I would like to publish my compositions but where do I start?

[Carine]

I have been composing piano pieces for my students for several years now which is very enjoyable and educational. Recently, I tried to get my work published but found no on request because the publisher I contacted already had a sufficient amount of piano literature. Can you give me advise? Do you have experience in getting your work published? Did you face any difficulties? Should I contact as many publishers as I can?

Also, I can imagine there are other ways to get work published these days. Are there any websites where composers can upload their work and musicians can download the compositions for a small fee or something?

I am looking forward to your response. Thanks!

[Cato]

I have been composing piano pieces for my students for several years now which is very enjoyable and educational. Recently, I tried to get my work published but found no on request because the publisher I contacted already had a sufficient amount of piano literature. Can you give me advise? Do you have experience in getting your work published? Did you face any difficulties? Should I contact as many publishers as I can?

Also, I can imagine there are other ways to get work published these days. Are there any websites where composers can upload their work and musicians can download the compositions for a small fee or something?

I am looking forward to your response. Thanks!

Offer them here to collect reactions: you can then use the reviews here to interest publishers.

[Henk]

I have been composing piano pieces for my students for several years now which is very enjoyable and educational. Recently, I tried to get my work published but found no on request because the publisher I contacted already had a sufficient amount of piano literature. Can you give me advise? Do you have experience in getting your work published? Did you face any difficulties? Should I contact as many publishers as I can?

Also, I can imagine there are other ways to get work published these days. Are there any websites where composers can upload their work and musicians can download the compositions for a small fee or something?

I am looking forward to your response. Thanks!

Carine, I am busy with trying to sell music by a composer (Daniel Léo Simpson, also on this forum recently) to my local record store (Het Carillion in Groningen). This can be done digital. Customers of the record store can take their memory stick or mp3-player to the record store and buy music. This is a great opportunity I think ("gat in de markt" as we Dutch call it). Also scores can be selled with the music. The record store can buy the rights to sell the music (limited to selling by their store of course) and probably you can also take a share in the profits made. This can be applied to more record stores of course. You get publicity in this way and probably labels want to publish your music as well. Start small!

The record store can also consider to start a webshop where they sell music, so anybody in the world interested can buy your music.

Local record stores (retail) have difficult times and try to survive. Labels hardly are interested in local record stores anymore. This idea gives them more power in the market.

Maybe it's even possible to start our own GMG label, funded by local record stores. I think this is a wonderful idea.

This forum, and especially this section of the forum can function as a platform for composers, just like you do. I can refer to this section to my local record store. So it has a kind of serious and business character. People interested in buying / selling music, private people, labels or record stores, can look here.

Let me know if you are interested.