@@helloabbylyons I've never really found a cardstock I absolutely love. (I've wanted to find a glossy tabloid cardstock, but haven't found any that weren't unnecessarily expensive). All the cardstock I've used over the past few years is just 65 pound cardstock and sometimes 80 pound that I either got from Hammermill or Neenah. I used to just buy it a ream at a time from Amazon, but when I found the yellow that I liked and wanted to get enough that would match in letter size, tabloid size, and also 12x18, I ordered a bunch from "The Paper Mill". I later found basically the same kind (Neenah) on Amazon under both "solar yellow" and "sunburst yellow". I don't know if that will actually answer your question, but basically, the 65 pound cardstock has done fine for me over the past 5 or 6 years. If you just want white, you can probably find some by searching cardstock 11x17 on amazon, though you'll probably have to scroll for a while before you actually find anything that matches your search. If you still have more questions, let me know!
@@drewmorrismusic that’s super helpful, thank you!! I was looking at Hammermill but just wasn’t sure what lb would be best. I will probably go with the white cardstock. I also like the idea of glossy cardstock though! I am not sure if it will work with my printer, or if it might smear. Do you have an inkjet or laser? Do you think I can print okay on glossy with an inkjet? I just got an inkjet printer off of Facebook marketplace for this project. I have to print about 60 books to fulfill some kickstarter rewards for my album release. :) Also do you recommend 28 or 32 lb for the inner pages? I think I remember you saying 28 but I have been seeing 32 recommended elsewhere too. Thanks so much for your help!! :D
@helloabbylyons My current printer is a laserjet. Back when I had inkjet, smearing was a concern of mine too. If you are using ink, I think it might be good to avoid glossy cardstock just to be safe. For the inner pages question, I used to use 32 for the scores and 28 for loose sheet music/parts, but I switched over to 28 pound paper for everything because it’s a tad cheaper and one less thing to keep up with. I haven’t really been able to tell much of a difference between the 32 and 28. (And no one who has bought physical sheet music recently has complained about the change).
Thanks for the shoutout, and I've never felt more camaraderie than watching you fight those dumb coils. Man, those things love to add drama to my life too. Also I am gonna now have to get a scoring board!!!!
No problem! If you hadn't helped me pick this printer I'd probably still be researching! And I ordered those super long coils so that I could have my pick of 8.5, 11, or 17-inch binding, but they sure do get tangled up quickly. haha. The scoring board is super helpful for a few things, but it didn't turn out to be the all-around savior I thought it would be.
This is fantastic. Sooooo pragmatic. Universities should teach this stuff to their students. When I went through school, guess which class the college dropped? That's right. The "business" portion of being a musician. Thank you so much for making this video. I'm already wondering if I can conscript my kids for the folding stage. BTW, I literally laughed out loud when you pulled all those coils out. With you though, not at you. With you.
That coil part looked better on the camera than it did in real life. Haha. But it was still funny. I’m glad I was rolling. As I was editing this video together it struck me that I wasn’t really talking about self-publishing as much as I was talking about just printing. Maybe I’ll come back and talk about the business side a little more (when I feel like I actually have the business side figured out. Haha). They offered a music business degree at my university, but at the time I had no interest in it since I was gonna be a band director. (And also because I was still thinking a composer was just a person that could make a living simply writing music, which they would pass onto publishers and not have to worry about business at all. Boy was I wrong!) Thanks for continuing to watch my silly little videos Jamey! :)
Awesome! I’m glad it helped! Good luck with the full-time move! It’s still a work in progress for me, always looking for ways to get all the different parts of it dialed in. If you ever have any other questions please reach out! I may not have the answer but I’ll help if I can. :)
This was fantastic, you really do an excellent job of telling a story, and bringing us along a journey. I think that for now I won't publish out my home, as it is clearly a lot of work, but I will keep this video in mind for the future. Keep up the excellent work!
Thank you so much! It certainly is a lot of work. Some days I wish I’d just gone the traditional publishing route, but most of the time I’m happy with the choice because of the freedom it gives me with the music I choose to write. If you ever have any questions, feel free to reach out!
I will for sure check in again with you once I get to the finishing of my book. I will only have ten piano pieces with 4-5 pages per song. I may need some advice! This is the first time I am selling my music by sheetmusic. I am learning a lot by the tutorials on utube. Thank you
I initially started because I got tired of the 6 months (or longer) that I had to wait just to hear back from traditional publishing houses. I still do occasional publishing through other companies. I will say that if you do decide to do some self publishing, prepare to have to wait just as long to hear back from distributors as you do from publishers. So I guess I’ll always be waiting on someone. Haha. But thanks so much for watching!
