There’s a lot of competition out there to get your music heard by music blogs, playlisters, and influencers, but with the right impression, image, and of course music, you can get your music in the ears of people who can help get your music heard.
Preparing Your Music
Artwork – If you can’t do it yourself, make contacts with artists, designers, look to somewhere like Fivrr, just make sure you have an engaging image that sets the scene.
Photography – Photography doesn’t have to cost the earth, although a professional image is important. Look locally for a photographer, ask friends, look locally on social media for somebody building a portfolio (but don’t take the piss, pay people!)
Blurb / bio – It’s amazing how many people fail to include information about the people behind the music, as a blogger, or reviewer, it’s great to have a story to tell, rather than everything in the abstract. Give us information, make our lives easier!
Mastering – It’s really important that your track sits well alongside other tracks in a blog or playlist. It’s surprising how many tracks simply cut off mid fade, or are too quiet, or at the other extreme just too loud. There’s many people out there that can give you a second set of ears, another perspective on your music, who for a small cost will take your tracks up a level. Again use local people, make contacts, use somewhere like Fiverr if you need to, or even use a service such as Landr, who will create a master for individual tracks, or a whole album.
Get Your Music Online
It should hopefully go without saying that you need to have your music available for people to listen to online. If you’re releasing music yourself or via a label you’ll probably be using a music distributor, somebody like CDBaby, Distrokid, or Tunecore maybe. Read our guide to music distribution services to help you choose the right one for you. Some of these services charge an upfront annual fee, some of them take a cut from your earning. Sometimes they offer publishing opportunities. It helps to compare whats available.
Read our article: Getting Your Music on Spotify – A Comparison of Music Distribution Services
From a music blog perspective, one of the best websites for streaming audio, to embed on websites, is Soundcloud. This site enables you to upload audio for listeners regardless of whether it’s available on Spotify.
Bandcamp is a recommended option to get your music out there. You can set up as an artist or label, and promote your music as a paid or free download. You can also use it to build a mailing list, offer free download codes, and to sell merchandise. It’s a very artist friendly option, especially with ‘Bandcamp Friday‘, a regular day when you can make the most of sales with all of the sales revenue going direct to the artist / label.
If you’re submitting to blogs that are affiliated with Hype Machine, you’ll definitely be wanting to ensure that your music is available on either Soundcloud or Bandcamp, as these embeds are picked up by the Hype Machine aggregator for inclusion on their site.
Blog Submission Services
If no-one hears your music you’re going to be downbeat and despondent. You can look through websites such as Hype Machine if you like and find the best blogs to submit your music to. You’ll be able to find the email addresses, contact forms, and social media accounts of people who blog music.
Once you’ve done this you can make contact. You will undoubtedly find your email goes into the inbox of a blogger, to be read at some point, hopefully, if you’re lucky. A lot of the time people blog for fun, as a hobby, maybe as a side hustle. They don’t make much money, if at all. They don’t have much free time to go through their inbox looking for the next big thing.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Many bloggers use services such as SubmitHub or Groover to discover music to feature on their blogs, channels and playlists. These services allow musicians and labels to submit their music through a portal to multiple blogs and playlisters. The blogs get a portal through which to assess the music they hear, and most importantly, the artist gets heard!
