Tips for artists · 6 min read

Releasing your music: a plain checklist

What to sort before, during and after you put a song out.

Finishing the song is half the job. Getting it out well is the other half, and it’s mostly admin. Here’s the order we’d do it in.

Before you upload

• The master. Get the finished, mastered file. Keep a high-quality WAV and use that, not an MP3.
• Artwork. A square image, at least 3000 x 3000 pixels. Most distributors reject anything smaller. No blurry screenshots, and no logos you haven’t got permission to use.
• Credits. Write down who did what: writers, producers, features, mixing and mastering. You’ll be asked.
• Samples and beats. Make sure you have the licences for anything you didn’t make yourself.
• Split sheet. Agree who owns what share of the song and write it down. A text message that everyone has replied "yes" to is better than nothing, but a one-page document is better.

Choose a distributor

A distributor is the company that gets your song onto Spotify, Apple Music and the rest. Some charge a yearly fee, some take a cut, some charge per release. Compare what you’ll actually pay across a year, not just the first month. They’ll give you the codes you need (ISRC for each recording and UPC for the release) so you don’t have to buy them separately.

Give yourself time

Upload at least a couple of weeks before the release date, and longer if you can. It gives the stores time to process it and gives you time to pitch. With Spotify for Artists you can submit an unreleased song to their editors, but you must do it before it’s out.

Metadata matters

Spell the title and artist name the same way every time. Check the genre and the explicit tag. Small mistakes here are annoying to fix once the song is live.

In the UK, register your music

If you wrote the song, join PRS for Music so you get paid when it’s performed or played publicly. PPL collects money for the recording itself, for performers and whoever owns the recording. They’re separate organisations and they do different jobs.

Tell people

A song nobody knows about won’t be heard. Post a snippet, send it to a few people who’d care, and give people a reason to listen on day one.

None of it is glamorous. All of it is worth doing once, properly.