@@drewmorrismusic great response…🙏😁thank you. There is a lot of work behind self publishing, but it is really great to see how great your workflow is and how much care and creativity you put in those yellow envelope publishing…and it looks fulfilling to be independent from all the strict guidelines and commands you get from great publishing houses…I hope you do not mind my bad english, I‘m austrian…great to stay in contact !! Wish you a lot of success for the new year…🌹🌻
@@gardengit Thanks so much for the kind words! No worries on the "bad English". haha. It's cool how UA-cam can help connect me with people all over the world. I really like that! I hope you have tons of success this year too!
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. :) When you are ready to delve into some music printing, if you have any questions about things not to do in a small space, hit me up and I'll share my "wisdom". haha. I'd like to get all my printing stuff confined to a closet one of these days, which I think is totally doable, it's just that the closet in my office was already full of tents, sleeping bags, and backpacks before I thought to move my printing stuff in there.
You’re welcome! Are there any other composing/publishing topics you’d be interested in me talking about in a video? I’m trying to decide what to cover next, so I’m open to ideas. :)
@@drewmorrismusic yes, I would be interested in paper formats. And in printers who are acceptable in price and do the job…I hardly convinced my little german guitar music publisher that I would love to see my sheetmusic NOT in A4 but in a little bigger size… could you do a video about paper formats and the printing job arround it ? Would be great…
@@gardengit I'll see what I can come up with. I'm in the middle of getting a new semester going at the college I work at, so it might be a little while. Feel free to give me a reminder if you haven't seen anything about that from me in the next few months. haha
Haha! I was amazed when I saw that happening while I was editing the video. :) I’ve gotten so used to not using auto focus at all, but since I was gonna be in a bunch of different angles for that video I decided to try it out again.
There are a lot of options for easy digital sales nowadays if you want to self publish. If you have the sheet music looking good you could release them on a personal website/store, or put them online on various services like Hal Leonard’s “Arrange Me” or JW Pepper’s “My Score” that will release them out to various digital marketplaces. (And take a share of the profits of course). If you want to publish traditionally, you would need to reach out to publishers. I’ve only dealt with one traditional publisher and they only publish percussion music so that wouldn’t help you very much. But really, if you have music that you think would sell, I’d encourage you to at least create a website where people could listen to it and look at samples. Even if you don’t have an online store yet, you could still give them a contact link so they could reach out to you directly to purchase your music. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out. (I’ve been meaning to do a “digital side of self publishing” video for a while now and just haven’t gotten around to it.). Thanks for much for watching!
Hello Drew I asked you a question awhile back and thank you for answering me. I am going to be selling my piano scores this year on my website when I get them completed. So my question is do I need to just have the copyright symbol beside my name on the first page of my song. I have registered my songs with socan since I have sold my music online and made CDS. SO is this enough to protect my piano scores? Thank you Jackie Sterling
Sorry for the delay in responding, Jackie. Copyright is a complicated subject. Some composers don’t bother to copyright anything and some copyright everything. I guess a question to ask would be “how precious is this piece to me?” If you think there is a chance that it could become wildly popular, maybe going through the process to file the copyright is worth it. Others might not be worth the financial expense to register with the copyright office. I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer. I’ve heard differing things about just how much the copyright mark at the bottom of a piece of music will do. And in the days of piracy being everywhere it’s probably something I should be more concerned about. Did you decide to do anything in particular in the time since you left the comment?
It varies wildly. You could span the range all the way from the super successful composers that make way more than I can fathom (High profile film score composers and such) all the way down to composers who do it part time and make no money at all. But if you work hard and have some skills you should at least be able to make enough to help with bills, and maybe if you get lucky, you can make a living doing it.
This is very helpful, thank you!
Thanks for watching! One of these days I hope to do a followup video about digital distribution but I just haven’t had the chance yet.
@@drewmorrismusic That would be helpful too!! I was wondering if you have a recommendation on cardstock paper for the covers in tabloid size? :)
@@helloabbylyons I've never really found a cardstock I absolutely love. (I've wanted to find a glossy tabloid cardstock, but haven't found any that weren't unnecessarily expensive). All the cardstock I've used over the past few years is just 65 pound cardstock and sometimes 80 pound that I either got from Hammermill or Neenah. I used to just buy it a ream at a time from Amazon, but when I found the yellow that I liked and wanted to get enough that would match in letter size, tabloid size, and also 12x18, I ordered a bunch from "The Paper Mill". I later found basically the same kind (Neenah) on Amazon under both "solar yellow" and "sunburst yellow".
