Wiped out

I woke up feeling exhausted and wiped out, and sat on the sofa in my living room all day trying to raise some interest in the Requiem. It’s proving to be a great deal harder than I’d thought. Those who hear it seem to be hugely impressed. I’ve had two letters through the post in as many days; one from a sociology lecturer at Sheffield University. Both say how impressed they are by the work. There have been scores of emails and text messages, all saying the same thing. I’ve never had this kind of response to one of my works before.

Trouble is, it doesn’t have a massive team of people behind it. I don’t have a plugger to convince Classic FM that the sound-world the work occupies isn’t too unusual or dark for the station. Simultaneously, it would be nice to convince a publisher to take me or the work on. I’ve already had two requests from amateur choirs to look at the music for example. It strikes me it’s a no brainer – there’s money to be made - but all roads in the publishing world seem to lead back to one of two women, who don’t seem to be at all interested in my work!

This is going to be a long, hard slog, and today the enormity of the problem hit me. I’ve sold about 150 CDs. I need to sell 2000 to break even! I've done two interviews about it on the BBC in Newcastle and Carlisle and not sold a single unit up there. Does anyone have any ideas? I’m kind of stumped right now and the sad truth is that if the piece makes a catastrophic loss, I’m never going to be able to make another album!