Thanks Dan
Don, this might help.... get busy. It's not super easy but.... It's easier than placing a cut with an artist.
Tom: I am a member of BMI. You can only join one and they are all free to the writers. Publishers have to pay a yearly IIRC.
You need to check with the library but MOST will take care of the PRO (BMI/ASCAP) works registration for you as well as any copyrights. Be sure you know. You don't get paid if it isn't registered. Song registration with your PRO is also free. When you send in songs to the library, simply check your PRO account about 30 days later. If the songs are not in there wait another 30 and check again.... if still not there contact the library and see if you need to register them. Some will tell you that YOU need to register the songs. Most handle all the registrations.
the library will register the songs with 100% of the publisher share to the publisher and 100% of the writer share to the writer. Yeah.... it's weird math.... each song represents 200% share. If you are the sole writer, and for film and TV that's really the way to go.... you get 100% of the writer share unless the library has some other agreement. 50/50 is generally the rule. If a library wants more, they better be placing lots of music and into places that make good money. National TV commercials for example are like hitting the lottery.
With non-exclusive libraries, there's no way you can register the song ahead of time accurately, because there may be one library that places it, then 6 months later another places it in a different show.... Non-exclusives generally have you name the song something unique. For example, this song is While The Sun Shines... that;s the name I gave it. This publisher had me rename it HARTLEY_While the sun shines_ABCD so that they knew the writer for their record keeping..... name of the song.....followed by the letters of the library name so it was easy to determine which library secured the placement in the event that 2 different libraries submitted the same song to the same exact listing. Since other libraries use their own unique naming patterns, it also helped me to figure out which library nailed this placement for me.