Hate to "bust your bubble" so to speak, but you just about got to know someone to even get anyone at a large publishing company to even listen to your songs. I know too many people that have tried it in nashville. There are or course smaller local publishing companies, but then again they are trying to get someone to listen to thier songs too. It's really pretty hopeless if you really understand what's going on and how the whole business works. There's tens of thousands of unknown songwriters out there, and the publishing companies have staff writers that have whole portfolios of songs just looking for the right artist to record them. It shouldn't cost anything to have a song published except for your copywright fee. Typically the publishing company gets 50% of the royalties earned. Another way is if you know a good songwriter, sign away half the rights to your song by copywright and let him push it for you. He knows people. Lots of folks do that and even though it seems unethical, 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing. I know several music publishers/recording artists and i just don't even fool with trying to get my stuff published. There's not much market for country/folk/blues these days, about the best way to descibe what i do. If someone did record one of them they would most likely change it up so bad i wouldn't want to hear it. About the best way is to work hard and become a minor recording artist and put out a couple CD's. If enough people hear them, then a major artist may pick one of the songs up. What it comes down to is, ain't nobody gonna listen to your songs. No matter how good they are.