“A company has offered to give me advance funds to help push my music career forward. They offer advances against future royalties, and now we want to have a meeting.” This kind of deal usually means they give you money now, then recover it from your future royalties before you receive more royalty income. In music business language, that is normally called “recoupment.” ASCAP explains that advances are typically recouped from future royalties, and the artist or songwriter may not receive additional royalty payments until the advance is recovered. ([ASCAP][1]) In the meeting, they may ask: **1. Tell us about your music career so far.** You can answer: “My name is [your name]. I am an artist/songwriter focused on [genre]. I have released [number] songs/projects so far, and my strongest platforms are [Spotify, Apple Music, Audiomack, YouTube, TikTok, etc.]. My goal is to use funding to grow my catalog, improve promotion, and increase my royalty income.” **2. How much royalty ...