I am a NSAI (Nashville Songwriter Association International) member and coordinator for the Manhattan, KS chapter. There are many benefits to being a member. My first and foremost reason was that they do twelve evaluations a year with your paid membership. This one benefit alone is worth the price of a membership. My goal is to send in twelve new songs a year to get evaluated.
Another great thing that they started a few years ago is called Pitch to Publisher. The great thing is you do not have to go to Nashville to get a music publisher to listen to your songs. You get two chances a year to send in your song to be listened to by a publishing company. If you live in Nashville they have these events twice a month at the NSAI office and you can go every time that you are available. I love being able to pitch a song and not have to drive nine hundred miles.
The song that I pitched to Jen Duke from Concord Music was "Something you can see." Fifty members get to pitch one song and she listens to one verse and one chorus. If she likes the song she will ask for a copy of it. She will them listen to the rest of the song and see if it is something she is truly interested in or not. I pitched this song last year to a different publisher and she liked it but did not ask for a copy of it.
The Pitch to Publisher event lasts about an hour and a half. It is recorded and emailed to me so I can watch it whenever I want. I received and email with the video and a second email that read. Winners selected. Guess which email I opened first? The same one that you would of opened. I wanted to know if I had won but I didn't want to get my hopes too high. I couldn't believe it when I saw that I was a winner. Yee! Haw! I was one of eight members whose song was taken to be listened to later.
Here is a copy of the video and the comments about the song. Thousands and thousands of songs are listened to by publishers everyday. Very few will every make it to radio or onto a cd. I am grateful that they listened to my song. It is a step in the process of being a songwriter. It is like learning to walk. You take small steps, fall down, bigger steps, fall down, and big steps and fall down. Sometimes there is more falling down that stepping.
Thanks for reading and watching me as I take my journey. I love you. Jim