You’ve got your next hit song ready to go - but how does a song get from your computer into the ears of your adoring fans?
In a previous article, I covered Publishing Your First Podcast, and one of the main takeaways of that is you need an understanding of the different platforms, and the different ways to submit to them. This is by and large a manual process, sometimes but not always assisted by your hosting service.
On the off chance you have a record label, you can stop reading here, as they should be handling all of this for you. This is intended for do-it-yourselfers! Or, as you’ll discover, do-it-sort-of-yourselfers.
Pre-Publishing
The good and bad news of music publishing is that it is totally different. In the music world, you’ll need to rely almost exclusively on a distributor in order to get your music into online stores and streaming platforms. Fortunately, there are plenty of decent ones out there that won’t break the bank.
A quick Google search will reveal a number of music distributors out there, with many charging a simple annual fee to get listed in a number of different music directories, including the big players like Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon Music. The distributor I use is called DistroKid, which offers 3 plans from $20-$80 dollars per year, at time of writing.
The main function of your distributor is to get you on the platforms you want, and in return, for them to get you the royalties you are owed when people stream or purchase your music. When you upload music to your distributor, there will be a few mandatory things, and many more optional things. In general, you should be prepared with your music, album art, and a list of all the people who contributed to your music, and in what capacity. Many distributors will also let you decide how royalties get split among various contributors.
Some optional but useful information you may want: lyrics, genre, and a knowledge of what platforms specifically you’re interested in being listed on. For example, because I already have a YouTube Channel for my content, instead of having my distributor submit it, I upload it to my own personal channel, which I prefer in order to have a more unified presence on YouTube. However, keep in mind that many of the other big platforms, such as iTunes and Spotify, will only accept music through the distributor, so you won’t have the option to submit to them yourself.
Post-Publishing
Once you’ve submitted your music to the distributor, it’s only a matter of time until your music makes it to the platforms you’ve selected. In my experience, Spotify is the one that takes the longest to publish any new material, and if you’re a new artist making your first release, it will also take longer to get through the system than subsequent releases. My first EP took a few weeks to clear Spotify, and then subsequent singles have showed up in about 5 business days.
After your releases go live, your distributor can provide you with some metrics and analytics on how your content is performing! However, royalties and income related to your content will often not come for at least a month, and often longer (again, Spotify specifically is always the one lagging behind in my experience). Spotify also has its own platform, Spotify for Artists, that you can register with to get more timely feedback on how your music is performing.
Be sure and share all the relevant links with your network so that everyone is as excited as you are on release day! You may even get the option from your distributor for fans to “pre-save” your music, and get notified the moment it goes live!