger array of costs.

The residency has been okayed on VCCA’s end after I emailed them last night proposing the week following the event, dependent upon the day job’s approval of the time off. I’ll be asking the day job today about the time off.

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Residency thoughts

Monday, August 15, 2011

Zero work got done on the JFund application this weekend. Consequently, I’ve blocked off several evenings this week to tackle it formally. Tonight through Thursday, I’ve set aside 6-8 (maybe longer, depending) every evening to type up my personal statement and project description. Work ‘til 6, type til 8, hit the gym after (must lose this silly vanity weight!). Food in there somewhere.

I’m hoping to be done by Wednesday evening so that I can go to the American Opera Projects’ concert Thursday evening – they’re presenting David’s Haddocks’ Eyes (note the proper placement of the apostrophe – there are multiple haddock here), which I’ve never heard live.

I received Dr. Block’s JFund materials over the weekend, so that part is done and ready to go.

Of course, to make life more stressful this week (positively so, fortunately), I’ve got to make a decision soon between two options for early November. Either I A) stay in NY for the second performance of “Growl” and get interviewed onstage alongside Ned Rorem, or B) go to the VCCA to perform for their 40th anniversary celebration, which would dovetail with a short residency (probably a week). Here I said I wasn’t going to hunt down a VCCA residency for the Fall, and then they go and invite me to this fundraiser and offer a concurrent residency to sweeten the deal! It sort of throws off my plans for a Spring residency in WY. Or, at least, it gives me fewer paid vacation days for the year, should I do both. I’ll still have sick days and some personal days, which I can use at will. And I can always just say “don’t pay me for these days” should I go over my allotment (in an ideal world, that is – of course, I still have something of an “I’m a temp still” mentality).

I’m quite happy to be saddled with such a predicament, though I hate to have to choose! How lovely would it be to set up a Skype session or Google+ Hangout to be electronically present at the concert while I’m in Virginia! And have the NY performance be part of my portion of the VA evening! It’s always an option….

The VA residency, of course, suddenly becomes an option – despite my earlier having dismissed the idea – because it’s in November, and I’ll surely have the piece started by then, so I won’t be approaching a blank page. Plus, it should be easier to schedule a week off then than two weeks off in early October. I’ll broach the subject this week at the office, even though I’m slightly reluctant to do so since it’s audit week, when it’s possible that tensions might be running a little high.

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Letter of Commitment

Thursday, August 11, 2011

This morning I got a draft of the Letter of Commitment from Dr. Block for the JFund application. Aside from having to correct the spelling of my last name, I just tweaked the project description, which was lifted from my original proposal a few weeks ago. It was just a matter of substituting newer, more elegant language.

The letter also gave me some pretty cool information.

Aside from answering my question about the woodwinds (they are in threes), I now know that a harp is available. And I may just avail myself of that harp, especially now that I have an affinity to it because of Starfish at Pescadero and at least a moment.

I also now know the official premiere date: April 27, 2013. A semester alter than expected, but it allows for more rehearsal time, and especially more time for the Drs. Block & Vought to learn the piece. I approve.

The most sort of surprising – but in the best possible way – part was the last paragraph, which listed my responsibilities for the week of the premiere: I’ll be in residence at the school all week, attending rehearsals, teaching master classes in composition, and giving a pre-concert talk/lecture on the piece and everything behind it. Awesome! As if I weren’t excited enough already!

I’ve spent a goodly chunk of the day, since it’s been a slow day at the office, working on my JFund application materials. I’ve got a nice chunk of the personal statement ready: the “How I’m an ‘Emerging’ Composer” segment, and the “How this commission is a significant step forward for me” segment. I’ll finish the remainder on Sunday after Darien and I have dinner with Chet and talk more about his thoughts on the Development/Direction sections. We’re also having dinner with our friends Marc & Seth tomorrow (Marc is a pianist who has premiered and performed a lot of my works), so there will be more discussion then, as well.

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Putting the “Fun” in Fundraising!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Since Dr. Block got back from his trip yesterday, I requested the presented materials from him again. Hoping to have it by the end of the week so that I can send out the completed JFund app by Monday. It doesn’t need a postmark until next Friday, but for once in my life I’d like to get an application in before the last possible second.

I also spent a significant chunk of yesterday afternoon working on the commissioning contract, making edits from the copy I marked up at the bar last week. It looks as though it will be about 5 pages, but I’m considering cutting a few lines that deal with payment since ISU isn’t the one paying me for the piece. The main items that remain are the commissioner credit in the score/programs/marketing materials/etc and the specific date(s) and number of the performance(s). I’m hoping for three performances, but I’m not holding my breath – I’m not the only thing that they’ll be playing next year.

I also spent some time looking at potential funding sources in addition to the JFund. The MAP Fund is a possibility, and there are a few funders that popped up on a search of LGBTQ foundations/philanthropists. I’m kicking around the idea of a Kickstarter thing for this, but I’m still unsure of whether or not to save that for the recording sessions I want to do starting in December. Basically what I have to decide is this:

1) Do I want to potentially do two separate funding drives for two separate projects within two or three months of one another?
Or
2) Do I want to do ONE funding drive for just one of the two projects?
a) Which Project should that be?
i) The commission will potentially be partially funded from JFund and/or the Secret Music Foundation and/or any other granting organizations we decide to apply to.
ii) I *could*, if I were so inclined – and this idea does sort of appeal – fund the recording with the commissioning money.
iii) However: It might be nice/smart to put that money (whatever it ends up amounting to) in a savings account or toward some investments. I *do* have my financial future to consider.

I’m leaning much more toward doing a Kickstarter project for just the recording so that I can bank the commissioning fee. Keeping the funds separate seems smarter, especially in the long term.

On the other hand, were I to try to fund part of the commissioning fee with Kickstarter, there’s a real possibility, I think, for greater exposure and a wider funding base since there’s a larger social issue involved.

I’m also going to pick the brain of my friend who’s the Director of Development for the ISU College of Fine Arts to see what he thinks/suggests.

I’ve also decided not to try for the VCCA this Fall. If I’m going to go to Brush Creek in the Spring, that’s two of my four weeks of vacation days eaten up right there. I may be better served keeping some of my days in reserve. I can always take a day here and a day there in the meantime to do work.

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