Car speakers not workings?

I ran a cord for my car stereo to my car's battery, and yes i threw a fuse on it. the powers on and now when I try to huck up my car speakers I'm not even getting a sound. I went to autozone and bought some 18 gauge speaker wire. I cut just a small peice of the speaker wire to make sure i'd get sound before I put it all back together. I'm getting no sound whatsoever. any help would be appreciated