J. Scott Bugher, once a top Nashville session musician and now founder of Split Lip Press, grounds his company in today's music industry tactics. Bands no longer record demo tapes and hope a major label will release it, and they especially don't allow their demo tapes to sit dormant for years while waiting for a reply. They know major record deals are reserved for select genres: pop country and R&B. So what does a folk singer do when the industry is against them? They skip demo tapes, record an album on their own and release it with a musician-owned, independent record label, not with men in suits seeking the next Carrie Underwood.
 
Writers, on the other hand, still choose to sit on their demo tapes, their 8.5" x 11" sheets of paper used for public readings, with hopes that a big publisher will release it. This means they have nothing to offer those attending their readings. When an indie band plays a concert, they don't have demo tapes, they have proper albums since independent labels work hard to get the band's music set in record format and ready to sell. 
 
Bottom line: The days of literary fiction and poetry landing deals with Harper or Penguin are over. Big publishers take only genre fiction or celebrity memoir as major labels take only pop country or R&B because they need products that make big sales. Major publishing houses aren't out to release the best-written books, only the best-selling books. They want the latest young adult book, one people will camp outside Barnes & Noble for. Have you ever seen people storm a book shop to get Lorrie Moore's latest book or seen a newspaper headline about James Tate's latest poetry collection? No.
 
Split Lip Press is here to discover and promote the next Lorrie Moore or the next James Tate because small press publishing is the best option for writers in their vein. At Split Lip Press, we take manuscripts we believe in and work hard to polish the author's work and create a stellar-looking book from it.

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