It’s hard to believe. Melkim Publishing is officially 10 years old today. Where has all the time gone? Let’s take a quick look back.
I’ll start in 2015. After having spent almost two decades building up my day job, it hit me … I was really missing my music. I had already written many pieces, some of them winning awards or named as finalists, and yet, where could anyone see my music? I decided — I needed to get my music out there.
As a Latter-day Saint, I first reached out to Jackman Music and the now-defunct LDS Music Source (Green Label), and spoke with the owners of both. They were at first excited about looking at my music, but after I submitted, I heard nothing. Here we are 11 years later, and I still haven’t even gotten a rejection letter.
At first this was devastating, because at the time for Latter-day Saint composers, those were pretty much your only choices to get LDS music published. Of course there was the new free LDS music site where anyone could post, but I didn’t want to just give away this music to a vanity site.
This is where my friend, Geoff Groberg comes in. He’s a folk singer who had worked with Mark Geslison and others, and he suggested to me: “Just start your own publishing company.” It was what several other rising composers had done.
And so, I spent a year of research, preparing pieces, and setting everything up. (I could spend a whole blog or video on this part alone.) And then I launched my website, opening the store on 10-24-2016 with just a few Christmas selections featuring the music of Geoff and me. Why 10-24? Well, because I’m also a mathematician, and 1024 is a power of two: 2 to the 10th. It’s just such a cool date! And now it’s doubly cool, because it’s 10 years later!
I was ready for all the orders to start flooding in … and then … nothing. Well, except for a couple here and there. After a whole year of preparation, I think I only sold 10 pieces those first couple of months. Yeah … ouch!
It was only one of the naiveties that would become much more evident over the years that followed. You see, there are many ways I excel, including composing and setting the music on paper so that it looks good. I’m also quite technical — it was how I was able to put together a website and code up automations for me to accomplish certain tasks much more quickly.
But marketing? I was clueless. And then came the website issues. “Where can I find my download?” “I ordered this twice — can you give me a refund?”
And so many suggestions those first couple of years! I listened to customers as they told me what they liked, and what they didn’t, and so I learned and adapted. The website has improved greatly in the years since, and I’ve just learned some further enhancements that I will install shortly, which will hopefully improve your website-visiting experience.
You see — I started with simply wanting to share the music, which has always been high quality. But then over the years, I’ve had to deal with all these other non-music aspects of the business with its share of frustrations and rewards.
I’ve also improved greatly these past few years in making decent recordings — so much so that I had decided to start creating albums that you can find on Spotify, Pandora, etc. And I’m still improving the craft — most recently learning professional-level mixing techniques for orchestral music.
I think you get the point — I keep getting better. The company keeps getting better. Up next — marketing is going to get better, and ten years from now, this company is going to look so much different. Exciting days are ahead.
Before I wrap up this day of celebration, here’s a story about one of our company’s biggest success.
I knew back in 2016, that if I built a publishing company, I didn’t want to print ONLY my music, like some composers do. I wanted to become another alternative to Jackman Music — what Green Label once was, and what outlets like Holy Sheet Music are today.
Jackman Music is good at what they do, but they are very selective in what they will sell, and I’ve come across many pieces that were rejected but still worth seeing. Most were deemed to be too difficult or esoteric to “sell,” but I’ve seen people enjoy these pieces nonetheless. And the on-demand model I use is PERFECT for selling this type of music. That’s why you’ll find a mixture of easy and more difficult pieces on this website — providing more options than what Jackman has to offer.
And … oh yeah — my favorite story … about the third year or so into Melkim Publishing’s existence, I received a comment on Facebook. Someone named Daniel Carter said that he loved my SSA arrangement of The First Noel (available for free here at Melkim).
My first thought … “Wait! I know that name. Is this THE Daniel Carter who wrote ‘As Now I Take the Sacrament’ and ‘Shine For Me Again, Star of Bethlehem’?” And so I went through my choral music and pulled it out. Yes! It was THAT Daniel Carter. No way! Imagine a loud nerdy composer squee!
And so I wrote back … “Thanks.”
A couple of weeks later, Daniel announced in that same Facebook forum that he was closing up shop permanently. He had rooms and rooms of sheet music that he was getting ready to destroy and retire permanently from music, and so he was offering extreme discounts on all his inventory.
The first thing I did was to order one of each product that was available — $100 well spent. I’m not sure why I did that other than this desire to archive some of the work from one of my favorite LDS composers. The thought of his music being destroyed made me feel as if one of the world’s greatest treasures was about to be lost forever.
And this was the second thing I did. I reached out to Daniel via DM and told him my feelings — that the world loved and needed his music. Before I knew it, we became best friends, and he let me publish some of his pieces, with the first being He Who Built the Starry Skies.
That inventory of books I mentioned before is now indeed all gone and destroyed, and as of right now, there is still a bunch of Daniel Carter music that can’t be purchased anywhere. But, together we were able to get out several of those pieces back out into the public, and Daniel did NOT retire from his music. You should check out his recent piano arrangement of his own Shine for Me Again, Star of Bethlehem, something he let me perform on our first album, Christmas Celebration.
And he has composed an amazing collection of Psalms, like a mass — something we’re preparing for release shortly. 15 pieces capturing his life’s experience and how we can find peace.
Because of this friendship, sales at Melkim Publishing did go up, and we’ve caught more attention. Daniel is our second-biggest seller. (Evidently, my own We Three Kings still beats him every year. Though, this year, since our Christmas Celebration–Sheet Music is selling quite well, that status might change.)
So, happy birthday to Melkim Publishing! It’s been a great decade, and many more fun years lie ahead. What comes next? We’ll find out together.
~Mel
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