On Mar 27, 2012, at 8:15 PM, Paul Hayden wrote: > Apologies if you also subscribe to the SCI list: > > I've been selling my compositions as paper sheet music for years, but I'm > getting more and more requests for PDFs. I feel a little uneasy about this > since a PDF (even with a password) can be posted online or emailed to anyone > who wants it for free. > > Any thoughts on this from publishers, composers, or engravers currently > selling PDFs?
Well, my first thought is that it's not that much harder to scan the paper score and email that around for free just as easily as a PDF. I do very little original composition, but I have several PDFs -- some arrangements and some prettied-up editions of public domain music -- which I've offered up as "shareware". The name derives from software delivered in a similar manner. The basic idea is that anyone can download it, but if you choose to keep it you are supposed to send me a few dollars. I apply the same concept to PDFs. There is nothing to enforce the price save the honesty of those who use it, and yet I still get small checks in the mail from works that I put out there many years ago. (Some would prefer to pay Paypal, but I'm still in the dark ages in that respect....) I figure if the PDF gets passed around, that's a good thing, because maybe it finds its way to a new customer and I get paid again. Darcy is right that what people really pay for is the convenience, not the content -- (a concept that's central to the economics of every media business, by the way). My more interesting projects are hard-to-find songs that I've done significant editing work on, and those attract virtually no interest at all. On the other hand, I have a couple of songs which are readily available in various old anthologies including scanned public domain ones, where I've done little more than re-copy it more neatly and user-friendly (and which I only published because for whatever reason I needed to re-engrave it anyway) and some of those actually do sell a little bit. I guess it's just because someone is looking for that song in a hurry and mine pops up on Google in a format where it can be printed out in one minute with no hassle and ready for immediate use with no marking up. Frequently I'll get a note like, "I sang this last month at a funeral on short notice, sorry I didn't pay until now. Thanks so much for making this available so I didn't have to go out and order it." Not sure if any of this applies to your situation, but those are my thoughts on selling PDFs. I'm certainly not getting rich on any of them, but it's nice to provide a service and get a little bit back from time to time. If I were out only to make money, well, that's what my day job's for. mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
