You often check out new composers on the net I guess? I have heard some really great new pieces on youtube etc. but it´s a bit sad that so few people listen to recordings by pianists and composers they never heard of.
Sadly this is all too true. Strangely enough, when I used to share my music on forums about 6+ years ago, I could always guarantee that I'd receive a large number of posts/comments... of course, as luck would have it, now that I've matured exponentially as a composer and am writing works of professional quality that I really want people to hear, it seems that I get practically no comments. Take my composition thread on this forum, for example... when I first started it years ago, I received quite a bit of feedback. Four pages worth, to be exact. Well, a few days ago I resurrected it and added links to my new works and YouTube channel, and I have yet to receive a single reply. Strangely, this is also the case even in forums specifically designed for composers! Take the Young Composers forum, for example: when I first joined, I received many pages of comments with each new composition. I didn't post anything for a couple years, and then released some new pieces (which were, in my opinion, much better than anything I had written prior)... the only comments I received, for the most part, were merely informing me that most people wouldn't listen to the pieces without a score (which had NEVER been the case in the past). So, several years later I post a slew of new works that were light years beyond anything I had written before. I included the scores this time, expecting to receive quite a bit of feedback. What did I get? Virtually nothing.
Sorry for the rant, this is just very frustrating for me because I can't wrap my head around why things would change so drastically over the course of a few years. In any case, the best advice I can give is -- don't give up! You're better off promoting your works as much as possible, because every feedback you receive, no matter how little it may be, is incredibly helpful for your development as a composer. This is especially true if you don't study composition formally.
A great way to get some attention is to compose fugues or counterpointpieces based on famous themes. I thought about using themes like the James Bond theme, Baby Elephant Walk or Axel F from Beverly Hills Cop. Maybe having the themes both in major and minor and inverted.
This is very true. Perhaps you've heard of Kyle Landry before? If not, he's a rather well-known pianist on YouTube, and also one of my best friends. He makes a living off of his YouTube channel, posting videos of himself playing mostly popular music and themes from video games, movies, etc. He improvises and sometimes composes his own virtuosic arrangements of these pieces, embellishing them greatly. Anyway, he studied Classical composition and piano at The Hartt School (where we met), and one could say that his YouTube videos are not at all representative of his actual abilities as a composer and pianist. Nevertheless, he tends to focus most of his energy on his YouTube channel... on the few occasions that he posted his legitimate works (which are quite good, in my opinion), they were received rather cooly by his fans. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is.