Publication...

[The Silent Orator]

... so, I was wondering if anyone had any tips or ideas... or experience... or anything with publication companies. It could be music publication (for concert band or stuff) or literary publication (poetry or novels).

I was thinking of getting a music composition or two published, or something along those lines... I dunno... it's been something on my mind, especially lately now that I'm stuck on money issues.

[Teh Donut]

I know very little about any official, money-making publications. I know some people who have done it through this Xlibris thing (it works well enough for him, I guess), and had a music teacher who published music (we got to play it and record it before he sent it off for publication), but beyond that...I usually prefer to provide my works to the public for free.

My only advice to you is to personally contact as many publishers as you can, and see if you can speak with someone in person...or over the phone, if it's not possible...you can go on the internet and deal with any random little no-name publisher no problem, but it's the bigger ones that actually have the ability and know-how to get your name out there and make you the big(ger) bucks that you'll need to impress in person.

Meh, sorry I'm not much help...anything more specific you need to know? Like, actual publishers or something?

[The Silent Orator]

Sorta. I'm not exactly sure what publishing companies to trust and what to avoid. Who should I talk to, what should I say, is there anything I should do beforehand (I had someone suggest to me that perhaps I should get my composition copyrighted before publication... though I don't know if copyrighting the wong is actually part of the publication process).

[Toriji]

what you need to do is get a sort of breakdown of your piece. You know genre, style... blah, blah, blah. It helps and some publishers like to pick up certain things in a work.