moving production out of the bedroom... some questions

So let's say I have a about 10 completed tracks that are more or less mastered, that sound pretty professional, and all sound similar enough to all be closely related, genre-wise. what are the next steps to taking that music from my my own hard drive to the world, to clubs, to people's music players?
In what manner should one approach labels? should one send a statement of purpose/interest, saying your music matches well with that of the label's theme/sound, and provide links to a soundcloud where the music is? should one send the tracks themselves? should one first just send a letter before sending music?
should one first have a considerable number of plays on soundcloud tracks and a lot of followers on soundcloud, facebook, twitter, etc, before sending the tracks to a label? or should one just have good music?
do labels often ask for the software you produced on? I am asking because i heard that educational versions of software aren't valid for producing music that is going to be used commercially. Not sure how true that is, but was just wondering. Also would make sense that labels would ask for authentication in case if people were using pirated software
I know a lot of things depend on the label, but I just wanted to know the general sketch of how to take production at home to music on a stage.
I'm not even on that level, I'm just curious and believeing about the future