Eric Beal has a long history in the music publishing business.
Starting out as a songwriter, Eric has worked in many different capacities within music publishing, including Vice President of Creative for Sony/ATV Music in New York, where he oversaw a staff of leading writers and producers such as Billy Mann, Steve Diamond, Teron Beal, Walter Afanasieff, John Mayer, and many others. Prior to joining Sony, he was the Creative Director for Zomba Music Publishing, where he signed and developed top writers like KNS Productions and Riprock & Alex G., as well as coordinating and directing Zomba writers in the development of material for Jive Records pop superstars like Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, Britney Spears, and Aaron Carter.
Before becoming a publishing executive, Beall wrote the pop hits Nothin' My Love Can't Fix for Joey Lawrence (Top 10 Billboard Hot 100) and Carry On by Martha Wash (#1 Billboard Dance Chart) as well as songs for Diana Ross, The Jacksons, Safire, Samantha Fox, Brenda K. Starr, and many others. He also co- founded Class-X Recordings, an independent dance label in New York.
Beall is also the author of Making Music Make Money: An Insider's Guide To Becoming Your Own Music Publisher, published by Berklee Press, the publishing arm of the prestigious Berklee College Of Music, and the Berkleemusic online course Music Publishing 101.
Interview with Eric Beall:
What positions are available in the music publishing industry?
Eric Beall: First, it’s important to understand what music publishing is, and what it does, because a lot of people I think might not understand it. I always say there are five functions of a music publisher: protection, collection, administration, acquisition and exploitation. There are jobs in all these areas. In any major publisher there are folks that specialize in any of those areas. But to break it down broadly, it breaks down to the administrative side, which is sizable, and the creative side. On the administrative side you have people that are responsible fro protecting the copyright, for registering compositions, for monitoring collections. On the creative side, the function is more of a traditional A&R function, not much different than a traditional record company, and you have people, sometimes called Creative Director or VP of A&R, that are responsible for finding new talent, for acquiring songs for the catalog and than exploiting them, and finding placements in movies or TV or commercials.
What are some of the ways people can get into the publishing industry as a career?
Eric Beall: One of the things I stress in my book and in my class is that there is a publishing component in almost every aspect of the music business. No matter what side of the business you happen to be on, you should be thinking about a music publishing angle. From an entrepreneurial standpoint, anyone that comes into contact with new songs, songwriters, or artists, on a regular basis should be thinking about a music publishing angle. This could apply to people that own or work at clubs, because you have people coming in and playing new music, and you have the opportunity to hear it before everybody else. Even people that work in restaurants where there is new music being played, and can see when a song gets a reaction, all these things should really ring a bell with music publishing entrepreneurs and they should be thinking ‘maybe I should really thing about publishing some of this stuff.’
In terms of a background for folks that want to work at an established music publisher, people really come from many different backgrounds. On the administrative side, most people come from some sort of legal or accounting background, because most of it is paperwork oriented. Certainly the people in business affairs come from a legal background, and the people in collections will have an accounting background. On the A&R side, you have people that come from a creative background, like myself, that are songwriters and producers. The people that pitch to advertising often come from the advertising community, like an ad agency. People that pitch to film and TV often come from a film studio or a production company. Sometimes people come from a recording studio background.
How often do folks come over to publishing from a label background?
Eric Beall: I suppose it works both ways. More often, it works that people come from publishing into a label, rather than the other way around. But that is starting to change a lot. For years, the label was the glamour job, and publishing was something that folks didn’t think much about. Now, because life has become so difficult for the labels, a lot of label people are looking at the publishers thinking ‘wow, that looks like a much better job!’ A lot of the label people are now looking at moving over to publishing. A lot of artist management folks are moving into publishing, and the same with music business attorneys.
Has publishing become more of a growth industry than it has been in the past?
