Dana,

One thing about the music industry, it moves very slowly. When you hear of an act getting signed, you are probably looking at around three years in development, recording songs, writing with hit writers, doing press tours, videos, etc. all of that takes a while. And if you consider that there are multiple acts in development all at the same time, hundreds of songs being released to radio, marketing campaigns, etc. all of that can take years and a very small percentage will ever actually see the light of day. And today, if the artist doesn't already have a pretty large internet and live audience following, it's going to be a tough row to hoe, no matter what you do.

The "Eight year" time period is pretty normal, particularly for some of the bigger songs. A few years back was this enormous hit, "THE HOUSE THAT BUILT ME", written by Tom Douglas and Alan Shamblin, two very successful writers, and recorded by Miranda Lambert. That song took 13 years. It took about 5 years to write it. They wrote verse after verse, had a ton of them, put the song away, came back to it, took a long time to get it up to their expectations. Then took years to pitch and promote it, got turned down quite a bit. That went on for about 8 years. It was a ballad, which are nearly impossible to get cut. It finally landed with artist Blake Shelton, who was married to Miranda at the time. Blake held on to it for a while then decided not to record it and let Miranda, who was going through a dry period, have it. It exploded and the rest is history.
But that is a rule rather than exception on many songs. They often go through multiple changes in record lables. I've known of songs that were pitched to the same label over 10 years and three or four changes in presidents, staffs, artists, etc. I've known of people who took 20 years to get songs recorded. I myself got cuts last year on songs that were nearly 30 years old.

Now, it is different in the days of the artist/writer, these inside writers groups, publishing and record companies, that have inside connections. Those go a little faster. A friend of mine, Lance Lee Carpenter, was working for Fema, based out of his home state of Arkansas, and making regular trips to Nashville. Through writers nights, he did what we all do, meet and start working with dozens of artists and other writers. It's a numbers game. You write with a ton, in hopes that one or two take off. Lance is also a pretty good artist, big burly ex-football player and good singer, very much in the Toby Keith vein. He met this 18 year old cute Blonde who had just moved to town named Kelsi Ballerini. They had written several songs when they were both signed to a publishing record company called Black River Entertainment, that was being run by a hit writer himself, Doug Johnson, who had produced tons of hit records and had his own song , THREE WOODEN CROSSES" be the last number one for artist Randy Travis.

One of the songs they brought with them was "LOVE ME LIKE YOU MEAN IT" which was put out and caught fire, going to number one and started both their careers.
Having the inside track on artists, can speed up the process, but it also takes a while to get all that going too.

It's why you always have to be cautious when you hear people talking about "getting a hold" or "having a meeting." Even getting a cut doesn't nessasarily mean they are going to be released. My own efforts with Warner Brothers artist Frankie Ballard, I wrote 14 songs with him, some of which got him his writing and record deal. But they were all rejected when his label and publisher got their own writers involved, and often what got them there is the first to be weeded out. I was told a few years later that many at his label thought they should have recorded some of those songs first and they felt that might have been a reason it took him a while to gain traction.

You just don't know. All you can do is step into the batters box. Some times it takes a while, some times it goes fast, sometimes it doesn't do anything. You just keep swinging, and every thing you can do, from writing a lot of songs, making them sound great, getting them to the right people, working with other writers and artists, running in solid circles, surrounding yourself with talent, working at it all the time, all helps you improve your odds.

That's what you do.
MAB