Lyrics are the one form where the words have to work against a melody rather than alone. It is a different craft from writing, and most good writers are not good at it.
Producers and performers come to the house for the same reason: they have the track, the feel and the intention, and the lyric is the part that keeps not arriving. Writing words that carry meaning while fitting a rhythm and a melody is a specific skill, and having it is unrelated to being able to write prose.
Every project here is worked between one writer and the music itself. Whatever genre you are in, the aim is a lyric that says the thing you actually meant, not a set of words that scan.
Most people need one or two of these rather than all five. Which ones depends entirely on what you already have.
- 01
Melody writing
You have the lyrics and they are strong, but no tune that does them justice. A melody writer works from your words, trying chord progressions, key changes and motifs until one fits the mood and the story.
- 02
Lyric writing
You have an instrumental track and need words for it. The writer listens, establishes with you what the song is about, and writes a lyric that matches the rhythm, melody and tone, using rhyme scheme and metaphor to make it stick.
- 03
Lyric editing
Your lyrics exist but do not yet flow. An editor reviews them for clarity and rhythm, rewording, reordering and cutting until the words are ready to record.
- 04
Song composition
Lyrics, melody and ideas that have not yet become one song. Composition work refines all three and builds the structure (verses, choruses, bridges) plus the arrangement and instrumentation.
- 05
Vocal writing
The harmonies, background vocals and ad-libs that turn a finished song into a full-sounding recording. Written against your melody rather than improvised over it.
Three things that matter when someone else is writing words you will have to perform.
- 01
Genre literacy
Writers who understand the conventions of the genre you work in, because what reads as authentic in one is a cliché in another, and an audience hears the difference immediately.
- 02
Written for you
The process is personal and closely worked. You approve the hook before a verse exists, so the direction is settled while changing it is still easy.
- 03
Yours, uncredited
The writing is work-for-hire: the song is yours, and the writer is not credited unless you want them to be. What that means for your registrations and royalties is set out in writing before anything starts.
Eight steps, and you approve the hook before anyone writes a verse.
Order details
A conversation about the project: what you have, what you need, and what the song is supposed to do.
Choosing the writer
The project team learns the song properly and selects a writer suited to your genre and style, rather than whoever is free.
Hook approval
A hook built from your theme and your music comes to you first. If the hook is not right nothing after it will be, so it is settled before anything else.
Writing
Lyrics and melody written from everything gathered so far, as a song that tells a story rather than a set of lines that rhyme.
Editing
The lyrics and melody reviewed and refined until the song is ready to record.
Demo
Instrumentation and production decided with you, and a demo recording (or a full version) produced to your specification.
Feedback
Your notes, and the changes that follow from them.
Release
Help with distribution and promotion if you want it, so the finished song reaches the audience it was written for.
A few of the people the house has worked with, in their own words.
I had eleven years of notes and no book. What I got back read like me on a good day, my turns of phrase, my arguments, and none of the padding I would have added myself. The first chapter arrived and I stopped worrying.
Marianne ElleryIndependent author The structural edit was not comfortable reading. It told me the second half started in the wrong place, which I had suspected for a year and nobody had said out loud. Moving three chapters fixed a problem I had been trying to solve with better sentences.
Devon AlukoIndependent author What sold me was being told I did not need half of what I had asked for. I came in wanting the full package and left with a cover, a proofread and an honest explanation of why the rest would not have helped yet.
Priya RaghunathanIndependent author Three cover directions, all of them plausible, none of them the thing I had described. The one I picked worked at the size that actually matters, I could recognise it in a list of forty other books, which is more than I can say for my first attempt.
Tobias HearnIndependent author I own the book outright and that was written down before I paid anything. After two years of being quoted percentages by people who would not put them in writing, that was the whole reason I stayed.
Cecile MarchandIndependent author The audiobook took longer than I expected and they told me why each time rather than going quiet. The narrator they cast got my grandmother's accent right, which I had assumed would be the thing I had to let go of.
Nathan BoakyeIndependent author
The practical and legal questions songwriters actually have.
Not without permission. Song lyrics are copyrighted material and the property of the publisher, and crediting the writer or publisher is not a substitute for clearing them, this catches out a great many authors who assume attribution is enough. You must go through the publisher's formal permissions process before using the lyrics. Mentioning a song's title, by contrast, is perfectly legal and needs no permission at all.
Either in quotation marks or in italics, depending on the style guide you are following. What matters is consistency: pick one and use it throughout, and if you italicise, italicise the whole title including its punctuation.
Get feedback from people whose ears you trust. Consider a producer for the recording. Register the song with a performing rights organisation such as ASCAP or BMI, because that is how you get paid and nobody does it for you. Then publish to the streaming platforms, promote it, and play it live or with other musicians if you can.
It varies enormously with experience, reputation and the specifics of the project, anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per song is normal across the industry. Some writers take a flat fee and others a percentage of the song's revenue, and which arrangement you are being offered matters a great deal. Ours is a flat fee, so the song and its earnings remain wholly yours.
There is no answer to this, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. Songs have broken out on almost nothing and disappeared after very large production and promotion budgets. What is true is that the writing is usually the cheapest part of the process and the part with the most effect on the result.
You do, completely. The author holds 100% of the rights to their work, in every format, for its whole life. The house is paid for the work it does, not with a share of the book. That is the arrangement the house reopened in 2008 to offer, and it does not change with the tier, the price or the point at which you come to us.
Yes. Your name is on the cover and in the record. Everyone who works on the book (writer, editor, designer) works on your book, and none of them is credited on it unless you ask for them to be.
Yes. Your story is yours, and nothing about the project leaves the house. We will sign your NDA before you send anything, or supply ours if you would rather use one.
No. Six disciplines are available and you take the ones you need. Authors arrive here at every stage (with an idea, a half-draft, or a finished manuscript that only needs a cover and a shelf) and the work starts where you actually are.
It depends on the work: length, how much research is involved, how much of the book already exists, and which disciplines you need. There is no list price for a book, and any firm who gives you one before reading your material is quoting something other than your book. Tell us where you are and we will price the actual job.
Move the marker. You do not need to know what to call it: you only need to know where you are.
Tell us where your manuscript is, where you want it to go, and we'll show you what's possible.