Recording my 1st acoustic CD - Publishing questions for those who've done this before
 

I'm heading into the studio next week to record an album of Christmas songs I've arranged for acoustic guitar and cello.

I'm set up with ASCAP, but really don't have a clue about the process. I'm going to talk with them today, but wanted to hear any words of wisdom or direction from someone who's been there/done that.

The songs I'm recording are all Public Domain, but my arrangements.

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

David

Oasis and Discmakers are the two largest houses for self-publishing.

Both are reputable. You send them the master, the artwork, and money and in a week or so giant boxes show up. I went with Oasis.

advice
 

I learned that some of the companies give a different price over the phone than if you do the automated thing. A phone order was higher.

And there are many other companies besides those oasis and diskmakers. Both are certainly reputable and give excellent service, but they are not the only ones who like this, not by a long shot. We ended up going with Arcube for our CD as the price for my project was lower with them - and I was certainly happy with the result.

Thanks guys.

Also, just to add to the AGF knowledge base, I talked to ASCAP yesterday and here is the process for publishing arrangements of Public Domain songs.

1. Set up a publishing ID with ASCAP. I did this years ago. There is a one time/lifetime fee (it wasn't much - I think it was around $100).

2. Let's say you are recording your arrangement of OH SUSANNA (written by Stephen Foster, but now Public Domain).

3. You would copyright your arrangement of OH SUSANNA (by sending a recording and/or written score of your arrangement - along with the appropriate paperwork and fee - to the U.S. Copyright Office). See process here

4. Register your song with ASCAP. Just provide the name of the Public Domain song, who wrote it (if known), and let them know you have copyrighted an arrangement of the song.

Probably a similar process if you set up your publishing company with BMI instead of ASCAP

That's pretty much the ball game. You're good to go.

Another company to register with is SoundExchange http://www.soundexchange.com/. They will pay you each and every time your songs are played on Sirius-XM radio... which BMI and ASCAP seem to overlook.

Thank you Toby! I was not aware of Soundexchange...