The etching on the glass door to the office suite read 'Music Seen'. Lori opened the door and went in followed by Kyle and Stephen. She looked around then stepped up to the receptionist's desk and introduced herself.

"Hello, I'm Lori Trager. I have an appointment with Robin Benson."

The receptionist punched a number on her phone and spoke into her headset, "Robin, I have Lori Trager here to see you." She listened for a moment and then said, "Robin will be right with you. You can wait over there." She indicated some chairs around a low coffee table in the reception area.

Robin appeared before they had a chance to sit down. She smiled at them and said, "Lori, I'm glad you could make it." She glanced at Stephen and Kyle.

"My Dad and brother are here with me," Lori explained.

"Good," Robin nodded, "Stephen and …"

"Kyle," Lori supplied.

"Kyle, welcome to 'Music Seen', let me take you all to our conference room."

She led them down the hall to a richly furnished conference room and invited them to sit down. After they were seated, she said, "We are going to be joined by my CEO, Clint McCormick. Before he get's here, do you have any questions for me?"

"It all sounds exciting to me," Lori said. "My Dad and Kyle are here to help me look at the paperwork."

"You'll find it's all very standard," Robin assured them. "We're a legitimate agency. We like to match up talent with people who need it. There are agencies which try to get songwriters pay to have their songs promoted. That's not what we do."

As she was talking, a tall thin, red headed man in his mid thirties stepped into the doorway. He introduced himself, "Hi, I'm Clint McCormick. You must be Lori Trager. I'm CEO here at 'Music Seen'. Robin tells me she thinks your material has a lot of promise. She's got a good ear for her market segment." He glanced at Kyle and Stephen.

Lori said, "This is my father, Stephen Trager and my brother Kyle."

Clint shook hands all around and then sat down, opening his folder. He said, looking at Lori, "Robin told you that we are interested in trying to place your songs with active recording artists?"

"Yes," Lori said.

"Good," Clint nodded. "I liked your demo disk. Your use of language in your music caught our attention. As a performer, you still have a lot of room for growth, though. I don't want to give you the impression that we were going to try to get you signed as a performer."

"I don't really want to do that," Lori smiled nervously. "I just like writing my songs. The performances give me a deadline and goal to meet. It's also nice to see people like them."

"Excellent," Clint said. "A lot of people come here hoping that we are going to make them a rock star. I didn't want to mislead you. I want to build a relationship of trust." He took a breath and then continued, "What we'll try to do is to find an active artist who needs your material. We then become your publisher. Once they record it, you'll get royalties, both for the pressing of the CD's and for subsequent performances. The standard arrangement in this industry is that the royalties get split evenly between the song writer and the publisher, fifty-fifty.

"You get half?" Stephen asked. "Isn't that high?"

"I assure you, Mr. Trager, that's the standard practice in the industry," Clint said. "If Lori were a successful song writer with a solid track record she might be able to negotiate a split publisher deal where she gets part of the publisher's half, but that's not likely as an unknown." He smiled and indicated the room, saying, "And we have to pay for all this and Robin's commission with our half, if there is any to split at all."

"What is Lori likely to get?" Stephen asked.

"I can't honestly answer that," Clint said. "We have to place her music to get anything at all, and there is no guarantee of that. And then, it depends on who does the song and how much play it gets. If a song is recorded on a CD, there is a 9.1 cent mechanical license fee for each copy pressed. This would give each of us four and a half cents. If you are lucky enough to be on an album that goes gold, selling 500,000 copies, that can add up."

"Twenty two thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars," Kyle said.

Lori's eyebrows rose.

"Right," Clint said. "Of course very few albums go gold. It mostly depends on the artist. And when you do have a popular song there are also performance royalties. These are kept track of by BMI and ASCAP and they pay both the publisher and the writer directly on a quarterly basis. Also, if it appears in a movie or television show, there can be royalties for that. A really popular song can make a lot of money. Most don't. It's a very competitive market."

"It sounds unbelievable," Lori said. "I'm just hoping someone wants to use my songs."

"So are we," Clint laughed. He took some papers out of his folder and pushed them across the table to her. He said, "Here's our standard contract. It gives us an exclusive right to publish your music for a year. There are terms for renewal and so on. You don't have anyone else representing you, do you?"

"No," Lori shook her head. "The idea had never occurred to me."

"It can get confusing if two people are out marketing the same song," Clint explained. "There can be misunderstandings and legal disagreements. That can get expensive and no one wins."

"I'm happy to work with Robin," Lori assured him.

Clint smiled, "Then all we need is your signature on these papers. You are eighteen, right?" Clint asked. "Otherwise, I'll need your father's signature as well."

"I'm eighteen," Lori said.

Clint gestured toward the papers, "You can take them home to look at, if you want. I don't want to rush you, but Robin has some ideas for placement and we do want to get moving as soon as possible."

Lori handed the papers to Kyle who rapidly flipped through them and said, "It looks fine. It matches the research I did on the internet before we came."

"Kyle reads fast," Lori said noting Clint's raised eyebrows. She looked at Stephen and asked, "Dad?"

"If you want to do it, go ahead," Stephen said. "You could certainly use the money for college if they can actually place a song."

She took the pen and signed the signature block and handed it back to Clint.

Clint signed his part and pushed it to Robin saying, "Make sure Lori gets her copy." He turned back to Lori and reached out his hand saying, "Welcome to the agency. We hope this is the beginning of a long and productive relationship." He shook her hand then Stephen's then Kyle's. After that he stood and said, "Robin will take care of anything you need. It was nice meeting you all." Then he left the room.

Lori turned to Robin and asked, "So now I wait while you send out my demo and see if you find anyone interested?"

Robin looked slightly embarrassed, "Actually I already sent a couple of your songs out. That's why I was in a rush to get all the necessary paperwork in place. Willow Hendricks is interested in your song 'Thursday'."

"I love Willow," Lori said excitedly. "I listen to her all the time."

"Which is probably why some of yours songs seem to fit into her style," Robin said. "The process works better if the song writer has an affinity for the singer."

Lori frowned, "I thought Willow wrote her own songs."

"She writes most of them," Robin agreed. "But she picks up an occasional one from someone else. I had heard she was going into the studio for her next album and was a couple of songs short so I rushed her copies of the ones I thought would fit her style. She liked 'Thursday', she's going to see how it works for her."

"Willow is going to use 'Thursday' on her next album," Lori said. "That's incredible."

Robin held her hand up warningly, "She has to arrange it for her style and put down a track. If she likes how it comes out and it fits with the rest of the album then she'll use it. There's a good chance, but it's not certain."

"I'll keep my fingers crossed," Lori said.

"As long as you can still write songs that way," Robin said laughing. "Keep working. I'll keep looking for places for your other songs."