Karaoke Song Books and Request Forms

Even in this age of computer karaoke and song book apps many people still like to sit and browse through conventional song books. Don't underestimate the importance of having neat, well organized, and easy to read song books. The easier it is for your audience to find their songs, the less time you will spend looking up the songs for them.

There was a time when I categorized my song titles by genre (country, pop, rock, etc.). I eventually came to the conclusion that this wasn't working out well. I spent too much time repeating phases like "that's a country song, did you look in the country section?".

My song titles now are all under one category "Karaoke Songs". Some KJ's have their songs listed alphabetically by song title and then again by artist. This can make for large, bulky, and heavy song books if you have a lot of song titles in your collection.

My experience has been that most people look for songs by title and not by artist. I do keep one book with me listed by artist for anyone who wants to look at it.

There are two basic ways to create your song books. You can use a software program like Songbook Creator+, that reads the file name or ID tag of song files on a hard drive or imports karaoke disc information from an online database, or create your own with a spreadsheet program such as Excel. The software programs are the easiest way to go as they are designed specifically for the purpose. They also provide several different page layout and printing options.

No matter which method you choose to create your song books be sure to make them easy to read. Use bold black text on white paper. I stress this because I have seen some people use colored paper and it didn't work out well. Keep in mind that many of the locations where you will be performing your shows will be dimly lit.

Request Forms

The two ways to sign up your singers are a signup sheet or request forms. I strongly suggest that you opt for the request forms especially if you will be running shows alone. If you personalize your request forms, with your logo and contact information, they double as a business card. I have received many job offers this way.

There is a very nice freeware program called Request Slip Generator.

Article by Richard Wise.