Welcome to the fourth and final part of this series on finding work online for game music composers. In case you missed any of the other posts in this series you can find them all here.

In this last part we will cover a lot of the common questions people usually have about getting started pitching for work. Hopefully at least one or two will resonate with you.

Do You Need A Website?

Ideally yes, you should have a website. It shows you are a serious contender and not someone who may disappear overnight. A dev will have trust issues (understandably) when you approach them, and having a solid web presence is one way of overcoming this.

And if you do have a web site, ideally try not to have a [yourname].wordpress.com domain. Although having said that, Winifred Phillips has exactly that for her blog and it’s one of the best games music composer websites that I read. (I would also advise you take a look at her excellent book!)

If you do decide to go through route of Winifred, you can create a site really quickly using WordPress.com , and if you decide you want your own custom domain you’ll need to investigate WordPress.org. You’ll also need to purchase a custom domain from a registrar and pay for a hosting account too. There are other all-in-one sites as well such as Squarespace, I just use WordPress which is why I’ve listed it here.

Website builds are beyond the scope of this article though so I won’t go into more detail here, perhaps at a future time.

If you don’t have a website though, as a minimum I would suggest you have a Soundcloud page where you can direct developers. You don’t even need a lot of songs on there. My advice would be to put 5 to 10 tracks of your best stuff up there in various styles.

What If You Don’t Have A Portfolio?

This is a common problem for new composers, and to a certain extent it’s unavoidable in that every composer needs to have the first game they ever work on. But even if you haven’t worked on a game before, it doesn’t mean your portfolio has to be empty. Here are a few ideas to get some content up on a portfolio.

• Create new tracks for games that already exist that you admire or would like to write for in an ideal world.
• Put a few of your best tracks up on your website whether these are hosted on your Soundcloud page or not.
• Find some Creative Commons video online and write music for that. This may not be an actual game, but at least it shows the ability to score music to visual stimulus. I did this for my initial portfolio

At the end of the day, if you have a few great examples of your music in various styles, your portfolio will have done it’s job.

If your music isn’t right for a particular developer, having 5 or 25 examples of your work isn’t going to make much difference. Sure your music is important in whether you get the gig or not, but that’s not the end of the story. Choosing the right game developer to approach, how good your pitch is and even your social skills can be just as important.

Don’t hide behind not having a slick portfolio in order to avoid reaching out to developers.Tweet This:

Do You Need To Know About Interactive Music?

This is a natural concern. We’ve all heard about how games use complex interactive music systems and how sound designers use middleware like fmod and wwise. BUT, the reality is, if this is your first game, the chance of landing your first gig which needs a fully interactive score using middleware is pretty remote.

The likelihood is the first few gigs you are going to get are going to just need loopable clips delivered in MP3 or wav format.

I’m not trying to hold you back from your ambitions, but it’s extremely advisable to work on some games which are a bit simpler before jumping in claiming you can handle the next Batman game. You can’t!

Even if the worst (?) does happen and you realise the score does need to be more complicated, there are plenty of good resources online to give you an introduction and get you up to speed on the options.

What If Clients Ask For Too Many Revisions?

It’s always hard to gauge if you are on the right track when working on a piece of music. What if your client just doesn’t like it and thinks it’s totally wrong for their game?

While this can’t be avoided completely, there are a number of things you can do in order to reduce the chances of this happening.

First, you need to make sure the game developer has actually heard your music. If you’re not sure (for whatever reason) you can ask them – ‘hey, which tracks in my portfolio did you think might be closest to what you’re after?’ If they say ‘none’, at least you know. You can then ask why the hell they want to hire you then?! Better to have this conversation now.

It might sound strange that a game developer considering hiring you has never heard your music, but believe me this does happen. In my experience, the reason this happens is that the game developer probably isn’t interested in you or your music, and are just fixated on price. In other words they are accepting music pitches from anyone who will pitch them and assume all music is pretty much the same. This is a red flag as the gig will pretty much come down to a price war.

