Music Ministry Tip - Use The Right Bait

If you're new to music ministry, please bear with me. The tips I am going to give here may be the most important you ever hear. Also, check out the book in the ad it was written by one of my college professors, that really knows the music industry. The stuff you can learn from him will help you in your music career tremendously.

Many people starting out in Christian music look at it like I used to: "I'm not in it for the money, so I don't care what the sales are." I look at it a little differently now, I'm still not in it for the money... BUT the money is a measuring stick of our success. Low money means a low amount of listeners. That could be because of lack of promotion or it could be because you aren't good enough yet, or simply because your style isn't in. If you have a music ministry you need to look at all of these things. If you find that you are promoting enough like I found with my last country gospel release... then the problem is either, you aren't good enough yet or style isn't in. In my case it was probably a little of both, because Jesus Is Our King was one of my earlier writings. If you find that your style isn't in, then you need to find a new style that suites you. Because the point of your ministry is to reach and save as many souls as possible, right? Jesus taught us to be fishermen of men, right? That means we have to have the right bait... If you were fishing for fish you wouldn't put pizza on the hook would you?

So, you need to know your audience. Are you trying to reach the young kids, the middle aged, or the elderly? Women or men? If you're trying to reach a specific audience then you are definitely going to need to do some research. If you want to reach the elderly you probably would want an outdated style, but if you're trying to reach the younger generation then you can't expect them to love "Grandma's gospel music." Some Christians say that contemporary Christian music is evil... They say it because they don't like new music! Listen, many of you were probably kids when Elvis came out. Your parents thought he was the devil, now you probably think the music your kids are listening to is the devil. Music is ever changing, depending upon the generation. If you want to pull kids away from the evil secular music out there, you are going to need to have a current style of music. If not then your audience isn't the young, that's ok... but don't expect them to reform to "Grandma's gospel music." Use the right bait, there is plenty of Christian music out there right now that suites a younger audience.

Furthermore, money has to be a factor sooner or later. Unless you're rich beyond your wildest dreams, there will come a time when you cannot afford to release your next album... Which means because you weren't in it for the money, you're out of it because of money! Your ministry is over until you find a way to come up with more money. Think people will donate? I tried that, only people that ever donated to me were friends and family. Eventually, that well runs dry too. There is a great band out there called Apologetix that is looking for donations right now, people have heard of them and still aren't donating. So, don't think it will be different for you.

Next thing is this: Because many of you are so against making money with your music ministry, you often fail to copyright your work. The top reason for this is because you want people to use it freely. That is a great idea, but you're going about it the wrong way! By not copyrighting your music you are leaving a door open for someone else to copyright it. If you aren't in it for the money, I guarantee whoever steals your work is! They will steal your work and then nobody will be allowed to use it. Just because you copyright something doesn't mean you cannot allow others to use it... In fact, if you don't copyright it, nobody will want to use it because they're afraid someone else will take a claim on it.

Poor man's copyright vs actual copyright:

Many of you have heard of poor man's copyright, some of you may have even of heard of it from me. I used to do it all the time, mail myself a self-addressed and stamped envelope with my work inside. The idea of it was that the post mark would prove that whatever was inside of the sealed envelope belonged to you... The courts found that people were sending themselves envelopes that weren't sealed in the first place and then sticking other peoples work inside. So, now the "poor man's copyright" is no more. It will not stand up in any court of law.

So, be sure to get a legit copyright at the library of congress. You can file it online for only $35... Its cheaper to copyright an entire album at once as a compilation instead of each song indivually.

Also, make sure you file your songs with a performance rights organization suchas: ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. These agencies collect money on your behalf whenever your music is used somewhere like radio, television, and even YouTube, etc. Now you are saying, "but I don't want to take that money, I want to give it for free." Here's what happens, there is a big pot of money in these organizations that is set to be distributed to artists... They're going to collect the money anyway, you just don't get any of it if you don't register. They're already collecting from YouTube, etc, etc... So, you might as well get your portion. When someone uploads a song to YouTube it isn't the user that pays the money for the usage, its YouTube. They pay you a percentage of their advertising profits. So, pick one of those organizations to collect for you... I use ASCAP, they take the lowest percentage for themselves. These organizations pay you for your work being used as a songwriter...

If you are also the artist or owner of the recording you also need to register to www.SoundExchange.com they basically do the same thing, except they collect the money for the use of the actual recording in all digital forms and not the songwriting.

Now, since these organizations collect one big pot of money, they often only pay out to the top performers and us unknowns get little to nothing. Its a broken system, so to bridge the gap and make sure you get your fair share you will want to sign up to www.songtrust.com they will represent you and collect your share, and all they charge is like $50 a year. Tell them David Moore sent you and we both get a free month.

Bottomline: You may not be in it for the money, but you can be out of it because of the money! Treat your music ministry like you would any other business, this will allow it to strive for longer and make a bigger impact.