Beware!

     Have you ever wanted to be published so much that you would do anything for it?  Anything?  Scary thought isn't it?  Not only is it scary but it can be expensive and can hurt our writing career.  Beware!
     My first love as far as writing goes is music.  I started taking piano lessons in the sixth grade.  I practiced constantly.  When I couldn't stand playing my lessons anymore, I sat at the piano and made up my own songs.  As the years went by I learned how to save my songs by writing them on staff paper.
     People encouraged me to try to get my songs published so I decided it would be fun to be rich and famous (Ha! Ha!) so I started sending my songs in to publishers.  Nice form letters came back saying they couldn't use my songs at that time or it wasn't what they were looking for.  I even got a few words of encouragement from some publishers about the wonderful demo singer (me) and some said that if I could rewrite it to make it more country, the song would be publishable.
     Eventually I read an ad in a songwriting magazine that said for $400 this company would make a professional demo tape for the customer and help get it out to publishers.  Wow!  How could I go wrong with this company?  I was telling a school teacher friend of mine about the ad and she gave me the $400 to get the demo tape made.  She said she didn't want the money back but she would like me to do the same thing for someone else someday.  She enjoyed listening to my music and she had faith that I would someday be published.
     The day I got the demo tape back in the mail was very exciting.  After listening to it, I sat and cried.  They took my beautiful waltz love song and turned it into a bar room brawl song.  After crying all night, I started trying to call the company.  Guess what?  Their phone had been disconnected.  I wrote letters and they came back.  I talked to people in the music business and no one had heard of the people in the ad.  $400 and one big dream ended up down the tubes.
     I'm still writing and I'm still trying to get published.  Now I pay very close attention to who I send my work to.  Beware!

Karen Sperra