I don't know if that will actually answer your question, but basically, the 65 pound cardstock has done fine for me over the past 5 or 6 years. If you just want white, you can probably find some by searching cardstock 11x17 on amazon, though you'll probably have to scroll for a while before you actually find anything that matches your search. If you still have more questions, let me know!
@@drewmorrismusic that’s super helpful, thank you!! I was looking at Hammermill but just wasn’t sure what lb would be best. I will probably go with the white cardstock.
I also like the idea of glossy cardstock though! I am not sure if it will work with my printer, or if it might smear. Do you have an inkjet or laser? Do you think I can print okay on glossy with an inkjet? I just got an inkjet printer off of Facebook marketplace for this project. I have to print about 60 books to fulfill some kickstarter rewards for my album release. :)
Also do you recommend 28 or 32 lb for the inner pages? I think I remember you saying 28 but I have been seeing 32 recommended elsewhere too.
Thanks so much for your help!! :D
@helloabbylyons My current printer is a laserjet. Back when I had inkjet, smearing was a concern of mine too. If you are using ink, I think it might be good to avoid glossy cardstock just to be safe.
For the inner pages question, I used to use 32 for the scores and 28 for loose sheet music/parts, but I switched over to 28 pound paper for everything because it’s a tad cheaper and one less thing to keep up with. I haven’t really been able to tell much of a difference between the 32 and 28. (And no one who has bought physical sheet music recently has complained about the change).
Incredible 🎉! Ultra professional! Thanks.
Thank you so much for watching! Let me know if you have any further questions!
Thanks for the shoutout, and I've never felt more camaraderie than watching you fight those dumb coils. Man, those things love to add drama to my life too. Also I am gonna now have to get a scoring board!!!!
No problem! If you hadn't helped me pick this printer I'd probably still be researching! And I ordered those super long coils so that I could have my pick of 8.5, 11, or 17-inch binding, but they sure do get tangled up quickly. haha.
The scoring board is super helpful for a few things, but it didn't turn out to be the all-around savior I thought it would be.
This is fantastic. Sooooo pragmatic. Universities should teach this stuff to their students. When I went through school, guess which class the college dropped? That's right. The "business" portion of being a musician. Thank you so much for making this video. I'm already wondering if I can conscript my kids for the folding stage.
BTW, I literally laughed out loud when you pulled all those coils out. With you though, not at you. With you.
That coil part looked better on the camera than it did in real life. Haha. But it was still funny. I’m glad I was rolling.
As I was editing this video together it struck me that I wasn’t really talking about self-publishing as much as I was talking about just printing. Maybe I’ll come back and talk about the business side a little more (when I feel like I actually have the business side figured out. Haha). They offered a music business degree at my university, but at the time I had no interest in it since I was gonna be a band director. (And also because I was still thinking a composer was just a person that could make a living simply writing music, which they would pass onto publishers and not have to worry about business at all. Boy was I wrong!)
Thanks for continuing to watch my silly little videos Jamey! :)
This was a VERY useful video! I just made a career move into full-time composition, publishing, and education. So this is a great resource!
Awesome! I’m glad it helped! Good luck with the full-time move! It’s still a work in progress for me, always looking for ways to get all the different parts of it dialed in. If you ever have any other questions please reach out! I may not have the answer but I’ll help if I can. :)
This was fantastic, you really do an excellent job of telling a story, and bringing us along a journey. I think that for now I won't publish out my home, as it is clearly a lot of work, but I will keep this video in mind for the future. Keep up the excellent work!
Thank you so much! It certainly is a lot of work. Some days I wish I’d just gone the traditional publishing route, but most of the time I’m happy with the choice because of the freedom it gives me with the music I choose to write.
If you ever have any questions, feel free to reach out!
WOW! Thank you for the great ideas. I'm about to make a book of my pieces and I am wondering what direction to go...............
I’m glad you found value in my video! If you have any specific questions, feel free to reach out!
I will for sure check in again with you once I get to the finishing of my book. I will only have ten piano pieces with 4-5 pages per song. I may need some advice! This is the first time I am selling my music by sheetmusic. I am learning a lot by the tutorials on utube. Thank you
really great, I publish my own compositions through some little labels in Austria and Germany…never thought about doing the print at home…
I initially started because I got tired of the 6 months (or longer) that I had to wait just to hear back from traditional publishing houses.
