Your success as a singer-songwriter depends a great deal on the strategic way you position yourself as a musician. The artistry of composing great new music—your vision, your disposition, your intuitivesense of rhythm and musical figures—is a vastly different beast than the frequently daunting legal and economic panorama of music in this new generation of electronic distribution. One undertaking is creative and intuitive; the other involves red tape, legality, logistics and variables.

Aside from the creative process, it's vital to contemplate strategy when examining where you want your sound to take you. Do you produce music as a vocation? Is music your largest type of funding? Do you create music to sell albums and create a fan base, or do you primarily desire to have your productions placed in film, television and video games? Perhaps you create music for all three reasons.

Yet another important factor to contemplate is what distribution method will actually make you money. Given the current landscape of diminishing download profit and the excessive cost of antiquated physical distribution systems it is often a daunting task to find the method that is right for you. In 2012, most musicians agree that the main two ways to make money from music are to tour, or to license music for film, television and video games. After examining the effort and expense involved in organizing, booking and executing tours licensing certainly emerges as a preferred revenue stream generated by music. If placement in films and television is your foremost purpose, please keep reading.

The way you retain ownership of your music is an essential element for potential music licensing deals in the future. You'll want to research what would make the most sense for your own music with a lawyer, but in general, you'll want to keep in mind:

  1) You're going to need to keep your own publishing.
  2) It is easier to contemplate licensing contracts if there is one single
  songwriter credit for your productions.
  3) It is less complicated to work with licensing agents if you release your own
  productions as an independent artist. In general, the less parties there are
  in a contract, the better.
  4) It is best to evaluate licensing companies effectively. Have a lawyer
  examine any possible contracts. Should you choose a licensing agent, they
  frequently prefer to be the exclusive agent—so choose well.

Musician Jennifer Clarke is one such singer-songwriter. She creates her music mainly as an emotional pursuit. Her productions are deeply personal and soulful. Yet once the album is mastered and printed, Jennifer becomes all business. She licensed her track, “More Than I Have,” on the FX Series starring Denis Leary, Rescue Me. Her current album, Trinkets in Rubble, is scheduled for release in March 2012, when she'll begin new efforts to get the album licensed.

What can you do to pursue licensing? Get in touch with Music Nomad, ASCAP, or use your favorite search engine to look for companies that specialize in the field. Most importantly, never give up. If you knock on enough doors at some point one of them will open.