One big thing you can do in order to reduce the risk of your client rejecting your music, and this is what I do, is to offer to do a demo of one track up front to make sure you are both of the same page.

I offer this right up front and talk about it a lot as it mitigates risk from the developers point of view, and mine. What if they hate the demo? I usually say something along the lines of ‘… and if you don’t like the demo, no problem we can call it a day, no harm done’.

It’s important to only actually start work on the demo after the terms and price have been agreed though, that way you know you are not wasting your time.

Another tactic you could implement is to say up front how many revisions you are prepared to do for free, although I wouldn’t recommend this when you are starting out as you will still be finding your feet.

The best way of reducing the chances of getting it wrong and limiting the amount of revisions though is to ask the right questions up front when you speak to the developer. Don’t rush this phase. The more time you spend really prodding and poking to find out what the game and developer are all about and what musical preferences the dev has, the less chance you’ll end up in revision hell later on.

What If The Game Never Gets Finished So I Don’t Get Paid?

I did touch on this in part 3 of this series, but it’s worth mentioning again as it’s a very common problem.

The reality is you can’t stop it or prevent it 100%. It really comes down to judging the professionalism and commitment of the developer you are working with as well as limiting the amount you expose yourself financially to the risk.

I have certainly got burned before on this, spending perhaps 90 hours on a game creating a soundtrack, only to have the project shelved. Because the type of deal I negotiated was purely a back end royalties situation, I never saw a penny.

If you are starting out, working with a small developer, you are not really going to be in the position of demanding advances or down payments etc upfront and there’s just going to have to be an element of co-operation and trust. Some tips that might help are:

 
As you can see, with all the situations being different it’s hard to put any definitive measure in place to stop a game being dropped. But just be aware it’s a fact of game composing life and as long as you are careful you can hopefully limit the damage to a certain extent.

Now You Can Feel In Control Of Your Future

There’s a lot to take in here I know. What I’ve tried to give you is a snapshot of how you can go from having no games under your belt, to getting paid for your first few games.

The direct outreach method of getting clients that I have shown you in this series is just one method in a toolbox. The fact that I do this doesn’t mean I don’t do networking or other ways to get my name known, but it’s one method that has served me well and is certainly worth a try if you haven’t worked on a game before.

Also don’t try and do everything in this series in one afternoon either – it may take you weeks or months to get all this set up. Just concentrate on one step at a time eg:

1. Sort through your tracks and pull out the 5 best ones for your portfolio.
2. Get your Soundcloud/website set updated.
3. Find say 5 likely forums for WIP games.
4. Draft initial e-mail pitch.
Etc etc

I’ve used the principles and tactics above to work on over 20 games and get paid for them all.

Yes, it’s extremely competitive, and hard work, but by being pro-active, professional and persistent (I will call those my three P’s), you stand the best chance of landing a paid game composing gig and more in the future.

What Next?

I do hope you enjoyed these articles and that you’ll start to implement some or all of the content. If you do, let me know how you get on – I’d love to know. Again If you would like to access the video of me using Kickstarter to look for clients or the handy calculator to help you work out an acceptable hourly rate, simply click below.

Welcome back to the 3rd part of this series on how to get clients online. Here are the links to part 1 and part 2 if you missed them.

In this part we will be covering the all important aspect of money amongst other things. I hope you’ll find it a good one. Let’s get started…

You Don’t Have To Be A Second Hand Car Salesman To Sell Your Work

Yes I said sales… but don’t panic, you’re not going to have to turn into a second hand car salesman.

Assuming the game developer you’ve just pitched (see part 2) reply with a positive response, what then?

Well, in your e-mail pitch you probably said something along the lines of ‘…let me know if you are interested and we can talk more’. Well once they reply positively, it’s now up to you to lead the way.

Explain your process/how you like to get started/next steps etc. Very often the developer is straight into asking you questions though or telling you about their game anyway in their response.