I still do occasional publishing through other companies.
I will say that if you do decide to do some self publishing, prepare to have to wait just as long to hear back from distributors as you do from publishers. So I guess I’ll always be waiting on someone. Haha.
But thanks so much for watching!
@@drewmorrismusic great response…🙏😁thank you. There is a lot of work behind self publishing, but it is really great to see how great your workflow is and how much care and creativity you put in those yellow envelope publishing…and it looks fulfilling to be independent from all the strict guidelines and commands you get from great publishing houses…I hope you do not mind my bad english, I‘m austrian…great to stay in contact !! Wish you a lot of success for the new year…🌹🌻
@@gardengit Thanks so much for the kind words! No worries on the "bad English". haha. It's cool how UA-cam can help connect me with people all over the world. I really like that! I hope you have tons of success this year too!
yes great !! I think the same way…let‘s stay connected
Great video, very informative! Once I move into a space with more room, this is the route I'd be going.
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. :)
When you are ready to delve into some music printing, if you have any questions about things not to do in a small space, hit me up and I'll share my "wisdom". haha. I'd like to get all my printing stuff confined to a closet one of these days, which I think is totally doable, it's just that the closet in my office was already full of tents, sleeping bags, and backpacks before I thought to move my printing stuff in there.
very informative, thank you !!
You’re welcome! Are there any other composing/publishing topics you’d be interested in me talking about in a video? I’m trying to decide what to cover next, so I’m open to ideas. :)
@@drewmorrismusic yes, I would be interested in paper formats. And in printers who are acceptable in price and do the job…I hardly convinced my little german guitar music publisher that I would love to see my sheetmusic NOT in A4 but in a little bigger size… could you do a video about paper formats and the printing job arround it ? Would be great…
@@gardengit I'll see what I can come up with. I'm in the middle of getting a new semester going at the college I work at, so it might be a little while. Feel free to give me a reminder if you haven't seen anything about that from me in the next few months. haha
You willed that one shot into focus.
Haha! I was amazed when I saw that happening while I was editing the video. :) I’ve gotten so used to not using auto focus at all, but since I was gonna be in a bunch of different angles for that video I decided to try it out again.
Hi! Great video! I have some piano compositions I would like to sell. Do I need to get published? Any tips would be highly appreciated. Thanks!
There are a lot of options for easy digital sales nowadays if you want to self publish. If you have the sheet music looking good you could release them on a personal website/store, or put them online on various services like Hal Leonard’s “Arrange Me” or JW Pepper’s “My Score” that will release them out to various digital marketplaces. (And take a share of the profits of course).
If you want to publish traditionally, you would need to reach out to publishers. I’ve only dealt with one traditional publisher and they only publish percussion music so that wouldn’t help you very much.
But really, if you have music that you think would sell, I’d encourage you to at least create a website where people could listen to it and look at samples. Even if you don’t have an online store yet, you could still give them a contact link so they could reach out to you directly to purchase your music.
If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out. (I’ve been meaning to do a “digital side of self publishing” video for a while now and just haven’t gotten around to it.).
Thanks for much for watching!
Hello Drew I asked you a question awhile back and thank you for answering me. I am going to be selling my piano scores this year on my website when I get them completed. So my question is do I need to just have the copyright symbol beside my name on the first page of my song. I have registered my songs with socan since I have sold my music online and made CDS. SO is this enough to protect my piano scores? Thank you Jackie Sterling
Sorry for the delay in responding, Jackie.
Copyright is a complicated subject. Some composers don’t bother to copyright anything and some copyright everything. I guess a question to ask would be “how precious is this piece to me?” If you think there is a chance that it could become wildly popular, maybe going through the process to file the copyright is worth it. Others might not be worth the financial expense to register with the copyright office.
I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer.
I’ve heard differing things about just how much the copyright mark at the bottom of a piece of music will do. And in the days of piracy being everywhere it’s probably something I should be more concerned about.
Did you decide to do anything in particular in the time since you left the comment?
Yo Drew, I am super interested in doing this kind of work. But I'm curious, what kind of salary do people get doing this kind of composing?
It varies wildly. You could span the range all the way from the super successful composers that make way more than I can fathom (High profile film score composers and such) all the way down to composers who do it part time and make no money at all. But if you work hard and have some skills you should at least be able to make enough to help with bills, and maybe if you get lucky, you can make a living doing it.