Re: Community of professional LilyPond engravers?

[David Stocker]

Michael,

I've done some LilyPond engraving for paying clients, including an 
original arrangement of a popular song by one of my clients. This is 
something that I'd be interested in.

My impression right now (after almost a decade in the commercial print 
business, doing mostly transcription and some engraving) is that, while 
LilyPond's spacing and graphics are clearly comparable to the big two 
(and in many ways, better), LilyPond will have a hard time catching on 
in the commercial market. One of the reasons for this is online sheet 
music sales. The ability to control the number of times a downloaded 
score can be printed, and how to what extent it may be manipulated 
(after first collecting a fee, of course) is something that Sibelius has 
the corner market on at the moment.

That's not to say that LilyPond music engraving can't fill a niche of 
smaller, boutique publishers who are committed to quality (both in 
appearance and content), probably publishing mostly new music. For all I 
know, this may already be happening somewhere.

Keep me posted on what you do. If you have business-related questions, 
feel free to email me off-list.

David
address@hidden
http://notesettersinc.com

Michael J. O'Donnell wrote:
> I am pondering offering engraving services with LilyPond. I wonder if
> there are people ready and willing to share information on the
> possibility to make modest money this way.
>
> I found one (slightly broken) thread in the archives:
>
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2007-10/msg00482.html
>
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2007-11/msg00002.html
>
> which indicates that several people use LilyPond for professional
> projects, but they seem to be activities within a larger job, rather
> than pay specifically for engraving.
>
> I found one person offering Finale engraving ranging from 2 cents to 5
> cents per note:
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~rscarbro/russell/music_prep.htm
>
> but I didn't understand precisely what he was charging for. His examples
> looked to me inferior to LilyPond results, but they were in low
> resolution pictures.
>
> I found a list of people offering mostly Finale engraving from $20 to
> $80 per hour:
>
> http://www.musicengravers.com/
>
> I have no idea how much they accomplish in one hour. I like the relative
> objectivity of a charge per note.
>
> So, if there is enough interest (i.e., at least 2 other people), I
> suggest that we develop a discussion within the LilyPond Wiki:
>
> http://wiki.lilynet.net/index.php/Main_Page
>
> If there's enough response, I'll join the Wiki, make sure that this is
> within it's scope, and provide a front page. So far, I have some
> examples to share, and a crude sed script for counting notes.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mike O'Donnell
>
>
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