The hard part is hearing "NO" over and over and over and being able or willing to keep trying. 

Having been in music in one way or another most of my life, I realise that what one person thinks is good and another bad, is subjective at best.  I've been told the stuff I write is better than what is played on the radio and I've also been told I should stop writing. 

More than once I have had a club owner/manager come up to me after the third set (of four) and tell me he was closing the club early and... oh by the way, you're fired.... pack your gear and get out....!!! That hurts. 

I know that the bar is very high these days no matter what you want to do at the professional level be it a performing musician or a songwriter. I've had some people pretty high in the songwriting business tell me a certain song was "ready" and yet another who reviewed the same song tell me it needed a total re-write. Stuff like that can tend to discourage anyone. How can you get a song into the hands of someone who can actually do something with it? The most discouraging thing is how difficult it is to get someone to actually listen to your music who is in a position to "make something happen" with it. 

THe most important thing is to write what you like and do it for the love of the music and for YOURSELF and screw what anyone else thinks. If you enjoy music, you will do it for that reason and that reason alone. IF..... If someone else likes it, well that's good, and rewarding. If it gets cut and makes the charts, that's even better but..... don't play or write for that purpose or you will become discouraged rather quickly and give up. 

There's a meme on facebook that says ... If you load $5000 worth of equipment into a van, drive 100 miles to play a gig for $50.... you might be a musician. 

That's how it is with us, writing and recording music in our home studios. We spend hours writing a song, dozens of hours recording and mixing and tweeking the mix, just so a few people can hear the efforts of dozens of hours and thousands of dollars of investment in software and hardware condensed down into 3 minutes of music. 

So regardless of the "no's" .... keep going for yourself. That's what keeps me going. I love music and I have to play and write it. Not want to.... well I do want to....but more importantly, I have to. 

The bar has always been high, it's just that nowadays the music scene is way, way over-saturated. Thanks to the convenience of the Internet and incredible yet affordability of technology.   

All those freaking music sites:  
{sigh} Most of these music sites are musicians who fan musicians. It's become more of a musicians social hang out.  At best, their music players and other widgets. 

{tip} Want to know where the #1 online music scene is? it's sites such as; YouTube. BUT I recommend you get music video(s) released by a good distributor, get it done professionally. You will get paid per-click/view. The music video can simply be a good quality still image, a lot of well known bands do this.  AND your music video will be distributed to a lot of other sites including popular magazines. Some distributors also provide good affordable kick-start marketing. 

Subjectiveness has always been part of the scene, one critic says its fab the other says it's crab.  A lot of famous 'awesome' bands got negative crits and still do. 

Great songs along with 'real' musicianship skills is what people love to see 'live'.  Also being able to actually 'entertain', to captivate the crowd is what my manager will say. So it's more than just great songs, you have to also 'deliver' (musicianship skills) and 'entertain' (showmanship). Well I don't mean, cartwheels across the stage and flying human cannons but something like that LOL!! 

I had a great run from late 1970 through to mid 1990.  Had two different managers (two different bands) during those years. Since about mid 1980 I also saw the DJ scene emerge and a lot of venues die. But new venues open and other opportunities are available. 

{tip} Like I suggested in my first post, get a professional manager and consider other areas such as, music placement for films, jingles and games. 

Good luck. Wish you great success! 

Greg makes a really good point in post #22. 

With the advent of high quality and inexpensive home recording gear, everyone and their brother can now record and produce music....and it's possible to do so without being much of a musician. (A topic for another thread and another day)

Plain and simple, there is so much "good music" available and literally hundreds of thousands of "musicians" are vying for a limited number of slots..... the chances of your exceptionally well produced and written song being chosen is kinda about the same odds as winning the lottery. Hence, you get many more NO responses than MAYBE and fewer still YES. 

Just for kicks, or maybe it would be too depressing..... have a look at some of the music libraries that are online and see how many writers they boast and then the number of songs by category in their catalogues..... then multiply that by the number of libraries, and new ones are starting up all the time..... 

But, no one who succeeds lets the sheer odds against them matter. So ignore all that and figure out how to get it done. Stick with it. Sometimes the winner is the last guy still running. 

Wow, I typed up a really killer post (it actually wasn't long for a change but man was it good!) and I check back....it's not even here! I saw it post! Weird....well, I'll try to recollect my thoughts and try again. I'll never be able to top that post. :*(

-Danny