Believe Music Publishing has signed singer-songwriter Olive Jones to an exclusive songwriting agreement, and the numbers behind the signing explain why it happened now. Jones released her debut album For Mary through Nettwerk Music Group in March, counts 2.8 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and has passed 40 million global streams on that album alone. According to Music Week, the deal was announced on 4 November 2026 by Shino Parker, the company's head of sales, UK.
What makes this signing worth a writer's attention is not the size of the deal — the terms were not disclosed — but the shape of it. Jones is not a breakout act being absorbed into a major-label machine. She describes her team as fully independent, and the Believe deal, in her words, "completes the puzzle." That framing tells you how publishing deals are being positioned now: not as a rescue, but as the last piece an artist adds once the audience already exists.
For songwriters watching from the outside, the useful question is what an exclusive songwriting agreement actually purchases at this stage of a career. The evidence here suggests an answer: it buys infrastructure for the next record, not a shortcut to the first one. This sits in a recognizable pattern — we looked at a similar signing earlier this year in Cooking Vinyl Publishing Signs Jaz Coleman, and the Numbers Behind the Career, where the catalog did the negotiating. We covered a connected angle in Cooking Vinyl Publishing Signs Jaz Coleman, and the Numbers Behind the Career.
Why the streaming numbers did the talking
Publishers sign evidence, not potential, and Jones arrives with a dense file of it. For Mary, made with producer and songwriter James Wyatt — whose credits include George Ezra, Ellie Goulding and Lianne La Havas — has surpassed 40 million global streams on Spotify. Her most-streamed song, "End Of Time," has added more than 5 million streams in the past three months, taking its total past 19 million.
The longer arc matters as much as the album. Jones's 2023 single "Tell Me Why," a collaboration with Gotts Street Park, has amassed more than 126 million streams on Spotify. A 2024 EP, Three More Nights, followed. She has also released a reworked version of album track "Colour On The Wall" featuring Bombay Bicycle Club's Jack Steadman, and recently reunited with Gotts Street Park on the song "Wake Me Up."
Read those figures the way a publisher reads them. A debut album that clears 40 million streams is a business. A back-catalog single above 126 million is an annuity. An exclusive songwriting agreement is the mechanism for claiming a share of what those songs will earn going forward — and for being in the room when the next batch is written.
What "exclusive" means, and what it doesn't
An exclusive songwriting agreement means the publisher represents the writer's new songs, and typically her catalog, under one contract rather than deal by deal. That is the standard structure, and the exclusivity is the point: the publisher is betting on the whole career, not one single.
What the report does not say is just as important for anyone parsing it. No advance figures, no royalty splits, no term length were disclosed. Writers comparing their own prospects to this signing should resist filling those blanks from imagination. The verifiable facts are the audience numbers, the release history, and the stated plans — a second album being written now, due for release later next year, and a slot supporting Jordan Rakei on his 2027 European tour. Readers following this should also see The Report on Book Banning's Effect on Publishing — and What Writers Should Know.
The independent-team strategy, stated plainly
Parker's public framing is unusually specific about intent. "Signing Olive is a statement of our intent to back the future of songwriting," she said, pointing to the sophomore album being written now and to manager Chris Butler of Be The Music. She also praised what she called the "fierce way she protects her craft."
Jones's own statement completes the picture. She cited "the origin story of the company" and said the signing "completes the puzzle of my fully independent team of which I am very proud." That is a deliberate positioning choice. Nettwerk released the album; Be The Music manages; Believe publishes. Each piece stays distinct, and no single company owns the whole apparatus. For writers building careers outside the majors, that division of labor is the structural lesson here: keep ownership distributed, and let each partner compete for their piece.
What happens next, and what to watch
The calendar gives this deal its test dates. Jones is due to support Jordan Rakei across Europe in 2027 and to release her second album later next year. A publishing deal signed before a sophomore record means the publisher's return depends on material that does not exist yet — a bet on momentum, backed by the catalog already in hand.
For working songwriters, the transferable reading is this: the deals that get announced are the ones where the audience numbers arrive first and the contract follows. Jones built the evidence over three years of releases, collaborations and steady streaming growth, then let the deal come to her. The craft lesson and the business lesson are the same one. Do the work that accumulates, keep the receipts, and stay patient with the paperwork.
