“I think people just kind of were, like, ‘Oh, hi,’ you know. They were supportive, they were nice, and, you know, they could tell I was a kid who had no idea what I was doing but was obviously passionate about music. I do remember one guy, though, telling me to make sure I went to college for something other than music and, at the time, I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll consider that.’ But he was really telling me, like, ‘I don’t know if you have what it takes.’ But I didn’t follow his advice. I ended up going to school for music, which I still am trying to figure out was a good or bad decision.” – Nismah Osman

This episode’s guest is a songwriter, producer, vocalist, entrepreneur, feminist, and more. She’s been writing and producing songs for herself and other artists since 2005. She stumbled into the world of selling her music for film and television in 2011 and has since cracked the code on how to fund your passion for music. Her music has been featured in such series as Love is Blind, Dancing with the Stars, and Temptation Island. Some of her other wins include a degree from Berklee, songwriting and production credits on hundreds of songs, and a chance to learn from songwriting legend Kara DioGuardi, and she runs a vacation rental business on the Jersey shore as a side hustle.

Her name is Nismah Osman, and she has a lot to share about how to make a living from making music these days. The industry’s certainly changed from even just five years ago. If you want to hear how Nismah does it, and how she’s helping other artists do the same, keep listening!

As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available and what the newest audio chats will be about. If you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help – and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts.

(0:00:00) - Journey From Songwriting to Music Career

We start things off with a look back at Nismah’s early memories of sound, and how a songwriting convention in her small town led to her very first sync licensing gig. “Obviously I was the youngest person in the room,” she recalls, “and I had no idea what I was doing. But I showed up with my little you know CD, you know, demos that I burned the night before.” She tells us about some of the encouragement, and the warnings, she got from older musicians, and a chance meeting at the next year’s convention that, at age thirteen, became her first music deal. “To this day, I get royalty checks for that song,” she says. “So that was like the first taste of like, ‘Okay, I can actually do this.’”

(0:12:18) - Navigating Sync Licensing and Musical Opportunities

Nismah explains what sync licensing means, and the opportunities it presents for musicians. “The very short version of it,” she says, “is the music you hear in TV shows, movies, ads, et cetera. And there’s obviously a whole semi-complicated process for how you go about getting your music in those opportunities and on those platforms.” She talks more about that process and how a newcomer to sync might get started. “You proactively write music for these opportunities,” she tells us, “based on a set of criteria that generally work, and then you submit that music to, in the industry, they’re called music licensing agencies, and then those agencies receive...