JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum Question for experienced writers

Iggy,

There are clearly different levels of songs out there. I'd trust the majority of people to easily be able to deterimine whether a song was in the ballpark of being any good or if it instead sucked terribly. It really isn't brain surgery for a non biased listener to know if a song is at least average. Of course it's very common for writers and artists to be completely clueless about their own work (just watch the delusions on American Idol auditions.. I come across that same level of delusion every day among songwriters), but interestingly enough those same people are usually pretty accurate summing up someone elses work if there's no bias or agenda involved.

So if the songs were borderline, then of course it's up for debate. If they are clearly great, then that plays in their favor. If they are embarassingly bad, then we'll all know they are scam artists or incompetent. I have no interest in embarassing anyone here either. If you have any feeling at all that you'd be embarrassed by people's assessments of your songs, it might make you think a little harder on whether they are actually strong enough to compete for a cut against all the superstar songwriters in the world you're competing with. If these guys are asking for money to pitch songs that you suspect aren't really good enough to compete with the best, then you have to ask yourself what their true goal is? Is it to pitch a weak song and ruin their credibility, or is it really that credibility is irrelevent and they just want the money you pay them to pitch?

All I know about this company is that they are friends of Terri Lynns, who I trust a great deal, and that they're involved in this scenario which raises all sorts of red flags. Nothing explains their actions against a writer because they were unhappy with your actions. That's stupid, whether they are friends of Terri's or not. It's also unreasonable for them to expect someone to give them life long publishing with no strings attached. I would go as far as to say it's immoral to even ask for that. If they want to wrap up lifetime publishing, all they have to do is their job. They need to get the songs cut and released by someone. Why should a writer suffer if they turn out to be unable to do the job they promised? Everyone else in nearly every job has to produce what they agree to or they're fired. Publishers should be in the same boat.

Brian