At this point, we're getting very close to entering the studio to record First Glance. I'd like to introduce the role that our producer, Kim Copeland of [Kim Copeland Productions], Journey Publishing and Copeland/Tucker Management, played in the process. She was a great help to our project and worth every penny we spent for her services.

Kim is located in Nashville, and since we planned to record the CD in Nashville, we asked her to take us on. There were several reasons why we asked Kim to be our producer, the first being the fact that we all knew and respected her. Kim had been a song coach for Barbara and her co-writers for a number of years, and I knew her through her work with the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI). Kim and her business partner, Susan Tucker, had written a great songwriter curriculum that we'd used in our local NSAI workshops. So, our first reason for selecting Kim was our personal knowledge of her. We all respected Kim and felt confident that she would do her best to help us with our project.

Our second reason we selected Kim was because she lived in Nashville. As a professional songwriter, she had lots of experience with the studio trade in Nashville. She knew many professional musicians and vocalists because she's made and produced many demos over the years, both for her own material and others. Kim knew the studio ropes in that market, and we were able to benefit from her knowledge.

A third reason we selected Kim was because she could act as our advocate. The studio owners, producers, engineers, and professional musicians and vocalists whom we would eventually hire didn't know us from Adam. But, they knew Kim. Kim was able to negotiate for us and get the best deal for our dollar. These people knew they'd see Kim again in their studio, but they might not ever see us again! She also helped us to secure some of the best folks in the business, again because these people expect to continue their working relationship with Kim. Having a producer who lives and works in the Nashville market allowed us to capitalize on Kim's standing in that community.

A fourth reason we selected Kim was that she could translate the business jargon for us and inform us of the subtle mores and nuances of that culture that we never would have mastered by ourselves. She provided a comfort level for us when working with these professionals, because we knew that Kim was there to mediate, interpret and pull us aside on occasion, when needed.

A fifth reason we hired Kim was that Barbara's primary target audience demanded that we hire a producer. If we were to record a quality product capable of competing with everyone else in Nashville, we had to have some sense of what everyone was actually doing in Nashville! Kim was a huge help in that regard, because she was, once again, familiar with what was industry standard.

A final reason that we selected Kim was that we trusted her completely. We knew that she had our best interests at heart. We knew that we could ask the stupid questions, obvious questions, and redundant questions without getting an attitude in return. And that went a long way towards making what was a long, hard week in the studio recording First Glance something we look back on with laughter and fondness.

I'm sharing this with you for a reason, and that is the importance of getting to know people in your music community and in your targeted audience. We weren't "lucky" to have a producer whom we knew in Nashville; we worked hard to get to know professionals like Kim in the Nashville music community and we were able to benefit from that. All four of us – Barbara, her cowriters Al Lind and Kim Jakubicki, and I – had spent a lot of time, money and networking effort to get to that place! When the time came to record our first CD, we had the luxury of selecting a producer whom we already knew and had a working relationship with.

To summarize, our decision to hire a Nashville-based producer was based on the practical requirement of getting the best for our money, for feeling comfortable and confident with the recording process, and for ensuring that we would make a CD that could be pitched to our #1 audience, music business professionals in the Nashville market. Our decision to hire Kim Copeland as our producer was based on our relationships with her, and our confidence in her ability to represent us well, to help us get the best deal for our money, and to ensure that what we recorded was industry standard. Hiring Kim as our producer was the best money that we spent on the First Glance project.