At this stage, all you are really trying to do is find out the most you can about their game. Don’t be forced to name a price for music before you’ve found out a lot more about the developer and the game.

Just say you’d like to speak with them to find out more first. They’ll understand most of the time, and if they don’t they may not be a good fit anyway.

Now when it does come to arranging a conversation about the game, you can talk to them however you want, but in my experience, getting a dev on a Skype call (ideally video chat) is preferable.

Talking face to face or at least on a call reassures the developer that you are a professional, knowledgeable safe bet and you are far more likely to actually get useful information out of the developer too.

Are You Asking The Right Questions?

When the conversation with your new potential client is underway, you want them to tell you as much as they can about their game. Obviously things like size of game, number of levels, amount of music are important, but also things like the characters, setting and emotion. This will all help you craft a great soundtrack for them.

Get them to give you musical references or name existing game soundtracks they like and think would suit their game.

Bonus Tip: At all costs, you job is to weed out of the developer any ideas they have about their ideal music which they would love to have, but they aren’t telling you about for whatever reason.

That last tip is worth the time it’s taken you to read this article so far – trust me.

I have had countless conversations with devs where they say ‘it’s up to you’ when talking about musical direction (presumably not to limit my creativity or their options). However when I deliver the demo, they often send me an e-mail back saying ‘I imagined it would sound a bit more like this [insert youtube link of their favourite game soundtrack of the moment]’.

This isn’t always the case, but do be aware of it – just because a game dev says you have free reign to create the music for their game, it doesn’t mean you do. It’s worth pushing a bit to see if they already know what they are after.

I can remember one specific example of when I offered to write a demo, totally misunderstood the brief and ended up writing a demo that was far more abstract and sound design based than what the developer was after.

I think his feedback was something along the lines of ‘…really, it wasn’t even what I would call music’. At this stage we parted ways and I learned a lesson in digging deep at the interview stage of things to find out what a potential client really wants (or needs).

How To Work Out What To Charge

This is where it gets messy, complicated and a bit awkward.

Well it can, but if you are clear in your own head what you are asking for up-front, and what you are prepared to accept, things will go a lot more smoothly.

How To Get Paid?

There are a few different ways you can get paid for writing music for games. Here are the most common:

• A flat fee (based on your hourly rate, per min of music delivered or total project price).
• A royalty (with or without a cap in terms of money or distribution period).
• Small fee up front with a further royalty down the line.
• Revenue share (effectively a royalty, but with a different name and will generally be more of a slice of profits IF the game does well).

What you should actually charge and by what method is not a simple topic. It depends on you, your experience and also what stage the developer is at in their business. However, here is my take on what I would prefer to do in order of priority:

1. A flat fee (you know what you are getting in advance and you aren’t reliant on the game selling well, which after all is pretty much out of your hands).

2. A small fee with a royalty (this mitigates some of the risk of just a royalty deal by giving you some money up front, but you are also protecting yourself if the game sells really well because the royalty is in place).

3. A royalty (They guarantee to pay you a royalty at a set rate irrespective of whether the game does well or fails. However because this royalty will be a per ‘unit’ rate (ie for each game they’ve sold) if the game does bomb you are unlikely to get paid much, or anything.

4. Revenue share (unlike a royalty, the concept of a revenue share is a lot more vague and will often be subject to things like ‘after the company has repaid its costs’ or when the company is ‘in profit’. So you could be building up your hopes for the day when the game dev is in profit, and they might never be, ie you don’t get paid a penny. That being said, if it does do well, you will be laughing.

How Much To Charge?

For flat fees, in terms of actual dollars and cents (or pounds and pence in my case being from the UK), this is literally a try it and see approach.

Indie game composers fees will range from FREE to several hundred dollars per minute of music delivered.

What you decide to charge will be based on several factors including your experience, how much you like the game, how much you need that game (to increase experience, add to portfolio, get testimonials etc), how much the developer likes you over other composers etc. How quickly the developer needs the music could also be a factor.

