Walt,
I have 13,950 songs in my database, I would guess about 11,000 of those are unduplicated...
I print the most popular songs in my song book, approx 4,000, and re-print about once a year, with deletions of songs not being sung, and additions of newer songs that have not been added to the larger directory, I have a "new song" area of my book in the back, that I normally update about once every month, and add them with my yearly reprint, if the clientele likes that version, and will cull any songs duplicated, after a little feedback from the clientele... keeping my books manageable in size, weight, and printing costs!
Your query as to how many songs a KJ has, and questioning the number available, and reference to 250,000 songs... I've known KJ's that have close to 100,000 songs listed on their flyers, advertising, etc. but when I asked if they are all legal versions, and that they have 1:1 song to disc ratio, all but 1 didn't know what I was talking about, and the one that did have a clue, probably had as many discs catalogued as I can remember seeing in one show... but as to 250,000 songs... it's about as illegal a hard drive(s) as you will find on e-bay, craigs list, etc. and can purchase for pennies on the dollar, compared to the KJ's with a legally licensed collection, and like most of us, have accumulated over several years in the business, and have spread out that expense over a number of years ( I used to have a business model, that showed/estimated that I paid about $2.00 / song )... show me a newbie to the business, with more than 10,000 songs in his repertoire, and I'll take odds that he has a pirated hard drive, that may or may not, be hurting your business locally, but has turned the industry into a mockery of fraudelent practices, by unscrupulous KJ's, with Multi-illegal systems, pirated hard-drives, and for the most part, trying to lowball their competition out of the business... these are the facts... we all know the good and bad KJ's around our areas of influence... and I deal with them above board, until they wish to compete for a job... and then I educate the club/bar owner/manager, about the risk of hiring a KJ that features an illegal library of songs, and license infringement, ASCAP, BMI representation... if that doesn't work there is always my loyal followers that have helped to keep me in business all these years... it's just getting tougher to make it as profitable with the economy, drinking laws, police presence, unscrupulous competition throwing you curve balls all the time nowadays...
