How to Submit Songs to a Licensing Marketplace

Somewhere on your drive is a song that an artist somewhere else is looking for right now. Licensing marketplaces exist to make that connection — but the writers who earn from them treat submission as a craft of its own. Here's what actually gets songs accepted, licensed, and paid.

Prepare like a publisher, not a demo-mailer

• Audio — your best full mix, clean start and end; a strong demo vocal that sells the melody (the adaptive pipeline will produce renditions, but your source is the reference)
• Metadata — every co-writer, every split agreed in writing, each writer's PRO and IPI; this is the #1 acceptance/rejection line in the business
• Publisher info — if you have an entity, its name, PRO, and IPI; if you don't, you as writer suffice — you can add a publisher later
• Authorship honesty — Starchild labels every song human-written, hybrid, or AI-assisted; disclose accurately, because buyers filter on it

What happens after you hit submit

On Starchild, content partners submit through their account. Songs pass a review (quality and rights sanity — new partners' first submissions get the closest look), then enter production: the adaptive pipeline renders the song across ~10 styles, generates its artwork, and lists it with your credits attached. From that moment your song is auditionable in every genre it might fit — a country writer's ballad shows up for the pop artist flipping styles at 2am, which is the entire point: more doors into the same song.

The money mechanics

Every license sold — from a $30 song license to an $895 stems package — pays the songwriter a 50% share, tracked in a live sales ledger in your account with per-song, per-license-type detail, and withdrawable through Stripe once your balance reaches $50. Your credits ride on every buyer's certificate, and if your publishing details change later, you edit the song and every future certificate updates automatically. Exclusive licenses and renewals earn the same way; how writers earn covers the full arithmetic.

Catalogs compound; singles wait

The strategy the earning writers share: submit steadily, not once. Ten songs in the catalog are ten lottery tickets that never expire — every new artist browsing is a fresh draw, and adaptive renditions mean your ten songs effectively occupy a hundred genre-slots. Write, document, submit, repeat; what makes a song license well is partly craft — but showing up in the catalog is the part that's entirely in your hands.

Sources

• CISAC — IPI: Interested Parties Information system
• ASCAP — What's an IPI Number? (FAQ)
• ASCAP — Royalties and Payment