Song pitching

I listened to an on-line seminar on SongU by Michele Vice-Maslin, a songwriter out of LA. A few of the key points I heard are:

1) Understand the publishing process - Your goal is to make it easy for person looking for a song. If you don't know the process, they will find you hard to work with.

2) Research everything - Know who are looking for songs and the type songs they are looking for. Listen to the artist. Look at listings of projects such as:

• Service - Imdbpro.com (paid service)
• Book - A&R registry (book) Lists A+R person, music supervisors, etc
• Magazines like Billboard, Hollywood report, Variety
• Web sites - Variety.com, yahoomovies.com

3) Have a credit sheet - Describe what you have done, your projects, who you have worked with, ...

4) Make a quality demo - Expectations of quality have changed and people want high quality demos, professional looking materials. Make sure your vocals are in tune. Add back-up music

5) To TV and movie - Send e-mails and ask "what do you need"?
For records - send an example MP3.

6) Get your music out there, spend money to get your product out there.
- Look at pitching services (songlink, Songquarters, MyHitFactory)
- Submit to songwriting contests.
- Join local organizations (Roots Music, NSAI...)

7) Follow-up with folk you pitch to. Did you get it?

She said that 90% of her income comes from Film and TV, 10% from records. The money is in film and TV.