How To Publish Sheet Music: 5 Top Tips
Music publishing and printing gives you the opportunity to bring music into the world. If you want to start to sell sheet music but don’t know what to do, there’s no need to fear! This article will explain the 5 tips that make sheet music printing and publishing simple.
Advantages of Sheet Music Printing
Whether you’re a composer, a music teacher, or simply a music aficionado, custom music printing makes printing your music possible.
When you’re composing or arranging your own music, it can be daunting to figure out how to create the products you have in mind. Custom music printing makes this easy, as you can print all of your works with your preferred print and paper specifications.
As well, if you’re looking to sell sheet music, you can order as many copies of your compositions as you’d like to ensure you don’t run out of stock. Plus, it’s always easy to reorder when you need more.
Music printing makes music education simple. It’s easy to print sheet music and arrangements that you have created specifically for your students, which makes learning effective and fun.
5 Best Tips For Music Publishing And Printing
Here are some of the music printing tips that will help you produce great materials for your next performance.
1. Consider form and binding.
No matter the project you have in mind, you can find a product and a binding style that will work. For short pieces, including choral works and short orchestral works, unbound or staple-bound booklets are the perfect solution. For longer pieces, such as longer orchestral works, perfect-bound booklets are a great idea, as the binding will keep the score together over the course of many uses.
2. Stay up to date on the legal aspects.
If you are printing anything other than original compositions, make sure you are aware of and in accordance with all relevant copyright laws. This is particularly important if you’re selling your sheet music or performing it in front of an audience.
If you have any questions about what is or is not possible to sell, consult with a legal source who can provide you with up to date information for your area. This is not the place for mistakes, so better safe than sorry!
3. Save your score as a high quality PDF.
If you’re planning on eventually printing your music score, think ahead and save your score in the highest possible quality. This will lead to the crispest, cleanest printed material.
When musicians are in the middle of rehearsing and performing, they don’t have time to decipher blurry notes. By making sure that your printed scores are pristine by saving your score’s PDF in high resolution, you make their work easier–and therefore, you make their performances better.
4. Choose a helpful online vendor, or become one yourself.
Music publishing and printing can be as small or large an operation as you want it to be. If you’re trying to sell sheet music, you’ll often be selling online. You can partner with vendor sites, or you can sell them on your own website. There’s no right or wrong answer here; it simply depends on what works best for you and your sales process.
5. Partner with a dependable printing company.
When you’re getting ready to start sheet music printing, it’s vital to pick a company that can support you and provide the materials you need at a price that works for you. Do some research before committing to a printing company. Here are some questions that you might want to get answers to:
- Can the printing company ship you items to you? If so, what is the cost of shipping?
- Which papers does the company use?
- What binding styles can the company offer?
- Can the printing company accommodate changes to the order or custom elements?
- Is the company easy to contact? Are they helpful and eager to answer questions?
By answering these questions, you’ll start to get a good feel for which printing company fits you and your project best.
Work With The Music Printing Experts
You’ve done the hard part of composing and arranging a piece of music. Now it’s time to partner with ZoePrint to bring your work to life! We print the music materials you’re looking for, including small and large sheet music printing, larger score printing, and more. We also print performance playbills that make your next concert or recital a special event. We help you bring your music to the world through excellent sheet music printing–just ask any of our satisfied customers.
Get started by ordering your sheet music online or asking ZoePrint for a custom quote.
