I love to wait. (That is a lie.) The great thing was I didn't have to wait long. I received and email the next day from the publishing company and It said, Jim, OK you got my attention with the song, Something You Can See. That line is what a songwriter wants to hear. There are so many songwriters and songs that a publisher could not find enough time to listen to them all.
Ric ( A&R guy at Ammar Music Group) thought the chorus would needed to have a different rhyme than the original one and asked me to see if I could fix it? So I worked on my song and found a better rhyme and sent it in. He loved the new rhyme and we were off to the races. He asked me If I would be willing to sign a single song contract on my song, Something You can See.
What is a single song contract? It is an agreement between the songwriter and the publishing company. When I wrote the song, I owned the whole song. 100%. I was my own publisher 50% and the songwriter 50%. I could do anything I wanted with the song or have anyone I wanted to record the song. The problem was, I needed someone to help me get someone to record my song. (And hopefully, It would become a hit song.)
I am pretty good at math. Do you know what a 100% of zero is? Zero! Do you know what 50% of zero is ? Zero! I had made zero dollars on my song with me as a publisher. With a publisher, I was giving up half of my money that the song was going to make. Half of zero is still zero. I have no where to go but up. Either way I was still at Zero. Math helped make my decision easy to figure out. I needed a publisher.
This is where a publisher becomes so valuable. They are able to get your songs heard by artists looking for songs. (If they are a good publisher) I was not doing a good job of promoting my music in my producer roll. I was terrible. It was a hat that I didn't want to wear and didn't have time to wear. I wanted to write songs not be a publisher. It is very important to remember to keep the main thing, the main thing. The main thing Is being a songwriter.
I was so excited to finally get a song contract on one of my songs. I was thrilled. God is good. I thank him for giving me a song, a publisher, and a contract. (Still struggling with that patience.) It was a dream come true. The next part of the dream is when someone places my song on their record. That is another dream and something else to wait for. God is good.