Publishing

Hi all,

Okay, I've got a completed concert band piece that was a commission by a middle school in Washington state. It has been edited, proofread, re-edited, and re-proofread 3-4 times. I have done all of the copying etc. Basically, this piece is ready to be published according to the director it was written for and according to both my composition professors at school.

The problem is, I don't know what the next step is. Can anyone help me? Where do I go? Which publishing company do I contact? Can I even do the cold call thing?

And before anyone suggests it, I am not setup/prepared to do the self-publishing thing yet. I'd love to but with this piece, I think I'm just going to try and find a publisher to accept it and publish it that way.

Thank you for any help you can offer.

Jeff

Damn, I wish someone with more experience with not-self-publishing could help.

To me, the process is much like getting signed to a label. Your best bet isn't a major publishing company -- they have the publishing equivalent to A&R people already and tend not to accept unsolicited submissions. Smaller companies are more open, but of course won't give you the same prestige or whatever. Find websites (google is your friend -- something like "band score publisher" is a good place to start), read the submission requirements.

The kicker is that publishers (at least in the print world) want things a certain way, so you may have to redo your entire layout.

Damn, I wish someone with more experience with not-self-publishing could help.

To me, the process is much like getting signed to a label. Your best bet isn't a major publishing company -- they have the publishing equivalent to A&R people already and tend not to accept unsolicited submissions. Smaller companies are more open, but of course won't give you the same prestige or whatever. Find websites (google is your friend -- something like "band score publisher" is a good place to start), read the submission requirements.

The kicker is that publishers (at least in the print world) want things a certain way, so you may have to redo your entire layout.

Thank you, this is very helpful. I will get right on this.

Thanks!!!

Jeff