4 RED FLAGS that could screw up your release which you should avoid at all costs!

When you work on a song you love, your next step is to release it, but this comes with a few tasks that you should do to make it the most successful it can be. However, often you’ll miss some red flags that could screw up your release, and here are a few of them:

4 THOUGHTS FROM ME

1. Choose the best way to release your song (label or self-release).

One of the biggest mistakes I see producers making that could destroy their releases is not choosing the right way to release their songs. For that, you must pay attention to your career stage and how much time, effort, and money you’re willing to invest in your release, but also the ‘common practice’ of your genre. For you to make the right choice, here’s what I’d recommend:

1. When you’re beginning to release songs, I’d recommend to look for a label as a label release can help you build your crowd and reach people that you wouldn’t reach in a self-release;
2. At the same time, pay attention to how other producers in your genre release their songs. If most of them self-release their tracks, that’s a sign that you should also consider self-release;
3. But, understand the burdens of self-release before choosing that option (which you can do with this post). Since you’re releasing it all by yourself, you’ll need to do all the work for it, and that can be really hard if you don’t know what to do or if you just don’t have the time to put in your release. For example, I’d rather make another song for a label and work less on marketing than self-release it and have to work a lot with marketing;
4. But, if you decide to go with a label, don’t just choose any label. You must find a label that can constantly deliver the results (streaming numbers, DJ support, etc) that you expect from a release, otherwise, you’re just setting yourself up for frustration (more on finding the perfect label here);
5. In addition, have a cutline for your label choices. After you’ve done your research and listed the labels you like, cut the labels that can’t deliver the results that you expect from a release as it may be better to self-release it than to put your song with a label that won’t do anything for it

2. Stop thinking that your release doesn’t need any investment.

One of the biggest misconceptions about releasing music, with a label or by yourself, is that you don’t need to invest anything in it and “if the song is good, it will sell itself”. No, it won’t sell itself and even the best song, without proper promotion, won’t be heard.

Some of these releases will require a financial investment from you, which I highly recommend if you can afford, but that doesn’t mean you’re screwed if you don’t have any money. For example, here are a few things you can do:

1. Play the game of playlisting and invest 50-60% of your budget on playlists. I normally set aside 25-50 USD per release to send to playlists on Spotify. I use Submithub for that, but make sure that your song is relevant to the playlist that you’re submitting to, otherwise, you’re just throwing money away;
2. Send your song via email to big playlists and YouTube channels. Every time I have a release, I send my songs to The Grand Sound and some other YouTube channels and they share my song on Spotify and Youtube when they like it. Depending on the streaming platform, they could ask if they can monetize your song, but sometimes they promote your song because they like what they heard, and that could be a nice boost of plays when you get a spot in their pages or mixes;
3. Send your songs to DJs for their mixes and podcasts. Lots of DJs have podcasts and you can get your music heard by more people if you get your song in there. In addition, sometimes they add their podcast on Spotify, and that can add to your streaming numbers. For example, if you get your song on Above & Beyond’s Group Therapy or Armin Van Buuren’s A State of Trance, you can expect around 50-100k plays on your song.

3. Don’t wait until the last minute to start planning your marketing assets.

The two topics above show just a few of the things you need to plan ahead, and there’s even more! If you leave your marketing assets to the last minute, you’re not likely to get the most out of the release, and you’ll likely miss opportunities as well. Therefore, here are a few things that you should do ahead of your release:

1. Prepare a release checklist, where you’ll have the plan for what should be done and by what date so you’re always on schedule (you can grab our Release Marketing Checklist here);
2. If you are working with a label, ask the following things right after you sign your contract (a) when and what should you expect in your promo package for your release, (b) when you should expect your Spotify Pre-Save Link; (c) who should you talk to in case that isn’t delivered on time. In addition, make sure to share your checklist with them to avoid overlap, and that includes the DJs you’ll share your songs with for support and the playlists you plan to send your songs to to avoid overlap;
3. (a) Make a list of 20-30 songs that are similar to yours; (b) Find out which DJs supported these tracks using 1001tracklists; (c) Discover the promo emails of these DJs so you can send your songs when it’s close to release; (d) repeat the same process for Playlists on Spotify.

4. Don’t wait too long to finish and release your song.

One crucial mistake that could screw up your release is waiting too long to release it, or even to finish it, for three main reasons…

1. Time passes by and trends move on, and a relevant song today might not be tomorrow;
2. You, or the label, might get bored of your song and just decide not to release it anymore;
3. If a label shows interest in releasing the song, and you take too long to decide if you want to release with them or not. Therefore, as soon as you finish the song, move on and get down to planning your release.

But, here are a few things that you need to also consider:

1. Don’t release your song too close to the upload date. Make sure to give yourself at least two weeks after you upload the song, to when you schedule the release date as some algorithmic playlists from Spotify will not consider your song if you release it too soon after the upload, like Release Radar (7 days minimum between upload and release date required for Release Radar);
2. Don’t send a song until it’s finished. Once, I sent an instrumental to a label and asked for their approval, which they did, and asked for more time to add a vocal for it. Got a vocal demo, which they approved, but then that took another 4 months to record it, and when I had it fully done, they decided to not release the song anymore because they were not feeling the song anymore.

1 QUESTION FOR YOU

What else could screw up your release?

1. Choose the people you collab with carefully:
When you’re collaborating with someone, if that person is too perfectionist and is always changing the song, or is taking forever to do anything with the song, it could prevent you from releasing a song, or end up getting bored with so many changes being done to the song. Therefore, make sure to choose your collab partners wisely

2. Push back if a label insists on doing your mastering and ends up doing a poor job:
Some labels centralize the mastering of all their songs and while most of them do a good job, some can end up screwing up your song. In that case, don’t allow this to be released and push back until you’re happy with it.

3. Run away from labels that ask you to pay for something during your release:
I’ve seen labels ask for an upfront payment from the artist to the label for promotion, but if the label is not paying for that, why should you give them the rights to your songs? If a label asks you to pay for anything, run away!

4. Never say to a label that you’ve sent your track to more than one label:
Some labels that I know are authorized to automatically reject a song when this happens, so send it to one at a time.

5. Don’t release two songs too close to each other:
If you release a song, and next week you release another one, most likely that you’ll lose some of your release traffic to your other release, which is not ideal for either release. In addition, it’s better to spread 12 releases over 12 months for consistency, than over 12 straight weeks and not have anything to release for a long time.