Re: Do we need Publishers?

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

At 09:35 AM 6/7/00 -0400, you wrote:
>In this day and age, with computers, kinkos, cd burners. Do we really need to 
>waste time with rejections and publishers? If Josh puts his music on Finale, 
>Copied and bound it nice, sold it on his web site. He'd get to keep most of 
>the $20-30 he could sell it for. instead of $.50-1.00 he will get if a 
>publisher puts it out. We get new and different music, the author gets 
>compensated. We all would benefit. 

Well, there are lots of reasons why publishers could be a preferred route.
One is the possibility of reasonable production, with the money fronted by
the publisher, and hopefully done to professional standards. As Josh's recent 
cD experience highlights, going through a known publisher isn't a =guarantee= 
of professionalism, though.

There is also the question of distribution. Those of us who know Josh, and 
those of us who are savvy enough to ask the right question of the right search 
engine might find his material on the web, but most people would find it better 
were it already on the shelf at the local music store.

Publishers also add credibility. Getting music published through a known 
publisher is a good way to ensure that many (most? all?) libraries with music 
collections will acquire copies, where the music can be seen by students and 
researchers. 

There is also a presumption of 'yikhes'. Scholarly material published through a 
scholarly publisher is presumed vetted and legitimate and professionally 
transcribed. No one would attach similar credibility to scholarly material 
published independently in all but the most unusual of circumstances.

Finally, publishers handle distribution and publicity (not always well, but 
that's another question). Assuming reasonable success, spending more time than 
one wants, but not enough time to hire someone competent, at filling packages, 
adding appropriate postage, and so on is another series of headaches.

None of these are necessarily critical. If you look at the "vendors" page on 
the KlezmerShack, you'll find a host of people who have published good klezmer 
books. But that still doesn't make it the useful solution for everyone or for 
all material.

And it still doesn't change the bitter humor of this particularly stupid 
publisher, who will some day rank with the person at Decca (?) who thanked the 
Beatles but couldn't see how or where they were going to be a significant band.

ari

Ari Davidow
ari (at) ivritype(dot)com
list owner, jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
the klezmer shack: http://www.klezmershack.com/

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