The general consensus is that most new businesses take two to three years to become profitable, and even longer than that to become truly successful.

That’s not in music, by the way, that’s just across the board.

And most of you listening, they’re not putting yourself full time into publishing sheet music, which means it’s probably going to take you even longer.

Now, I don’t really care if you’re an amateur musician and you’re just publishing songs for fun, or if you’re a seasoned professional, sheet music is still a business.

And if you want your music to reach more people, whatever your motivations may be, it’s going to take a sustained effort over many years.

I think the immediacy of self-publishing has kind of tricked people into overlooking this fact.

You can upload a piece of music and have it widely available within a matter of hours.

And I think it creates maybe this false expectation that people are going to start buying it with the same level of immediacy, which just isn’t going to happen.

The truth is that even if you follow all the recommendations laid out on this podcast, you’ve identified a need or a market to write for, your notation is clear, you’ve got a great title page, you’re using a website, even with all that, it’s still going to take time.

Because it’s a crowded marketplace, you have to keep showing up and keep doing the work.

And if you do that, you’ll start to get momentum and your work will build on itself.

Again, if music publishing is not your main priority, and you just enjoy writing, and you enjoy the fact that you can get your music out easily, that’s wonderful.

I don’t want to take anything away from that.

And even for professional musicians, sheet music is probably just a portion of their business or their income.

I guess what I’m trying to encourage is taking a step back and recognizing that success in this industry is not the kind of thing that happens quickly.

And that’s normal, and that’s okay.

So you want to plan your publishing business in such a way that you can sustain it over the course of years.