I love to write music, and am learning more about the business side of music, particularly publishing. It seems that to know more about this topic is to be better equipped to make money in music.

I have picked up Eric Beall's Making Music Make Money. Is anyone else out there interested in this topic? I don't want to start my own label or anything, but just get more info about this topic...

I don't write my own music so I don't know much about that end of things. My mother used to write songs but she never had them set to music at all. Couldn't hurt to know more about other aspects of the industry, though, if you have professional aspirations.

I've always been big into this stuff. The business of music anyway, but admittedly never dealt with it much beyond planning gigs and whatnot. Let me know if that book is anything helpful! I'd be interested to know!

For anyone interested in writing songs and making money from them, I recommend Eric Beall's book Making Music making money. Publishing is good to have at least a decent grasp on, as it is one of the main vehicles of making money in the biz.

He talks about setting up your own publishing company, pitching songs, and the thought that goes into making 'hits', if you are interested...

Good stuff

I am just curious, how do you go about copyrighting music and lyrics that you have written? I mean you can go and write music then send it to someone to look at and how do you protect yourself in that case?

I think there are services like the writer's guild that will let you send material to them including sheet music to establish ownership. I used to hear a lot about sending copies to yourself in registered mail to establish ownership too.

I think a good starting point in learning about publishing would be to find out about performance rights organizations. Personally, I'm a member of SOCAN with some music tracks listed, but I have yet to make any money that way.