How To Submit Music To Music Libraries: A Step-By-Step Guide

One of the most common questions I hear from independent artists and composers who are interested in sync licensing is simple: How do I actually submit my music to music libraries? The basic process isn't particularly complicated, but there are a lot of ways musicians can make the process more difficult than it needs to be.

I've been licensing music for more than 20 years, and one thing I've learned is that sending more submissions doesn't necessarily lead to more opportunities. The musicians who tend to make the most progress are the ones who identify appropriate companies, understand what those companies are looking for, prepare their music properly, and consistently make well-targeted submissions.

If you're ready to start submitting your music to music libraries, here's how I recommend approaching the process.

Make Sure Your Music Is Ready
Before you start searching for music libraries, take an objective look at the music you're planning to submit. Music libraries generally aren't development companies. They're looking for finished music they can potentially begin representing, pitching, and licensing to their clients.

Your tracks should be professionally recorded, produced, mixed, and mastered. That doesn't mean everything needs to sound like it was recorded in a million-dollar studio, but your music does need to compete sonically with the other music being considered for television, films, advertisements, trailers, and other media.

If you're submitting vocal songs, it's also a good idea to have instrumental versions available whenever possible. Instrumentals are frequently used in sync because dialogue and other elements of a scene can compete with vocals. Depending on the type of music you create, libraries may also eventually request stems, alternate mixes, shorter edits, or other variations.

You don't necessarily need to prepare every possible version before your first submission, but you should be capable of providing these assets if they're requested.

Make Sure You Control The Rights
Before anyone can license your music, they need to know who owns it. There are two primary copyrights involved in a recorded song: the copyright in the underlying composition and the copyright in the master recording.

If you wrote and recorded everything yourself, ownership may be relatively straightforward. If you worked with co-writers, producers, labels, publishers, or other collaborators, things can become more complicated. Make sure you know exactly who controls both sides of the music before you begin submitting it.

If there are co-writers, know their ownership percentages. If another party controls the master, know who needs to approve a license. If you've used samples, make sure they're properly cleared.

Music that sounds fantastic but can't be cleared efficiently is much less useful in sync. The easier you make the clearance process, the easier you make it for music libraries, supervisors, and their clients to work with you.

Find Music Libraries That Fit Your Music
This is where I see a lot of musicians waste time. They find a large list of music libraries and start sending their catalog to every company they can find without considering whether their music actually makes sense for those companies.

Different libraries specialize in different genres, markets, and types of placements. One company might primarily represent cinematic orchestral music, while another specializes in indie artists and singer-songwriters. Other libraries may focus heavily on reality television, advertising, trailers, hip-hop, electronic music, or production cues.

Before submitting, spend some time on the company's website. Listen to its catalog if it's publicly available, look at the company's placements and clients, and read its submission guidelines. Try to understand where the company fits within the larger sync licensing industry.

Then ask yourself whether you can realistically imagine your music being part of that catalog. If the answer is no, move on. If the answer is yes, you've potentially found a company worth approaching.

Find Music Libraries That Are Accepting Submissions
Finding a great music library doesn't necessarily mean you can submit music to it today. Submission policies change frequently, and some libraries maintain open submissions while others only accept music during certain periods or work primarily through referrals.

Always check a company's current submission policy before contacting them. Don't assume information from an old directory, forum, blog post, or social media discussion is still accurate. Whenever possible, go directly to the company's website and verify its current submission instructions.

This is also one of the reasons I created The Sync Lab. Finding appropriate music libraries and keeping track of companies that accept submissions can take an enormous amount of time, particularly when you're trying to do everything else required to build a career as an independent musician.

Free members of The Sync Lab get access to our Music Library Directory, featuring companies accepting music submissions, along with my four-hour Ultimate Music Licensing Guide and additional sync licensing resources.

You can join The Sync Lab completely free at:

https://www.thesynclab.com/

Follow The Submission Instructions
Once you've found a company you want to approach, take a few minutes to carefully read its submission instructions. This sounds incredibly basic, but you'd be surprised how many musicians ignore this part of the process.

If the library asks for three tracks, send three tracks. If it asks for streaming links, send streaming links. If it has a dedicated submission form, use the form. If it asks you to include specific information about yourself or your music, provide exactly what it requests.

Don't assume that finding someone's personal email address and bypassing the company's submission process will somehow give you an advantage. In many cases, it accomplishes the opposite. Companies establish submission procedures because that's how they want to receive music, and following those instructions is one of the easiest ways to demonstrate that you're professional and easy to work with.

Lead With Your Strongest And Most Relevant Tracks
Don't make someone listen through twenty songs to figure out whether you're a good fit for their catalog. If a library allows you to submit three tracks, send the three tracks that best represent what you can offer that particular company.

Those aren't necessarily your three personal favorite songs. Think about the library's catalog and clients. If the company specializes in emotional television placements, send your strongest emotional tracks. If it specializes in advertising, think about which tracks have the energy, structure, lyrics, and production that could realistically work in commercials.

Your submission should make it easy for the person listening to understand why your music belongs in that company's catalog. The more clearly your music answers that question, the stronger your submission becomes.

