Tag: publishing

Published At Last – Real-World Music!

Posted on 2025-03-18 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

hand yes It only took me 61 years, but I am at last a published composer of a real-world music composition! Mark the date of Tuesday, March 18th, 2025, because on that day, the International Horn Society put my work for Horn Sextet, “Bohemian Galop,” up for sale on their Online Music Sales portal. You don’t know how my brain is jumping for joy, where my body cannot.

Here’s the portal link to “Bohemian Galop,” if you wish to purchase a copy. A PDF download of the full score and all six parts costs just $15.00 USD. Buy your copy, download it, print it out, and perform it today! Just click on the picture of the score cover page below to go there now:

(Note: At the time of publication of this post, there was not a listening preview available on the “Bohemian Galop” listing page. So, for now, here is a link to the YouTube recording of the work.)

Now, if you haven’t followed my posts on social media, the story behind “Bohemian Galop” begins with a competition. I wrote it as an entry for the 2024 Southeast Horn Workshop Horn Ensemble Competition Contest. Needless to say, it didn’t win, or you would have heard of that glorious triumph here. Anyway, I posted a recording of it on my YouTube channel and on my MyScore catalog. It got just over 500 views on YouTube, but alas, no sales through MyScore.

A bit later on, some random web browsing and serendipitous Google® searching brought me to the pages of the International Horn Society. I sent the head of their Online Music Sales portal an email, and eventually they replied with a statement of intent to publish my work! One thing led to another, until on Thursday, February 20th, 2025, we jointly signed a Publishing Agreement! Of course, I’m simplifying our relationship a bit, but those are the important parts. Of course, the story ends with today, and publication of the work.

Believe it or not, this is my first published “real-world” work, with “real-world” meaning “playable by real, live musicians.” (“Grabbag” doesn’t count, since it wasn’t written for a live band in the first place.) Until this piece, I have never had a work for traditional instruments published before. I hope it’s not my last. 🙂

My Debut Solo CD’s Release Date Is Out

Posted on 2018-03-21 Written by D. Lee Jackson 3 Comments

Calibrations has a release date! The album will be released on Friday, March 30th, in both CD and digital formats. The digital format will be made available through Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, and many other sites for a suggested retail price of $9.99. The CD will be available from the CD Baby Store for $12.99.

ADDITIONAL: The digital version is already available for pre-order from Amazon!

For those of you who tuned in to The Cyber Den on Siren Radio to hear Jake “The Voice” Parr announce the release date at 10:00 a.m. BST, my apologies—they were experiencing technical difficulties during the first hour and weren’t able to get the announcement in until the second hour of the show. However, next Wednesday (March 28th), Jake will be back on the air at the same time to play sneak previews of two of the tracks from the album. Remember, that time is 10am GMT, 5am EDT, 4am CDT, 3am MDT, 2am PDT, and for Australian listeners, 9pm AEDT.

Due to a misunderstanding in the original ordering process, I have ten discs in my possession instead of in the warehouse. Instead of letting them gather dust, I’m going to offer these ten as signed, numbered copies with brief messages of thanks for $50 each. I’ll never have any more signed and numbered CDs made available. Once these ten are gone, that’s it.

The sale will most likely take place beginning on Monday on eBay. I’ll have a link posted here that will guide you to the sale.

Thank you!

The CD Secret is Out

Posted on 2018-03-14 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

After long months of coordination with artists (who finally wound up in Texas, not Denmark), and after a lot of anxiety over whether or not I was going to be able to pull this off at all, the deed is finally done. Calibrations, my very first solo album, is in the processing phase.

The album will consist of twelve tracks of music and two tracks of spoken word, created with the help of voice artist and now good friend Jake “The Voice” Parr. This very talented Brit conducted an overseas interview of me for one track (take it or leave it – my interview talents are questionable) and helped me read the liner notes and track list (for those purchasing the MP3 version).

Nine of the music tracks are taken from the songs I wrote for Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour, episode five (Alien World Order) a couple of years ago. If, for some obscene reason, you haven’t played the game yet, here’s your chance to hear the music from it. All tracks have been looped and fully remastered for outside-of-game listening.

The three new songs are going to have to remain a bit of a mystery for now. Let me just say that there’s something old, something new, and something a developer didn’t want me to do. None have been heard by the public before: for that matter, none of them have been completed before. One even had its beginnings as a failed test in 1996 or thereabouts. Believe me when I say it didn’t fail any tests this time.

There will be a digital and a physical release. Disc Makers is handling the creation of the physical discs, but I believe you’ll have to go to the CD Baby Store if you want to buy one. The digital versions will be available almost everywhere, though—iTunes, Amazon, you name it.

The release date? Hopefully that’ll be before the end of March, although I can make no guarantees. Watch this space for updates.

Finally, here is a larger version of the cover art, produced by the talented Allison Sheeler.

All Over But The Shoutin’

Posted on 2018-01-31 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

Musically speaking, the album is finished. It’s passed the car speaker test and the crappy laptop speaker test. There’s going to be a “liner notes” track recorded for people who buy the digital release, but the music has been mastered and is now finished.

Now comes the hard part: getting it ready for distribution.

I thought I would be going with CD Baby. Well, I still am, sort of. I’m actually going with Disc Makers. They handle the front end of things, as in printing physical copies. They then turn over the album to their “sister” company, CD Baby (who they own), who will make the album available to iTunes, Amazon, and so on.

I need jewel case art for folks who buy CDs, and that’s being worked on in Denmark. The “liner notes” track will be recorded via an overseas link to England. (Bits of the music have been beta tested in Russia and Australia, making this a truly intercontinental project.) Once these two items are done, it’ll be time to start submitting things to Disc Makers.

If you ever plan on doing this yourself, please note: DIY album publishing is not cheap. An order of 20 Jewel Case CDs plus everything else runs over $200. It’s much cheaper to go with a digital-only release, but I’m dealing with special circumstances. I’ll keep you up to date on the progress.