Licensing for limited lyric use

[RickKoenig]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? VA

I would like to know the process for using a small snippet of selected song lyrics in a print work that I'm considering. My anticipation is one or at most two lines. Do I need to contact and negotiate with each publisher individually? Is there such a thing as a 'blanket' license to allow use of multiple song lyrics? If the last answer is yes, presumably there would be some restrictions. This isn't going to be used as a "song book" and no music would be involved, only selected lyrics.

I would presume that the royalties involved would be determined by factors such as the approximate percentage amount that each publisher's lyric would contribute to the entire work, how many copies are sold (currently: zero!), and that derived possibly on a sliding scale. If I have to pay, say, $1.25 for each use of each line of a particular lyric for each copy produced, it will become economically unfeasible very quickly, and the whole idea can be scrapped. Even the task of writing to dozens or hundreds of publishers who handle such things to get permission and negotiate individually to find those that are more realistic becomes an onerous task. That's why I'm wondering if there is an organization covering a substantial body of such works who would be able to facilitate the licensing and royalty arrangements. Would a good copyright attorney be able to handle all this?

Thanks.