Help: Dipping your toe in publishing water

Subject: Dipping your toe in publishing water
From: Hyperabid
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 11:27 AM

Okay so I'm getting my PC back this weekend. Poor starving mother has finally got her PC which she uses for her business working again.

Nopw a summer project might be to try getting a sample of 15 years of songwriting down into CD / MP3 compatable format...

But if I do - how does one go about publishing the work?

Is the net a good starting point?

As the majority of the work is steel string acoustic ballady folky morality taley - you know that kind of stuff... Are there any specialist labels which are around in the UK / Europe?

Would a US company even listen?

Are there any A & R men prepared to talk to someone over 30 (ouch)?

Help - experience - guidane - tolerance for a newbie question all greatly appreciated...

Regards

Hyp

Subject: RE: Help: Dipping your toe in publishing water
From: MMario
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 11:29 AM

there is home publishing, there are "vanity" publishers out there....web based and mail order...and there are smaller labels.

Subject: RE: Help: Dipping your toe in publishing water
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Mar 00 - 01:16 PM

Record companies will usually only consider musicians who perform frequently (pro or semi-pro); they want at least some guaranteed sales!  It's probably not worth investing much in producing a commercial CD/tape on your own unless you have large enough audiences to at least have a reasonable prospect of recouping the investment.  On the other hand, it's relatively inexpensive to burn CDs at home as required, so if you have the time and a good master recording, that might be the way to go.  Alternatively, a lot of people publish MP3s of their work on the net; there are large sites that specialise in that, some of which will actually produce CDs of the material for you.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Help: Dipping your toe in publishing water
From: Hyperabid
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 04:23 AM

Thanks Malcolm for the info... Thats the kinda thing I was looking for... Just to have somewhere for a goal / target to encourage me to get opn with a recording project...

Any site names would be useful...

Hyp

Subject: RE: Help: Dipping your toe in publishing water
From: GMT
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 07:04 AM

MP3.com has many hundreds/thousands of MP3 files by artists of differing styles. They have a 50/50 deal on sales, but it seems to me a good way to 'dip a toe' into publishing with little risk.

Of course if you after a writing deal then maybe someone like Taxi could help, although I'm less aware of the set up there.

Like you I've been toying with the idea for years and invested in a Tascam 424 an effects unit and compressor so if I can get my act together I should be able to get a fairly good demo (only drawback is lack of talent on my part).

Good luck Hyperabid

Subject: RE: Help: Dipping your toe in publishing water
From: Hyperabid
Date: 17 Mar 00 - 07:14 AM

Toil is often more important than talent GMT. Thaks for the info.

I'm gonna use Cubase and go digital.

Good fortune to you too.

Hyp