Songwriting summit

Sounds wonderful Jim,

I guess, in view of the focus, it's an occasion where the word 'awesome' is actually appropriate.. :)

Please take copious notes - it would excellent if you could share a bit of a 'boot camp diary' with us all.

Cheers,

Chris

That's great, Jim! Defintely take notes and share the experience with the rest of us.
Franklin is very close to Music City, USA. I've driven past it lots of times on the way to visit my parents in Nashville. If you have time to stop there, it's worth the trip. I wish you well in your songwriting.

I hope that I get to do some sight seeing but it sounds like they have our days pretty packed in. Maybe Sunday night.

I was just looking through the info and I get more excited the more I read. I can send in one of my best songs, on a CD with lyrics/chord sheet etc, and the clinicians will review it. Then the day of the bootcamp they sit down with you and go over the good and bad parts of it. Here is a list of the panel.

I recognise the company names of a few of them. I have limited hope that I might be encouraged about being a really good song writer, but I totally believe that I will come away from this being a better one. I will definately be taking notes. OOO I have to figure out which song I wanna send. I been writing alot lately.

Jim

wow sounds like a great opertunity good luck at boot camp hope you get lots of info cant wait to hear about your adventure

mystic

Sounds like it will be a awesome experience Jim ..

Yes please keep a diary and give us a insight to this event ...Some of us don't have the oppitunity to travel to the US for things like this

Cheers

Trevor

*cough* Spy camera sunglasses! We'll all chip in :mrgreen:

*cough* Spy camera sunglasses! We'll all chip in :mrgreen:
Great idea! :lol:

Sounds like a great time, Geoo. Enjoy!

Margaret

Hey Jim, no pressure, eh? :D

You thought you'd be spending your evenings chatting with experts, writing great songs, and just hanging out.....

.... whereas, as GN's resident roving reporter, spy and inside ear, you'll really be spending the time operating your tape recorder, video-cam and laptop, and whispering hot tips into your shoe-phone....No?.... 8)

Don't take too much notice of all us mates who want to get in on the act for free.. just enjoy.. But, I'm sure you'll be making a few notes for your own reference though.....won't you.... :wink:

Have a great camp,

Chris

You know why they call it a summit?

Because usually all the speakers have summit to talk about!

Steve.

I can send in one of my best songs, on a CD with lyrics/chord sheet etc, and the clinicians will review it. Then the day of the bootcamp they sit down with you and go over the good and bad parts of it.

That's wicked man. If they had something like that over here I'd sign-up in a minute!

I can send in one of my best songs, on a CD with lyrics/chord sheet etc, and the clinicians will review it. Then the day of the bootcamp they sit down with you and go over the good and bad parts of it. Here is a list of the panel.

Sounds great. :) I'll be very interested to see whether they then offer you any further services - for a fee of course - that can help you take the next step up the ladder.

It's a bit the same in the book writing world, you can pay to attend workshops, seminars etc. Then there are people who you can continue to pay to help critique, edit and polish your work. These people have a better working knowledge of how you take the next step towards actually getting paid for your work, but they often don't have much power to directly line you up with anything.

You can "pay your way up the chain" to a certain extent, but eventually you hope to reverse the direction of cash flow. Or not (many people are quite content to keep paying for their 'hobby' and never expect a pro return). Or you can be lucky and just catch the right eye at the right time (of which we all dream of course... :wink: ).

There are organisations that help people self-publish their own books, or print and market their own CDs too I believe. There are lots of possible paths.

So it will be interesting to hear not only what they tell you, but what they suggest the next step is.

Good luck. Sounds like a great opportunity. :)

Cheers,

Chris

Hey Jim,
thats just awesome, you are a great songwriter and to have the opportunity to fine tune that skill is a once in a life time chance, so make the most of it mate (I dont really need to tell you that do I). And do let us know how it goes.

cheers

Paul

[...]print and market their own CDs too I believe.

There sure is. For example, SoundClick allows for paid downloads. You set the price on each song or album, they keep 30% and you keep the rest. Getting published takes three clicks with the mouse these days, the important part is still getting people to actually know it exists, nevermind want it. You also have things like Sell-a-Band, where you sell 5000 'shares' in your band for $10. As soon as you sold them all (to yourself or others) that 50k gets you a producer and studio time in a top-quality studio (supposedly) after which the music is made availlable for free download on the SaB site. 50% of the ad-revenue goes to the artist, the other 50% gets split between the shareholders.

The whole Soundclick deal is very interesting and I'm following that with a close eye. SaB has an interesting formula but it doesn't match up when you do the numbers. 50% of the ad revenue is nothing, and for that 50k you could almost build your own studio and hire a producer. If the adds result in 1 cent a view (not that unrealistic, it's not that everyone will instantly buy their products!), that will give a shareholder no less then 0.0001 cents per download. You'd need ten million downloaders for the shareholders to get their $10 back. If they are to actually make a great deal of money, say a whopping $50 you'd need 50 million people to download your song. By this time (60 million 'sold' copies) you've earned $300,000. Nice, but you'd probably could have done a whole lot better. It'll cost more to advertize it to sell those volumes.

The only one I can really see profiting is SaB itself: they only have to keep a few thousands dollars of the invested 50k to do nicely for themselves.

The only one I can really see profiting is SaB itself: they only have to keep a few thousands dollars of the invested 50k to do nicely for themselves.

That's often the case I think. It's the middle-man that makes the money.

I guess that it does work for some people though. The business of having your own books printed used to to be known by the somewhat cynical name of "vanity publishing" but it was still a good way for people to get stuff out there that wasn't worth the usual companies handling. Often that meant small special interest groups, but some authors were perfectly prepared to wear the cost of having their own poetry or whatever printed, and then giving it away to friends, trying to flog it at market stalls or whatever.

Of course the internet has completely changed the landscape. :) So the possibilities of making stuff available in either physical or electronic form and marketing it through Ebay or other online channels are still being tapped. In fact, still being invented too I suppose. Thanks for the info above on the research you've done on the subject. Interesting stuff. :)

Cheers,

Chris