[ras52]

Hi Guys and Girls,

Once you've lovingly created your demos, how do you go about approaching publishers?  When I were a lad, pre-Internet, it would have been by sending in a cassette, but those days are long gone!  Do you physically send CDs, email with MP3 attachements or just send a web link?  And how do you assess independent publishers?  And as we can all be publishers now, with our own websites etc., how do you decide whether a relationship with a particular (non-major) publisher might be valuable?

Cheers!
Richard

[rickd1]

Hi,

I was in the same position.  Years ago, I would send a DAT or cassette tape and actually managed to get quite far using that technique.  Those days are long gone though.  Recently I did a send out to publishers.  When researching where to send I screened out anywhere that didn’t take unsolicited demos and only sent to independent publishers.  Depending on what type of catalogue the publishers dealt with I tailored my email text to try and make it appeal.  I sent no more than 3 mp3’s as attachments and also put links to my blog and soundcloud accounts so as the recipient had a number of options.
 I sent to about 40 companies and interestingly the responses fell into two categories. 1. Very small publishers who would probably take a punt on anything and 2. The one or two companies that I really wanted to get a response from.  There were about 30 companies that didn’t get back.  I could have followed up with phone calls but I felt I had already got as much out of the exercise as possible.  The publishers that got back didn’t take the songs but gave some excellent clear guidance that I have been able to act on so at least some doors have been opened.
To answer your question whether a relationship will be valuable, I would say only target companies that seem to be passionate about the same style of music that you write.  Then you will be on the same wavelength.
Hope this helps
Rick
http://soundcloud.com/red-planet

[devilsbones]

I`ve finished a three-song demo around mid/end of June and have been sending emails to large,small and independent music publishers; around 20 emails sent,two replies. I`m a non-performing songwriter, so one reply from a real favourite company of mine,advised it is tough for non-performing songwriters,so on all emails I am now just a songwriter (:-))  so that helped.
Second reply invited me to send the cd in,which I have done,so I will keep you posted if you`re still around. Over the weekend I will download the cd as an MP3 into maybe four of five inboxes (but most of these are fairly or very big companies that have not replied to preliminary emails,so I don`t hold out much hope.) One company has asked for the cd,and that`s all I need for now. I chose the companies from the MPA website,but have sent emails to other companies through google search. Just match your material to artists these companies have provided songs for. A non-major may have one or two artists who you could supply who are massive chart-toppers. A major may have chart-toppers totally unsuited to your style.