My advice? Work out roughly how long you think the job will take and pick an hourly rate. This could be based on what you are paid at your day job or an ideal hourly rate you would like to achieve to make it worth your while. When you are starting out, it really doesn’t matter that much what you initially charge – you can tweak things as you progress in your career.

Just pick a rate and work out a price. Just bear in mind that if this is your first game, you need to be on the lower side of the scale.

When you are starting out I would recommend evaluating all of the above and instead of saying ‘I shouldn’t charge less than $40 per hour’, re-frame the problem as a question and ask yourself ‘if I was to do this job, for the money on the table, would I be happy or would I feel short changed?’.

If the answer is ‘yes’ you would be happy, then you have your answer.

It’s only through working on games and getting a feel for how long it takes you and how much effort it is to produce say a two minute main theme, that you’ll be able to refine your prices over time.

Now it’s worth noting that hourly pricing, or pricing per minute of finished music is only one way to go, and the reason I mention those first is that they are the simplest.

There is also value pricing which is basing your fees on the outcome for the client, but this is for a separate discussion. For now it will most likely be a case of you quoting your price to a developer and negotiating from there based on your needs and those of the dev.

In terms of royalty deals, you could literally be getting anything from 1% upwards depending on who is involved and how long the game dev proposes to pay you a royalty for eg a few weeks or forever (perpetuity in legal speak).

Again, just do a few calculations, take everything into account I’ve mentioned and just decide if it’s worth the risk. At the start of your career, your main concern should be getting paid work and experience, not whether you are earning the maximum amount you can.

 
How do you know you’re not wasting your time, working on a game that will never be released?

I’ve heard a lot of stories (and have experience myself) of composers delivering music for a game for a few months and then the game never gets finished or the team disbands.

Unfortunately things change quickly in game development and this is just what happens. There are a few steps you can take which might help though.

Evaluate the commitment and professionalism of the dev team when you speak to them, and also from your e-mails/conversations and hopefully this won’t happen too often. If the dev team seems flakey, not really sure what they are doing and change their minds a lot, just be careful… they may pivot their whole business one afternoon without any warning.

Introduction

I knew I was good at writing and producing music tracks, I’d done nothing else since I was fifteen (My first computer which I used for music was a ZX Spectrum).

I’d written a bit of production music, done the odd student film and been in a few bands, but I couldn’t see a way of getting paid for for what I did.

Something had to change…

I was attracted to try and write music for games for the following reasons:

1. I found them exciting to play.
2. I loved that goosebumps feeling I got when I played a game with really good music or watched a fantastic game trailer.
3. I recognised games were a growing area whereas other outlets for music composers were suffering.
4. To be honest, I really felt like I could help make some super cool games.

Thing was, I had no idea how to get started being a game composer, and if I did have any ideas (AdWords?) I had no idea whether I was doing the right thing or not. Sound familiar?

In this guide I’m going to explain the exact process I used in order to land my first few paying clients as a game music composer.

This guide started out at being over 4,000 words long. Because it was so big I decided it was best to break it down into 4 parts. What you are reading now is Part 1.

Let’s get started!

The Big Mistake Most New Composers Make

First, you built a Soundcloud page where you uploaded a few tunes. You might even have a website where you embeded your new Soundcloud player.. seems like a good start, right?

Next, you decide you’d better find some actual game developers… so you lurked for a while on indiedb or reddit and posted an advert or two… you know the kind of thing:

I kind of cringe when I see adverts like this!

Here’s what usually happens…

1. A few indie devs hit you up and say ‘I’m working on xxx project, can you do me some music? Free would be best’ = Congratulations, you’ve now established yourself as the free music guy!

2. A few devs contact you and ask to hear your portfolio, can’t offer to pay you but say you’ll get exposure and maybe next time they’ll be able to afford to pay you = They’ll never pay you! If you do get noticed by another developer, they’ll ask you to write free music too.

