Planning for a release is among the most time-consuming actions in any musician’s profession. It requires music marketing, networking, music PR, sending emails, getting ready music formats, and making quite a few phone calls. The method may take wherever between just a few weeks to a number of months. It may be exhausting and simply wear you out, but when accomplished properly, the rewards shall be valued. Whether or not you are releasing a single, EP, album, mixtape, or compilation, there are some things you need to do to make the very best of your release. In this article, I’ll give you useful guidelines for releasing music that definitely makes your release successful.
When Is the Greatest Time to Release An Album, Single, Or EP?
One of the important actions is to find out what’s the suitable time to release your music. This requires analyzing the project to find out the timing it’s best fitted to. An easy example is releasing a Christmas song in February. This could be impractical because the song would work much better if released for the vacation season in December. If a song/album speaks about summertime, it might not be the most effective concept to release it throughout winter. Depending on the theme around a project, you may choose where in the calendar it suits in.
It’s a good suggestion to write up a release plan or guidelines. You should indicate the release date and schedule of actions for the release. You may break down the schedule of actions into three fundamental time periods, pre-release, release day, and post-release. I’ll now talk about a few of the activities to include in your guidelines.
Pre-Release Actions
Set a Release Date
As soon as the music has gone by means of the production and post-production process, there are a number of issues to do earlier than release. You should consider when choosing a release date to have sufficient time for pre-release actions. For a single release, from the time you’re writing up your release plan, you should set the release date one-and-a-half to 3 months away. Bigger projects like albums, or compilations, etc. need more time since they contain more work, say 3 to six months.
Budget
When you write down your release plan, perform some research and discover out what the associated fee implications of the activities are. This can prevent lots of time, money, and inconvenience.
Artwork – Album/Cover Art
For the reason that artwork accompanies the audio files very often, the artwork must be ready early enough. Relying on the type of artwork your project requires, different actions are nesscesary to go with the artwork. For instance, should you intend to make use of your artist’s image within the album art, you could require a photoshoot, which can need planning. Say you might be outsourcing the cover art design to a graphic designer. You should learn how long they’d usually take. Guarantee to account for these actions when setting the timeline to your launch. You could possibly permit for one or two weeks to finish the artwork, particularly if it entails different actions to get it accomplished. Learn more on developing your album art.
Making Ready Your Music
When releasing music, completely different streaming platforms and avenues require completely different formats of music. For instance, avenues placing emphasis on top quality could require audio files in format, whereas for sending audio over the internet, mp3 may fit better as a result of convenience in file size. Having a music converter could come in handy, and you may search for and download one on the web. You may additionally require radio edits when planning for a radio release. Making ready these prematurely may prove prudent. It’s also essential to make sure the metadata in your music is correctly stuffed in earlier than sending it anywhere. That is particularly essential for radio and TV to assist distinguish your music from different audio files.
For EP’s, albums, mixtapes, and compilations, you’ll need to organize and permit time for reproduction when you are making physical copies (CDs, DVDs, or Vinyl). In some instances, you may need to make physical copies of a single. Relying on what number of copies are being made, amongst other factors, the method may take wherever from 1 or 2 days to per week or so.
Merchandise
Should you intend to include merchandise within the promotion of your project (and it’s a good suggestion to take action), you’ll need to plan this forward of the discharge date. Discover the associated fee implications of making your merchandise and how long it takes to have it prepared. I’d suggest getting ready 2 to three weeks earlier than the release date.
Distribution
It’s less complicated than ever to get your music to online music stores and streaming companies all over the world. For any artist trying to attain worldwide viewers, distribution has turned out to be an important path to take. Getting your music on iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, Tidal amongst different platforms is an efficient start at establishing your artist brand on the worldwide scene. You may simply do that by means of a distributor. For Apple Music, take a look at our guide on how to upload.
When selecting a distribution service, you will need to contemplate a number of factors, together with pricing and what features they offer.
Among the key options, in this case, are the flexibility to set a release date and permit for a pre-save or pre-order marketing campaign. This might have a big impression on your promotion marketing campaign should you plan to have your music on iTunes, Apple Music, and Spotify. On iTunes, you may have your followers buy a song/album earlier than the release date. On Apple Music and Spotify, they might pre-save the song/album earlier than it’s released.
It’s also essential to contemplate how long a distributor usually takes to get music on the stores and streaming companies when selecting one. If you want to incorporate pre-save and pre-order campaigns in promoting your music, it will be greatest to get your music to your most popular distributor at the least one month prematurely.
On average, most distributors take around 2 to three weeks to get your music to the shops. This could offer you a few weeks or 2 for the pre-save and pre-order campaigns. Many online music stores and streaming companies usually launch new music on Fridays, it will be good to factor this in when setting the release date.