Reasonable Songwriter Fees?

[nineofkings]

I reached out over Twitter to a producer overseas, and am writing some pop songs for him. If he ends up using them, they'd have to pay me as a writer - however, he asked me what I charge, which leads me to believe he expects to pay an up-front fee. Does this take the place of royalties, or simply add to royalties? Even if it's the former, I'm not sure how much royalty money would make its way to me. I'm doing this more for experience in any event.

Secondly, what is a reasonable up-front fee for a pop song for a non major-label outfit? I don't want to price myself out of my songs actually being chosen; that's more important than the money. However, I also don't want to sell them for like $4USD per song, as that'd be a missed opportunity and would also make me seem horribly unprofessional (although I suppose I am asking an internet forum how to do business).

[Ah_Dziz]

If you are going into this field you need to figure out what your time is worth. The upfront money is to cover your time and effort in the event that they don't put the songs out or do a bad job of it (then there is no backend income). It all depends on how much time and effort you have to put forward.

JJ