When I was on staff at BMI I didn’t have direct communication with BMI members as part of my job. And I only had had limited advisory responsibility for editorial content. BUT over the years I learned a lot and felt like I had some secrets to share. Here they are:

Register your songs!

Believe it or not an awful lot of people don’t understand this. Writers wonder why they aren’t getting paid yet they have never registered their musical works. You must register each of your songs to be elegible to be paid. The process is somewhat confusing, thankfully there’s a helpful video walk-through. You can’t currently do this on the BMI Mobile App, and the interface is not great on a phone. Best to do it on a desktop or tablet!

Read the Royalty Guide

There’s a guide on BMI’s site called “How We Pay Royalties”. Read it. There’s a lot of useful information in there that long term members and BMI employees don’t know.

Sign up for Direct Deposit

If you are a long time member of BMI you may still be getting paper checks. This isn’t only bad for the environment… it’s bad for you too! As the BMI Royalty Guide explains:

Royalties distributed by check or wire transfer must reach a minimum of $250.00 from all sources to receive payment in the February, May, and November distributions. This minimum is lowered to $25.00 in the August distribution.

If an affiliate has enrolled in direct deposit, the minimum amount to be paid in any quarter is $2.00.

For distribution earnings that do not meet the minimum for payment, BMI will hold the amount earned in the affiliate’s account for a rolling 12 quarters until subsequent earnings bring the total to the quarterly minimum as described above.

Bonus direct deposit tips:

• Remember to update your direct deposit details with BMI when you open a new bank account.
• Members outside of the US are not eligible for direct deposit, but there’s a solution for this: Sign up for Payoneer.

Sign up for BMI101

BMI 101 is basically a Zoom meeting where a friendly person in the Creative department gives an overview of how BMI works for members who are writers and publishers. Classes are generally held once each month. You can learn a lot, get your questions answered and have a little facetime with a BMI Creative executive.

Follow BMI on social media

Follow BMI on twitter, insta, youtube, facebook…

Subscribe to BMI Newsletters

There are two BMI newsletters: MusicWorld which is published monthly and The Weekly which is published… weekly. MusicWorld tends to have more first party, longer form content and also covers covers some licnesing activities while The Weekly has 5 shorter stories from a variety of sources.

Bonus tip (?): There is also a newsletter called “The Hook” that comes out of the NY and LA office. Mysteriously there is no interface to subscribe to it.

Keep your email and mailing address up to date, your heirs will thank you!

Whether you are getting your payments, statements and tax forms electronically or by mail you really need to keep you contact details up to date. Again, this is best done on a desktop computer or tablet! Every year there are members who move or even die and then BMI can’t figure out how to pay them! Like all companies in the US BMI holds on to the money for a while and then eventually has to turn it over to the state. The BMI site contains a short list of missing members who are owed money but there are many more out there. Don’t let this be you.

Sign Up for BMI Live

BMI Live is a program where performing songwriters can register their gigs even at smaller venues to be elegible for payment. Enter the date, venue and setlist and get paid (quarterly).