Dana,

My presence on this or any forum has always been to provide some insight most people might not be able to get elsewhere. Giving someone a "lightbulb moment" (Oh WOW! That's what that means....!) is always one of my favorite things.

One of my favorite moments was here a few years ago. There was a woman (and forgive me if I can;t remember her name, it's been a couple years) who had been on these boards a lot. She was always very frustrated and blamed a lot of things, the industry, whatever and was upset because she couldn't seem to get anywhere. She was a non performer and had tried tons of music libraries, song pluggers etc. She would come on and go off and we wouldn't see her for months or even a year or so sometimes. But when ever she came around, she always just seem to be really exasperated.

I preached my usual "go out and meet some people" sermon and she kind of sluffed that off most of the time. Then, again, she dissapeared and we didn't hear from her for quite a while. One day, I was checking in over here. I had been away for a while. From time to time I've had computer meltdowns, forgot my password or just ran into some roadblocks and just sort of skipped checking in. There was the little flashing "Private Message waiting" that had been there for a little bit. I checked it and she was thanking me. She had found a group of writers and artists near where she lived and had been working with some people. She was actually hearing her songs performed and working with several people, and was simply telling me that what I had said and that she mostly ignored was actually working. And one of the reasons that she had not been around (neither had I) was that she was busy actually doing all this stuff.

That was really cool.

I don't know what to tell people most of the time. None of this is spelled out. There are no secret passwords or even a lot of a recipie for success. You basically try to do things that make people like you more than they dislike you and try to get them interested enough in what you do, to share with others or to work with you themselves. That's basically it.

Want to get something out there? Write something that doesn't suck and that people are interested in. Make sure it's written the best you can and recorded well.
Want to get something directly to the masses? Write it with an artist or be an artist that people like. Help them promote it as much as you can.

Repeat process. Don't suck.

Now you know the secret.
MAB