Outside Interests: How to have a hit song recorded

Anyone who thinks they might have the ability to write a hit song but doesn't have a foothold or contacts in the music industry might be tempted to give up.

But Michelle Escoffery (right), the women behind a string of hits, has built her career over years as a performer and songwriter and says it is possible to make a fortune from a single song, if handled right.

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Her hits include the 2001 song "Just A Little", performed by reality TV group, Liberty X, which won her an Ivor Novello award in 2002 and went on to become the fourth most-listened-to song in the UK of the last decade. She has also written for Tina Turner, Beverley Knight and worked with Stevie Wonder.

To have a hit, she says there are several things that need to be in place. First, it is important to present it in the right way. "A&R [artists and repertoire] people are lazy," says Ms Escoffery. "They want you to do the work for them."

She suggests using cheap or free software to record your song, such as GarageBand or Logic. The quality is not vital but the ability to envisage the finished product is, so if the song is meant to be sung by a woman, then it needs to be presented that way. Ms Escoffery says it is worth considerable effort to get this right: "I hire session singers," she says.

Once recorded, it needs to reach the ears of those with influence in the music world. Finding those ears requires research: she says it is vital to find out who would be the best A&R contact at a label. "You have to cover all bases but you might find that the independent labels are more likely to take a chance on a new writer."

Ms Escoffery recommends submitting a song digitally: "I have been in record label offices and seen piles and piles of unlistened-to CDs," she says. "It is much better to set up a YouTube channel or SoundCloud [a social networking audio site] page - or both - and email a link to your song to the people at the label.

"It also helps to have already gathered listeners so that the label can see the song has potential to engage listeners."

This can risk others hearing the song and copying it, passing it off as their own, which means basic copyright measures, such as posting a CD version of the song to yourself via a form of recorded delivery, are vital. Registering with the various organisations that protect the work of originators and distribute royalties - PRS for Music and PPL, for example - is equally important. Ms Escoffery registers all her new work with them.

It is unlikely that a music label is immediately going to pass a new song to an established artists to record but, says Ms Escoffery, social media has made it much easier to contact artists directly. She says it is always worth Tweeting links to sound files on the off-chance.

If the song is picked up by an artist or label, it could take months or even years to see the results: "Labels sometimes ask to put songs 'on hold' for a while," says Ms Escoffery. "You shouldn't then send it to anyone else but this can be very frustrating." But if the song is good enough, it should eventually emerge. Whether it becomes a genuine hit or not is, however, now completely out of the writer's hands.