Living Water - Dissertations - Songwriting - Part 11

Writing music is a great thrill, especially when you hear it sung in church and people praise God because of it. This, I believe, is where the true rewards of giving your compositional abilities to God come into being. The Lord has given me great blessings because He's been able to use me in this capacity.

But there also is a wider field available. Having your music published is a steppingstone to a broader ministry for the Lord because it effectively increases the size of the audience. The privilege of having a publisher accept a piece for publication is a tremendous (and rare) one. Let's take a closer look.

You've written a song which you've performed at church and everyone's told you how wonderful they thought it was. You even still like hearing the piece after beating your brains out on writing it for six months, and would like to share it with more people. After all, it's a hot piece in the mold of the songs you've heard on your albums!

So you pop it in a envelope and mail it to [Publisher_1]. The envelope returns, unopened, with nothing said by [Publisher_1] except "return to sender." So you try again, and send it to [Publisher_2]. They return it, saying that it "doesn't fit their publishing needs at this time." One more try: you send it to [Publisher_3]. They return it too, saying that they are "currently not accepting unsolicited material." And then you try [Publisher_4], which replies with "we do not have room in our publishing schedule for your piece," and further ask you to send $1.67 to cover return postage.

This is pretty much what happened to me when I started sending my music around for publication consideration. It was very frustrating because I thought my stuff was a lot better than these people appeared to be saying it was. I wanted to minister in a wider arena (and royalties wouldn't be so bad either...)!

Some of why all this was happening was explained by Fred Bock in a workshop he led at the 1990 Mount Hermon conference. Fred's a publisher as well as a minister of music, and so he has a unique view of the Christian music world; as far as he knows, no one else has a foothold in both worlds.

Fred's basic premise was that music publishers have to make money. If they don't, they file for bankruptcy under Chapter 11. This means that they have to publish music which will earn a profit, and also means that they have to weigh the financial risks of each piece as they decide whether they'll accept it; a publisher must pay the money to edit, typeset, and print a piece before he even sells the first copy, which is an investment of thousands of dollars.

There also are limits as to how many pieces a publisher can accept; Fred tells me that he issues only about fifty new pieces per year. This means that if Fred receives a hundred good, publishable pieces in a given year, half of the composers involved have to be turned down. He just can't accept them all, and it must be a really tough decision for him when this happens. By the way, an established composer (e.g. Dick Tunney) has a much better chance than you or I do because his name has a fair degree of selling power. That's why some people appear on the music shelves at the store so often.

[Christian] music publishers also must preserve their doctrinal perceptions. Most are pretty agreed on music that they'll accept, at least doctrinally, but they probably have a tendency to play the game close to the middle of the road so that they don't offend potential customers (remember the first premise!). This, however, doesn't means that they'll publish all good music, and it further doesn't guarantee that they won't publish bad music.

Overall, though, you can trust them to accept your songs if they're doctrinally sound. It's the left-field points of view which make them itchy. I'm not saying that you should milquetoast your message, though! You can take a hard stance in your lyrics as long as the message is presented considerately.

Back to the rejection letters: Fred made it very clear that publishers, in addition to having limitations on how much music they accept, don't want to get into fights with those who submit songs for consideration. In the above example, [Publisher_1] returns music unopened because they don't want to be accused of stealing other people's ideas. So they just play it safe and return mail everything which is unsolicited.

Suppose [Publisher_2] is a denominational publishing house which concentrates on more conservative forms of musical expression. Consequently, rap and metal groups aren't going to gain much of an entrèe with them. My song apparently was not in their style. This is important, because a publishing house usually has to refine its customer base from "everyone and his brother" to something smaller, such as "people who like conservative musical styles," "teenagers," or "people with no hearing because they always turn up their car stereos high enough to shake all the nuts and bolts off the chassis." The lesson: If you send music to a publisher which doesn't work with your style, they'll send it back.

[Publisher_3] is a big Christian music publisher, and works with many of the top artists. Consequently, they don't have any more publication slots for new people.

Finally, [Publisher_4] labors under the same difficulties as other publishers, but in this example they also aren't really interested in paying thousands of dollars in return postage for music they don't want. Every publisher receives thousands of packages each year, if not each month, and must keep the profit assumption in mind if he's to stay alive. So many publishers will acknowledge receipt of your music, tell you that they can't accept it, and further say that "your music will be kept in file for six months, after which time it will be discarded; should you wish us to return your music, please send $x.xx to cover return postage."

The main lesson to remember is that you shouldn't take rejection letters personally. They're usually written in a bland, sterile fashion so as to prevent arguments between composer and publisher. They won't tell you why they don't want your music because there are a lot of people out there who will take exception to the publisher's decision and will start writing letters to argue with them. You'll also find that they're short; an economy of words also provides less fuel for the feisty. Consequently, publishers take this approach to keep things under control.

Don't be offended if a publisher sends you a form letter (although I'm bothered by a certain publisher which has sent me ugly, streaky, grainy xeroxes of their standard rejection notice). Remember, each of them receives thousands of pieces seeking a publishing home, and therefore expediency dictates that a personal reply to each letter is impossible.

Side note: Some publishers are better at this game than others. The best ones send letters which turn you down while offering "best wishes as you attempt to place your work with another publisher." The really good ones also probably have their "no thanks" letter in a word processor with blanks for your name, address, and composition title so that they can zap off a fresh laser printer copy which looks like it was made specially for you (well, it was, wasn't it?). It's the little extra touches that matter, and the publishers who are good at making rejection a gentler experience for you are the ones who will probably see your next attempt at composition. I'm sure that they think that if you're given enough time and try enough times, you'll send them something that they'll want to use - you can only get better!

(The actual publishers' names were excised to protect... me, I think.)