2 Questions: Selling Songs & Was I Wrong?

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Phreesoal

New member
Hi forum:

I thought I'd bring a couple of questions to you, as the community on this site is always so helpful, honest and more importantly, grounded.

I contacted a publishing company tonight of a well-known songwriter, asking in all sincerity about how a dear friend can get started with living a dream of songwriting and selling songs like their songwriter does?

To reiterate, for my friend, I simply asked this publishing company for direction in how to get started, nothing more or less. My friend has often shared with me how much they admire this particular songwriter, so here I go thinking, I'll contact them to ask if they're willing to offer direction to my friend. I've never contacted any such company before, so perhaps I was ignorant in my gesture.

Nevertheless, I feel that my friend is a natural lyricist and just because someone can write, doesn't mean they know how to get started in the business. We all don't know everything and I hope my friends would help me with personal aspirations when I don't know or know where to turn.

Anywho, about 15 min after my somewhat lengthy, honest and open email to this company, I got a one line reply back from the Executive Vice President stating:

We are exclusive to ********* and don't sign outside writers or songs. Good luck, it looks like this person has talent.


Needless, to say, not only was I miffed at the short reply that offered not one ounce of direction, but I was truly insulted for the assumption that I was asking for this company to sign my friend.

I truly didn't ask for that and as clear and direct as I was in my question, that should not have been assumed. I'd like to think that if the actual songwriter had received my email, they would have at least offered some help, but they gatekeeper prevented that contact of course.

My first question to the forum is, was I wrong in emailing this company asking for help?

My second question is, what does my friend need to do to get started as a songwriter to sell songs? I have shared with them this great forum and suggested they join, but they haven't decided to become active yet.

Thanks in advance everyone.

Phree
 
well. wrong is not quite the word I would use. Would I expect anything from a representative of a large popular artist in terms of guidance over email? Nah. probably not. You certainly weren't out of line but it was low odds you'd get anything back of substance.

Just like life, there are some masters who enjoy sharing their secrets and some who want to keep them hidden away.

Luckily, there are a lot of people out there doing grassroots writing and submission who do enjoy helping others achieve what they have. I haven't really explored this avenue with my own writing so I'm afraid I don't have much wisdom to offer first hand but I will do is introduce you to a site of writers.

On a forum very much like this one, songwriter talk all day about how they scored their first cut or got their first publishing deal. If you're interested, check out:

Just Plain Folks

If you're friend is serious about getting published and recorded, there is a great deal of research to do on the info there. And just like this forum, use the search function to cut through the other crap.

Good luck to you and your friend.

Miles Max
 
Of course you werent wrong. whats wrong with that. Next time jsut try to find a way to get your question directly to the artist cause alot of the management are probalby a holes!
 
Thanks to all of you for your replies, as it made me feel a lot better about what I did.

Also, I appreciate that link Stone and just emailed it to my friend! Maybe she'll be able to find a way to contact the songwriter directly...

Have a great weekend everyone! :)

Phree
 
one thing - you said that youi wrote a lengthy email - prolly they guy *didn't really read it*. I used to have a real job in a big company - when a communication is too long, you have a busy day, you just scan. Just for future reference, if you do want to ask someone a simple question, keep it no longer than this message here. If your request is simple, everything you need to say will fit. Just learn to focus on the request and cut out the back story. Its actually not relevant when you make initial contact. Good luck!

LN
 
do you know how many people send them emails asking them for that? go to www.ascap.com thats your first step....read up on ascap or BMI and they will explain it. also long winded email responses to publishing companies arent exactly looked at...not to start throwing insults but i started losing interest when you started going into the background of your friend's songwriting.
 
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