Want your music published?

Note: This blog post is sort of a follow up to one I wrote a few weeks ago and is geared to those interested in the professional side of music, especially publishing.

Yesterday, I emailed a book of arrangements to my editor at Lorenz. The book will be published next year and is a Christmas collection at the late intermediate/early advanced level. The arrangements are similar to what I publish here on the site, featuring what I would call accessible jazz harmony. A few also are very rhythmic and technically challenging.

Ironically, today, I got the 2016 Fall/Christmas piano/instrumental catalog in the mail from Lorenz. For those that don’t know, Lorenz really controls three trademarks (imprints) you recognize: Lorenz, Lillenas and SoundForth. This catalog contains books from all three imprints and over 50 arrangers. Basically every arranger you can name for the past few decades is in there. For example, I saw books from Marilynn Ham that I played from during high school (Timeless Tribute and Notes from a Thankful Heart). Other arrangers include Mark Hayes, Mary McDonald, Jay Rouse, Faye Lopez, Lloyd Larson, and Heather Sorenson. There are also many other arrangers featured that you probably would not recognize but yet have a book or two published.

As I was scanning through the catalog, it occurred to me that my Christmas book will have a lot of competition. I counted at least 30 Christmas books in there, many from well known arrangers. In fact, there is just a lot of competition period. This catalog has well over 100 titles (probably close to 200) and is probably only a fraction of the Lorenz collections. Their spring catalog may overlap some but undoubtedly has lots of other titles. And on top that Lorenz is not the only publisher in the industry (though they probably have the biggest piano arrangement catalog of this type). Alfred and Hal Leonard are also major publishers and you could probably name another half dozen significant publishers publishing piano music.

So here are a few thoughts and reflections for you, especially those of you that would like to be published.

First of all, I can’t help but reflect on my past. When I was very young, I used to go buy piano books at the local Christian book store. At that time, there were very few options–maybe half a dozen arrangers and a dozen books total. That was pre-Internet so I would not have fathomed that there would be at a time where a church pianist could have literally hundreds of piano books available at their fingertips.

The second thing I have to reflect on is that as I looked through those titles in the book store a few decades ago, I would never have dreamed that I would ever have my own work published and on the same shelves as musicians I saw as my heroes. I would have been happy to just meet Marilynn Ham, not even dreaming that someday I might get published by her publisher. That is an amazing thing to ponder. I have to pinch myself a bit.

Now, from the perspective of an aspiring arranger, the changes over the past decades are a mixed bag. I suspect that there has never been a better time for writers to get published but I also suspect that there has never been nearly as much competition. As an example of why I say that, even though I am pretty plugged in to the industry, I still don’t recognize all of the arrangers’ names in that catalog. I would say I have never heard of 40% of them.

In other words, arrangers might get published but find that the experience is hardly what they expected. They might get a single book out that sells poorly and find nothing but dead ends from there. Honestly, in general, pianists are going to pick up the book from Mark Hayes before they pick up the book of a new arranger. The odds are sort of stacked against new writers in many ways.

On the flip side, I see an opportunity to stand out. My gut feel is that arrangers who are willing to step up and help their publisher with promotion are going to have much better success and opportunities. That is the new reality. In fact, with social media, there is really little excuse for writers/arrangers not to market themselves. Publishers probably have a right to expect some help with promotion, especially when they take a chance on new talent.

Perhaps in the past, the roles were defined more clearly: writers wrote and publishers promoted. Today, you can expect that line to be blurred. I can foresee a future where publishers will look more and more at writers’ ability to promote themselves in addition to how well they write music. In fact, if you do submit work to publishers, I would recommend that emphasize your successes at building an online following. It probably already matters to many publishers and if I were a publisher, it would certainly matter to me.

Here is another thing important to you if you want to be published. I have met very few people in the publishing industry that I have a hard time liking. From the executives at the publishing companies to the writers themselves, the industry is full of great people. If you want to fit into that industry, be a great person. There is something to be said for being cautious and not getting taken advantage of but there is no room in the industry for prima donnas and cynical, difficult writers that think the publishing world is out to rip them off. It is just not that way. Expect publishers to avoid you if you are too difficult

I guess I would summarize my current feelings this way: if you want to get published, be well rounded. Get out and network, meet other writers, hone your craft, and learn to promote your own music without a publisher’s help. These are the things that will help you be successful. If you do, you will likely find that publishing will be a byproduct of that success but not the end goal.