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MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
THE FUTURE OF THE PUBLISHING OF POPULAR MUSIC
Charles K. Harris, in an Interview with The Review, Tells of Some of the Problems Which
Confront the Publisher of Popular Music, and the Future Conditions Which Will Prevail
"A music publisher, especially a popular one,
should always be optimistic," said Chas. K.
Harris, in a conversation with the representa-
tive of The Music Trade Review. "Therefore,
I should say that the outlook of the coming
season is particularly bright for the entire
trade, but to come down to sensible talk, I
Chas. K. Harris
must say that the popular music publishing busi-
ness for the past five years has been in a la-
mentable condition. As one of the pioneer
popular publishers, I have been in a position
to watch the steady rise of this wonderful in-
dustry—and also, I am sorry to say, to see its
decline, and all this in a few short years. I
have seen the wholesale price on music drop
from 19 cents per copy in 1,000 lots, to 6*/ 2
cents, and even less, and at the present day
any standard rate, with the exception of a few
of the old 'live' standard houses, has became a
thing of the past.
"The cost of production of sheet music has
steadily gone up. Printing is higher than ever
before. Paper is a luxury, the cost of plates
is higher, while office rents have advanced
enormously. Who would have imagined ten
or twelve short years ago that in order to con-
duct an up-to-date publishing house you must
have quarters in the center of a district in New
York, where rents are more expensive than any
place in the world? Nevertheless, it is abso-
lutely necessary now, and with all this advance
in expense, and the paying of singers, which
has also been an enormous strain upon the
popular publishers, sheet music is steadily de-
clining. Who is the loser? Just two persons,
the publisher and the composer.
"Music publishers' profits at the present time
are a joke, and as a matter of course, the com-
poser's royalty also suffers. A S-cent royalty
on popular music was the usual rate just a
few years ago. Now it is 1 cent for both words
and music, and instrumental music l /z cent,
and even at that a number of the publishers
will accept nothing for publication that they
are not able to purchase outright.
"I know that you are going to say that this
drop in price on sheet music is made up for
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by the enormous amount of copies sold, but
whenever 1 read that in a paper, or hear some-
one say it in defense of present prices, it makes
me laugh.
"In the days of 'After the Ball,' 'Kiss and
Let's Make Up.' 'For Old Time's Sake,' 'Break
the News to Mother,' 'Just Behind the Times'
and 'I'm Wearing My Heart Away for You,' as
well as 'Always in the Way' and 'Somewhere,'
if I sold 50,000 copies at that time of either one
of the above-mentioned songs (of which, of
course, I sold a great many more, but I hold
this up only as an example), I would have to
sell at least 200,000 copies to-day to make the
same profit, and I feel assured that many of
the popular publishers will coincide with me
upon this statement. So where are the profits
in larger sales at the price we are receiving now?
"One of the main troubles of the popular
sheet music business to-day lies in the fact that
a great many composers, not being satisfied
with the royalties they received from their pub-
lishers, made up their minds to publish their
own compositions, with the result that not find-
ing an outlet, they commenced to cut the prices,
placing their music on sale at prices ranging
from 5 cents to 6 cents per copy. Naturally
these publishers hurt the legitimate trade. Some
of them would strike a hit, with the result
that the legitimate publishing houses, who were
under enormous expense, were compelled to
meet the cut in price or find their music under
the counter.
"Then again, many of the publishers, finding
that their music was not being bought in the
quantities that it formerly was, commenced to
pay singers to popularize their songs, with the
result that at the present day, one publisher is
outbidding the other for the services of a singer,
to popularize numbers. Even at that, if the
publishers were receiving 19 cents per copy as
they formerly were, without paying singers
and without the enormous expense attached to
popularizing songs to-day, they could have made
both ends meet and still have a profit, but the
idea of selling music at 6]/ 2 cents, paying singers,
with the enormous overhead expenses, free or-
chestrations, free professional copies, hundreds
of song pluggers, I defy any music publisher
in the popular song line to-day, to prove to me
or to anyone else, that he can show any profit
at the end of the season. Let any of the pop-
ular publishers take a pencil in hand, sit down
and figure like regular business men upon the
costj of everiy piece of music leaving their
house, and they will find that it costs them at
least 6 cents net, if not more.
"There will always be popular music and pop-
ular songs. One hundred years from now the
people will sing ballads in spite of the enor-
mous amount of musical productions and operas
launched every season.
"A ballad always lives and holds its own, and
it seems strange, but nevertheless it is a fact
(as I can speak from both sides—that of a
production music publisher, as well as a pop-
ular song publisher, as I publish and handle
both styles of music), that after a production
has ceased playing, the music dies, and I have
published sixty-four productions, and know
whereof I speak, while orders are still coming
in to me for ballads such as I have mentioned
above, which goes to prove that the ballad will
outlive any opera or musical production ever
written or published.
"The lowest wholesale price of a popular
song to-day should be 15 cents, and should
be sold at the retail stores at 25 cents per
copy. Any person hearing a song that pleases
them will be glad to pay that price. They
have done it before, and they will do it again.
It is simply up to the publishers to maintain
their price, and why not? They own their own
copyrights, granted to them by the government,
and no publishing house in the world can print,
publish or distribute any song except the pub-
lisher to whom the copyright in that song be-
longs. Then why slaughter and kill a busi-
ness that took so many years of hard work and
struggle to maintain, breaking it down to the
depth it has fallen into?