Keep Your Pitch Short And Professional
Musicians sometimes spend more time worrying about their pitch email than they do selecting the music they're going to submit. Your initial pitch doesn't need to be complicated.

Briefly introduce yourself, explain what type of music you're submitting, provide the requested links, and include any relevant information the company needs to know. You don't need five paragraphs explaining your musical history, every artist you've ever played with, why you started writing songs, or how passionate you are about music.

The people reviewing submissions are often extremely busy, so respect their time. Your job isn't to convince someone that your music is great through an email. Your job is to make it easy for them to press play, understand what you're offering, and decide whether your music makes sense for their catalog.

Get Your Metadata Organized
Metadata becomes extremely important once your music enters the licensing ecosystem. At a minimum, you should have accurate information about the track title, artist, writers, publishers, ownership percentages, PRO affiliations, contact information, and master ownership.

Depending on the library, you may also need information about genre, mood, tempo, instrumentation, lyrics, explicit content, and other characteristics. Good metadata helps libraries organize your music and, more importantly, find it when an appropriate opportunity comes along.

Imagine a music supervisor contacting a library and asking for an uplifting acoustic indie song about starting over. The library needs to be able to search its catalog and quickly identify tracks that might work. If your metadata is incomplete or inaccurate, your music becomes harder to find even after you've successfully gotten it into the catalog.

Don't Send The Same Submission To Every Library
You can absolutely submit different parts of your catalog to different companies, and in many cases you probably should. If you write in several styles, one library might be a great fit for your cinematic instrumentals while another is better suited to your vocal indie tracks.

Think of your catalog as inventory. Different companies serve different markets, and your job is to match the right music with the right company.

This is much more strategic than simply sending the same playlist to every music library you find. You may ultimately make fewer submissions, but the submissions you do make will have a much greater chance of being relevant.

Keep Track Of Your Submissions
Once you start submitting regularly, create a system for tracking your activity. Record the company, submission date, tracks submitted, contact information, response, follow-up date, and any relevant notes.

You don't need sophisticated software to do this. A simple spreadsheet or submission tracker can work perfectly well. What matters is being organized and knowing where your music has been sent.

If you pursue sync licensing consistently for several years, you could eventually contact hundreds of companies. Without a system, it becomes extremely difficult to remember who received what and when. Treating your sync licensing activity like a business will make the entire process much easier to manage over time.

What If A Music Library Doesn't Respond?
One of the hardest things for musicians entering sync licensing to adjust to is the amount of silence. You may submit music to a company, wait for a response, and never hear anything back.

That doesn't necessarily mean your music is bad. The library may already have enough music in your genre, your tracks might not fit what its clients currently need, or the company may simply have received hundreds of submissions that week. Someone may even like your music but not have an immediate need for it.

There are countless reasons you may not hear back, so don't build your entire sync licensing strategy around the response to one submission. If a company provides guidelines about following up, follow them. Otherwise, give people reasonable space and continue pursuing other opportunities.

The goal is to consistently create situations where something can happen instead of waiting for one particular company to determine whether you move forward.

Quality Beats Quantity
There's nothing wrong with contacting a lot of music libraries over time. In fact, building a large network of relationships can create considerably more opportunities for your music.

But don't confuse activity with progress. Sending one hundred poorly targeted submissions isn't necessarily better than sending ten excellent ones.
Research the companies you're approaching, understand their catalogs, prepare your music properly, follow their submission instructions, and send your strongest relevant tracks. Then continue the process consistently as your catalog and network grow.

Sync licensing is rarely about finding one magical company that changes everything overnight. It's about gradually building relationships and creating more pathways through which your music can be discovered and licensed.

Find Music Libraries Accepting Submissions
One of the biggest challenges musicians face is simply knowing where to look. There are hundreds of music libraries, publishers, sync agencies, and licensing companies operating throughout the world, and researching all of them individually can take an enormous amount of time.

That's one of the problems I've designed The Sync Lab to solve. I've spent more than 20 years working in music licensing and more than 15 years teaching musicians how the business works, and The Sync Lab brings together the resources, research, training, and opportunities I've developed through that experience.

You can join completely free and get access to our Music Library Directory featuring companies accepting music submissions, along with my four-hour Ultimate Music Licensing Guide and additional resources designed to help you better understand and pursue opportunities in sync licensing.

Join The Sync Lab completely free:
​
https://www.thesynclab.com/

If you're serious about getting your music licensed, don't spend your time randomly sending songs everywhere you can find. Learn how the business works, identify the companies that make sense for your music, prepare your catalog properly, and start building your network one relationship at a time.

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Keep Learning About Sync Licensing

You can also explore The Sync Lab Podcast, where I interview music supervisors, publishers, composers, library executives, and other professionals working directly in sync licensing. These conversations give you a chance to hear directly from the people working inside the industry about what they're looking for, how they find music, and what independent artists can do to create more opportunities.

And if you're ready to start putting this information into practice, join The Sync Lab completely free. You'll get access to our free Music Library Directory, my four-hour Ultimate Music Licensing Guide, and additional resources designed to help you find opportunities and build your sync licensing network.