Like most artists, I prefer to spend time writing and playing music rather than marketing it. However, when I spend 20+ hours on a track it only makes sense to invest some time in marketing it so people actually get to hear my music. Here’s how I release music online, from pre-release to post. This is A way to do it, not THE way… and I’m always open to ideas for how I could do it better. Also, there are a lot of links: if you want a comprehensive list of the websites and tools I use, please visit my resources page.
Before you Release Your Music Online
Create Album artwork: I like Storyblocks for stock images. They’re relatively inexpensive, they offer a guarantee that they actually own the image and have a pretty good selection. They also have a very liberal use policy. I’m not a fan of Pixabay or other free sites because there are no guarantees that the users who submitted the photos actually own them, which puts you at risk if someone has a copyright claim.
I use Gimp to edit the stock images, add the title and my House Ninja logo. Gimp is an opensource alternative to Photoshop that has many of the same capabilities. Album artwork needs to be 3,000px X 3,000px for CD Baby, you can read more requirements here. Gimp works well for resizing images to exact specifications. I have also used graphic artists from a site such as Fiverr in the past.
Submit Release to a Distributor: I use CD Baby to release my music online. They’ve been supporting indie artists the longest, and I like their pricing structure with no ongoing annual fees. I also appreciate their podcast, blog, and DIY Musician Conference. There are plenty of other distributors to choose from such as Tunecore, Ditto, and Mondotunes. Ari’s Take had the most comprehensive comparison. I try to submit my tracks at least 30 days before the planned release.
The actual submission process usually takes about an hour with the most time consuming part being the album notes. These notes only appear on CD Baby, but I also use them for the description on YouTube and for the Spotify submission so it’s worth spending a few minutes trying to write something engaging. If you include your lyrics it helps people find your music via search engines.
Submit to Spotify playlists: CD Baby distributes my music to my Spotify Artist Profile and my followers will all hear my new tracks on their Release Radar. However, by going the extra step and telling the Spotify editors a little about your track you have a greater chance of being picked up on some of Spotify’s curated playlists. Learn more about submitting your tracks to Spotify on Spotify for Artists.
Create a shareable link. I like to use Smarturl.it I haven’t spent a lot of time comparing it with other services, but it works well, is free, and I’ve seen other major artists using it. It creates a single pretty link which can then lead to dozens of ways the fan might want to listen to your music. I typically share this link on social media.
Post to SoundCloud as a private track: this way it’s ready on release day. Artwork, album description, and Smarturl all included.
Manually post to Bandcamp as private tracks. The free version of Bandcamp will accept WAV files, but wants 14k x 14k artwork which forces me to resize album art using Gimp. On the bright side, I can post the file as a private track so I can handle this before release day.
Schedule an email post: I use MailChimp as my email provider. It’s free up until 2,000 subscribers, relatively easy to use, and has a lot of powerful email marketing features. I create a one-off email encouraging my subscribers to check out my track on whatever platform I’m currently trying to promote (YouTube, Spotify, etc).
On Release Day
Promote my music release on all my socials: Facebook can be scheduled easily in advance, while Twitter and Instagram I wait until release day. This includes flipping the SoundCloud post from private to public. If you’d like to know more about my Twitter strategy, read about how I gained over 900 followers in 90 days.
Manually post to Reverbnation: The free version of Reverbnation will only accept files up to 8mb, so even a 320kbps MP3 is too big which forces me to create a smaller bitrate MP3 file (using Audacity).
After your Release Your Music Online
Submit to Pandora: While CD Baby distributes your tracks to Pandora, Pandora has an editorial review process and you have to manually tell them about the tracks once they’ve been released. You can have one submission under review at a time.
Create an Audiogram (aka Music Visualizer): I usually post an audiogram a week or two after the release comes out to keep the buzz up. I use Hitfilm to create my audiograms from scratch. It’s free video editing software and very powerful, but it took a little bit to learn. Here’s a quick tutorial on creating visualizers in Hitfilm. You can see some of my past audiograms on my YouTube account and my Facebook page.
If you want a quick solution I just learned about Headliner which is a web-based platform for creating audiograms. It’s got some basic functionality and is free if you only post sporadically.
What I Need to Improve
Pre-save campaigns for Spotify. Pre-saves are a proven way to boost your rankings on the Spotify algorithm. CD Baby makes a pre-save tool available for free using Show.co, just sign in from your CD Baby dashboard (Pro Tip: You don’t actually have to be a CD Baby artist to use this service for free, just create an account!)
Plan out more content prior to a release. I should be more systematic about planning my posts leading up to a release. This could include little audio clips, bits of album cover art, the story behind the track, etc.
Pitch to playlists. I need to put together a spreadsheet of playlists by genre and their curator’s contact information, then reach out to them with upcoming tracks. I also need to focus on building a relationships with those curators by helping to share their content.
Figure out how to get my music on Beatport. CD baby doesn’t distribute to Beatport, one of the major outlets for DJs. This is a major limitation, and Beatport doesn’t accept direct submissions. I haven’t figured a way around this.
What about you? What’s your release process? Are there things I’m missing or could do better? Any tips on releasing to Beatport?
