The SongTown Difference – A Songwriter’s Edge

A home that’s unique for songwriters…

In a world where there are an increasing number of options for songwriters to gather and to get education, Clay and I feel it is important from time to time to remind everyone of the things that make SongTown different from any other songwriting community you might be a part of.  Here are the things that make this community unique:

We deal in real.

When we offer a pitch opportunity, it’s a REAL shot, not a pitch-to-publisher where you pay per song and the publisher gets paid to fly through the songs as fast as they can.  We give our members real opportunities to get songs to artists and people that can get them recorded, IF the songs are good enough.  We’re a different model than the “Pay me $20 whether or not your song is even in the ballpark” model.  We tell people when their songs aren’t good enough yet and we help them get their songs heard when they ARE good enough.  That’s the only way to REALLY succeed in this business.  We don’t offer shortcuts, because there really aren’t many of those.

We don’t make promises we can’t keep!

We aren’t going to lead you to believe that we can help everyone in our “town” turn pro.  That’s unrealistic and misleading.  What we do promise is that we can teach you how the music business works right now and we can teach you how to write better songs.  If you work hard at learning the business and the craft, you WILL get better.  We HAVE helped numerous people get writing deals and get cuts – thus helping them “turn pro”.  But we don’t promise that because we don’t want to mislead or disappoint anyone with a promise we can’t deliver on.  We want to under-promise and over-deliver every time.

We walk the walk.

We are actively doing the things we tell you to do.  Some songwriting teachers and mentors are not actively writing and haven’t had a cut or a writing deal in years or decades.  That doesn’t mean they don’t have anything to teach you, but it does mean that they probably are not the best source for learning how to be successful right now.  If they knew how to do that, they would be doing it themselves.  Clay and I are active songwriters that are still getting cuts that are relevant in today’s market.  That gives us information and perspective to share with you that you can’t get anywhere else.  I am actively writing music for a play that is advancing toward Broadway in New York.  Clay and I have had cuts in pop, rock, country, Christian, bluegrass and other genres.  We have songs on current albums.  We have each had more than 100 cuts and 6 #1 songs.  When we teach or mentor, we are able to tell you what works NOW, not what worked 20 years ago, or 10 years ago.

We WANT to get to know our members.

Other successful songwriters might post a video series and charge you big bucks to watch it, but they don’t want to answer your questions.  They aren’t going to give you their e-mail address and give you access to them personally.  Clay and I have helped thousands of writers avoid getting ripped off.  We have read over contracts people were offered and explained why they were good or bad.  We have connected people with co-writers, music business lawyers, publishers and artists.  We do that because SongTownians invest in us and we want to invest in everyone here to the extent that we can.  Being a SongTown member gives you access to two active professional songwriters.  To my knowledge, you can’t get that anywhere else.

We are continually investing in new content to give you.

We are and will continue to be the most comprehensive learning library of videos and written posts of any songwriting site on the planet.  We may have already reached that goal, but we aren’t satisfied.  We’ve got more great content coming your way at no extra charge.  We want the money you spend on SongTown to be the best money you ever spend on your songwriting aspirations.  We are in this for the long haul and we aren’t a one-shot video wonder.  We are always looking for ways to enrich and challenge our community.

There are many other differences, but I’ll leave you with those.  We pride ourselves on teaching people how things really work and inspiring them to get better.  There are lots of other models to choose from out there with big promises and appealing shortcuts, but do a little homework and you’ll see the REAL way to succeed is to learn as much as you can and to work your tail off.  That will continue to be the SongTown mantra!

~Marty