Eric Beall: I think publishing has become very attractive to people in part because it has been a difficult time for record labels. And obviously a lot of them have seen their income shrink drastically. A lot of folks have looked at music publishing and seen that the business continues to return some pretty good results. I think a lot of investors have looked at this and wondered what is going on with music publishing that allows them to continue to have success even though revenues on the record company side are declining. I think people are seeing that publishing benefits, more than record labels, in a growth in media on a worldwide basis. When you think about where we are now with television stations, for example, as opposed to where we were five years ago, there are literally hundreds of hundreds of additional stations. All of these stations have shows that need music. Satellite radio continues to grow, and you hear more and more songs in advertising, video games, and ring tones. On the record label side, they only profit if the master recording is being used. Publishers profit whenever the song itself is being used. Publishing really has profited from the growth in media worldwide, and I think that is why the venture capitalist are so interested in publishing. These folks look at the future, and they see countries like China becoming increasingly aware of copyright law, and increasingly open to American popular entertainment. They see some of the third world countries expanding, getting more and more media, and embracing American culture, and they see that these classic songs are going to be worth more and more as the years go on. I think that has really been the overall value of music publishing, and I think that is why these venture capitalists see publishing as a good investment.
Because of this explosion of music usage, are there more jobs available in the publishing business now that there were five years ago?
Eric Beall: Two years ago I would have said no, the music publishing industry seemed to be shrinking and trying to increase the size of the catalog but decrease the size of the staff. In the past few years, however, there’s been a lot of growth in smaller publishers, both in New York and in Nashville. So there are places to get into the music publishing business right now, certainly more than the record business. I think that by and large what you are seeing is a change in environment. The large music publishers are not going to expand greatly, what you are going to see is more small companies with small staff, building publishing catalogs. Are you are going to start to see a change in the priority of who is hired. It used to be that someone that is well connected in the music business is the best person a music publisher could have because they were the ones getting songs on albums. Now, the people that are the most sought after are those that have a background in advertising, people with a background in the gaming industry, in technology businesses like ring tones, things like that. People with these backgrounds are a lot more valuable than folks that are closely connected to the record industry. Folks with advertising or film backgrounds are really becoming the leaders in publishing companies.
You teach an online publishing course at Berkleemusic.com. How does your course help people get started in publishing?
Eric Beall: The course is aimed primarily at songwriters, but I think it is useful for anyone in the music business interested in publishing. The course helps someone start a music publishing company from scratch. We talk about the fundamentals of music publishing, the accounting, the challenges of royalty statements, licensing; but for the most part, the course is designed to get your music out there, to get your music in situations where you can start making money. I like to think that it is a step-by-step approach to setting up your own music publishing company, with the hopes that by the end of the course, you should have most of the tools you need to get the foundation of your company set up. We have a weekly chat that we discuss current events happening in a publishing company, and a lot of real life situations that I bring home from the office, ‘here’s what I ran into today at work, let’s try to negotiate this’ kind of stuff. There’s quite a focus on negotiations, licenses, splits, and a lot of learning how to play the negotiations correctly. We talk about pitching and how to promote yourself effectively. People actually call me and pitch me, to get the experience of what it is really like, and how to pitch correctly. It’s a really hard thing to do. But it is one of those things that the more you do it the better you will be. And it is a true part of the publishing business.
What are the best ways for someone to prepare for a job in the publishing industry?
Eric Beall: I certainly think education is key. You can’t ignore the fact that publishing is a relatively sophisticated business, and it certainly helps to have an understanding of how the finances work. A lot of people in the publishing industry come from a law background, and that certainly makes contracts and copyright law a bit easier to understand. Depending on what side of the business you want to be in. I always encourage students to look into some of the music conferences, like CMJ, they all have music publishing panels where you can not only gain a fundamental understanding of the business, but also start to make some contacts. There’s also a lot of specialized conferences like The Hollywood Reporter Billboard Film and TV conference, which is great if you are interested in the film and TV side of things. There are conferences dedicated to the gaming industry, which are useful if you want to focus on video games. These are all great places to start networking. And the networking part of the music business is never going to change. It is always going to be a certain amount of knowledge and a certain amount of networking. Some people have more knowledge and a smaller network base, and some people have the opposite. But you really need a balance between the two and you cannot do without both of them.