3. Nothing happens at all. This is the worst result of all = You cry into your pillow!

What Went Wrong?

Think about things from a game developer’s point of view for a moment. More composers should do this (I do it a lot!). Would you hire you?

If you were a game dev and you needed music for your game, what are some of the questions you would have if you saw a random advert on a forum? I imagine they would be something like:

• Who is this guy? (or girl)
• Are they any any good?
• How do I know I can trust them?
• Will they steal my game idea?
• Why are they advertising on here if they are good?
• How come they are offering to do this for free?
• Plus at least another 10+ questions…

You get the point!

They have the same questions when they visit your website. Unless you address these specific questions on your site or in your content, you are putting the ball in their court and asking them to take all the risk on you. Why would they do that?

The Secret Of Finding Work Online

I have never posted an advert online asking for work… never. And I’ve worked on over 20 games and have been paid for them all.

How did I do it?

Now I should say at this point that the following method is only one way of finding clients, and specifically relates to online.

There are other successful ways such as the often overlooked but extremely effective one of offline interaction. This includes conferences, meet-ups and other places to hang out in the real world.

Yes, imagine, face to face with a game developer! Offline networking is a larger subject though and will be covered in a future article.

Rather than posting adverts online and waiting for game developers to make the first move and contact you, why not switch things around. You approach the game developers you want to work with directly.

Sounds crazy right? Let me break this down for you.

Step 1: Research

Find some game developer forums and join the ones you like. Here is a post on Quora suggesting a few to get you started.

What you are looking for ideally is a works in progress (WIP) sub forum where devs are showing games that are currently being built. You don’t have to choose just WIP forums, but at least you know this way a developer is working on a game which isn’t released yet… that helps, right?

Have a look round and see if any of the games there take your fancy and are the kind of games you’d actually like to work on. Don’t forget the specific game engine forums too such as Unity.

Once you have found a post you like the look of, read it carefully, watch any videos etc and just get a feel for whether this game might be a good fit for you and the kind of game which might actually need custom music.

How Do You Know What Kind Of Games Need Custom Music?

Generally expressions like ‘I am learning Unity and …’ or ‘I’m working on my first game…’ are best avoided. These people are not going to hire you.

What you are looking for is a small team of developers from say 1 to 5 people who have a professional looking post and profile ie they take their game developing seriously. In other words it’s not just a passing hobby.

I am embarrassed to say I once was so desperate for a game that I chased down a young developer for months… he said he was interested and we even talked money. I finally gave up when he said he had to ask his parents if he could use their Paypal account to pay me. Needless to say this never happened and in retrospect the clues were everywhere for me to see.

Don’t let this happen to you. Bail immediately if you smell a rat (or a very poor mouse who can’t afford to pay you for that matter).

This will take time – you may have to go through dozens of posts before you find one that looks promising.

 
Step 2: More Research

Assuming you’ve read their post and like what they have to say, the next stage is to find their website. There may be more useful information on their website which wasn’t included directly in the post.

There may be a link to their site in their forum profile on the site they are posting on, or if not, search for the name of their game or their game studio in Google. Very often in the post you are reading developers will say ‘we are Photon-Platoon [or insert another cool sounding double barrelled name], a game developer studio from xxx’, or something similar.

You are looking for the developer’s, name, studio, project or anything else that enables you to do a bit more research on them. Social Media accounts are also useful. You are just trying to arm yourself with all the relevant data you can before you approach them.

Be warned: All the time when you are doing this research you need to be on the lookout for two key words – ‘music’ and ‘audio’.
 
Any mention of their composer or game soundtrack etc is not a good sign, it means they already have a composer or have otherwise decided on the musical direction they are taking.

Don’t be put off if you absolutely love the game though. I have certainly been in touch with developers who already had a composer, only to find their composer has since left or they sacked him. If you aren’t too fussed about the game though, 9 times out of 10 you’ll be wasting your time in these situations.