Review of Music Tip Sheet myHitOnline
by David Goldstein
With dozens of different music tip sheets – also known as song tipsheets – out there, it’s not easy to figure out to which one to subscribe. See, there are two types of tip sheets out there: solicited and unsolicited. Song tipsheets that offer solicited tip sheets, like the UK grandfather of all tip sheets Songlink (http://www.songlink.com) and its American counterpart Taxi (http://www.taxi.com), only publish information about music placement opportunities that were submitted by record label A&R’s or artist managers openly welcoming submissions from subscribers to a tipsheet. That’s wonderful, right? Indeed, this type of tip sheet is ideal for amateur songwriters who don’t know how to get in touch with A&R’s and either need a middleman like Taxi to make an introduction, or wait for A&R’s to openly welcome submissions from amateurs.
However, the quality and quantity of solicited leads is usually quite poor, because established record label A&R’s rarely turn to these types of tip sheets to find the next hit song. So these tipsheets are usually filled with solicited leads from either small record labels or unsigned artists looking for music. You would be hard pressed to find leads for top artists like Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, or Lady Gaga in any of those tip sheets that specialize in solicited leads.
This brings us to the second type of tipsheet; the one that publishes the ‘unsolicited’ types of music placement opportunities. In other words, they don’t ask record label A&R’s or artist managers for permission, but they just make the information available about a recording artist who is working on his or her new album and might need music. The advantage of these types of tip sheets is that you get a much higher quality of lead with top recording artists signed to major record labels. The disadvantage is that an A&R might not always welcome submissions from songwriters and music publishers that they don’t already know.
The song tipsheet myHitOnline (http://www.myhitonline.com) belongs to the second breed of tip sheets. Probably the highest quality and quantity of music placements opportunities we have ever seen in this industry. The service tracks several hundred top recording artists signed to major record labels such as Warner Music, Universal Music, Sony Music, and many other top record labels. Name a Grammy- and Platinum-award winning recording artist, and you’ll find them on myHitOnline: Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Enrique Iglesias, you name it, you’ll find it.
myHitOnline provides direct email and mailing addresses for most of the artist’s A&R’s and sometimes their managers also. So it gives professional and semi-professional music publishers, songwriters and record producers the quickest way to get in touch with the key decision makers directly. No middleman, no filter. If you are a serious music industry professional and know how to pitch A&R’s and artist managers directly, myHitOnline is ideal for hard core music publishers, songwriters and record producers.
The myHitOnline service provides not only a tipsheet with hundreds of music placement opportunities, but also features a song pitch system. Somewhat similar to Soundcloud, it allows you to email custom playlists to your music to A&R’s. All an A&R has to do is click on the link in the email to be directed to a website where he can either instantly listen to your songs or download your MP3’s. The advantage of a song pitch system like this one is that you can send links to your music rather than having to clog an A&R’s email with MP3’s.
The third cool feature myHitOnline provides is a little social network where you can find other myHitOnline members looking to network and co-write with other people. It’s a great way to meet other professional songwriters, music publishers and record producers from around the world.
Two downsides to myHitOnline though: One is the high price – myHitOnline is the most expensive music tipsheet in the music business. The second downside is that a limited number of subscriptions to myHitOnline are available only two times a year. So even if you wanted to fork out the generous subscription fee, you might not actually be able to subscribe to it until myHitOnline opens its doors to you.
We asked myHitOnline’s co-founder Lars Gemmecke to explain the high price and why it is open only twice a year.
“Active music publishers, record producers and songwriters appreciate the quantity and quality of leads that we have. In any given month, you have at least 50 music placement opportunities with artists signed to major record labels. There’s no other service that publishes that many leads. But it takes us quite a lot of time and effort to uncover them, so we need to charge a premium to make these leads available”, says Lars.
“Second, we want to make sure our community is of high quality and limit subscriptions to about 1,000 members that can only join twice a year to keep the inflow steady.” Interesting approach. Lars mentioned that he does welcome semi-professional songwriters and record producers that have had some success with placing their songs, and are looking for quality music placement opportunities and co-writing partners.
All in all, myHitOnline is the Rolls Royce among song tip sheets focused on recording artists. Expensive and exclusive, but definitely worth the price. Again, only available twice a year, so sign-up on his mailing list to not miss the next subscription date.
Update: myHitOnline features a coaching program to help you become a professional music publisher. The tipsheet as well as other tools can still be accessed by joining the coaching program.
