Successful artists know how to release an album without rushing. Abraham Lincoln wisely said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” If you don’t setup your album properly, you will miss out on 50% (or more) of the opportunities that are available to you. Bookmark this page. Save it as a reference and revisit when setting up your next album, single, or EP release. Here are the steps to follow.
- Setup Your Album With Distribution
- Release Singles To Build Awareness For the Album
- Launch A Pre Order Campaign
- Get In The Charts With This Strategy
- Be Patient, Don’t Rush
- Get Your Songs In Playlists
- Optimize Your Music on Streaming Services
- Revamp Your Social Media Strategy
- Release an Album Like a Record Label
1. Setup Your Album With Distribution
The first step for how to release an album is making sure it’s properly setup with digital and physical distribution. Distribution can be boring, but the setup process can add another layer of income streams if you do it correctly. I recommend one of these digital distribution services because they are built with your band in mind: DistroKid, CD Baby, or OneRPM. They offer similar services, but each has a few things that make them unique. It’s important to properly setup your metadata, song titles, pricing, and pre-order strategy.
Mistakes To Avoid
Mistake to Avoid: Setting up your release for distribution before you have your music rights in order. Things like YouTube setup, publishing, royalties, SoundExchange, and international royalty collection are all things you need to consider. Read this post on 35 Ways To Make Money With Music
2. Release Singles To Build Awareness for the Album
We view pre-release singles as extra opportunities to get features on Apple Music and Spotify and build anticipation and awareness for your EP or album. When Apple or Spotify is aware that your singles are attached to an EP or album campaign they’re more inclined to want to get involved in your big marketing effort.
Also, if your single performs well on a playlist in the months before release date, your album may get more support from Apple on release week. This goes for all digital services.
Mistake to Avoid: Using different ISRCs on the stand alone single vs album. Make sure your pre-release singles have the same ISRC as the album version. This will prevent you from splitting the streams and algorithm popularity between the two versions, and other possible headaches. The only exception here is when they are clearly different recordings (sessions) of the same song.
Mistake to Avoid: Not pitching pre-release tracks for playlists at least three weeks before. You have to pitch early to get to the front of the line. Programmers are looking far out, so do yourself a favor and get to curators before your competition. Curators rarely go back and program old tracks after they’ve already been released. Don’t make this mistake. Plan ahead.
Grab my Free Spotify Track Plan – FREE PDF – This gives self-releasing artists a more simple workflow with 3 steps to focus on.
3. Launch A Pre-Order Campaign
Pre-orders and pre-saves on Spotify & Apple generate interest for your upcoming release. Remember Lincoln and his axe? Physical pre-orders will come from your web store, venue pre-orders, CD release show, and Amazon.com. Pre-Saves on Spotify or Pre-add on Apple Music is a way to have your album show up in a user’s music collection on the day of release.
The benefit to Apple Pre-Add and pre-orders is that when programmers are making their decisions on playlists and store features, they favor bands with more pre-saves.
Spotify Countdown Pages
Update: Feb 25, 2025
In 2024 Spotify launched their official pre-save feature called Spotify Countdown Page. This is for Albums and EPs, and not designed for singles. I’ve tested them and they are awesome. The artists I was involved with all saw double or triple the amount of pre-saves than a typical pre-save widget. If you are planning an album release (or an EP) read more about Countdown Pages on the official Spotify For Artists site. Not every artist is eligible for Countdown Pages. If you want to learn how to get a Spotify Countdown page read the requirements here.
Mistake to Avoid: Not registering all of your UPC’s (for physical formats) with Luminate (formerly MRC Nielsen Soundscan) early enough. You have to register your physical UPCs at least 2 weeks before you start pre-ordering. Otherwise you risk not getting credit for those pre-orders. Inquire with your physical distributor about ensuring Luminate (x-MRC Data) database department has all UPCs for digital configurations, CD, and vinyl.
4. Get In The Charts With This Strategy
Getting in the charts is a great goal. Charts are a way to get social proof within the industry and with fans. So when you chart, talk it up on social media and within the industry. I’ve written a post about charting and Luminate (formerly MRC Data / Soundscan). It’s U.S. focused, but the concepts apply everywhere.
Pro tip: Touring and submitting your venue sales through atVenu every night helps add to your chart position and overall album sales.
Like what you’re reading? I teach my full Spotify and fanbuilding strategy inside Band Builder Academy. I’ve also developed free software that taps into the Spotify API and it’s for members only. CLICK HERE to Learn More.
5. Be Patient, Don’t Rush
Too often, bands rush to put out their new EP’s or Albums without preparing. If I was going to release a new album, I would want to put in five months of hard work setting it up to the biggest audience. I would make sure to have tour dates in the weeks leading up to release, and stay on the road after street date as well. The further you get from street date, the harder it is to sell albums. Use the time before that tour to attack the markets (advertising, social media, press, influencers, blogs, video promotion, radio).
I would make a goal to bring on 10,000 new followers/fans before street date, so that I’m not relying solely on the current fan base. Over 90 days, that’s about 100 new followers p/day (Maybe 20 on each of Spotify, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X) every day – or any combination of those.
Use YouTube and Instagram/FB video ads, contests, Pandora, etc. YouTube is a discovery hub for building fanbases on all platforms, and I strongly recommend YouTube Ads.
With each single launch and video premiere, roll out awesome campaigns to back them up. Fans will appreciate a smooth rollout and clever marketing.
6. Get Your Songs In Playlists
Gone are the days of hustling to get added to large promotional playlists. That type of playlist promotion like what you see from Playlist Push or anything that sells you playlists is a dead end and leads to passive streaming. What you really need to focus on is “active streams” on Spotify. One of the best ways to get active streams is asking fans on social media or email to add your songs to their personal playlists on Spotify and Apple.
Other than getting on your own fan’s playlists, I suggest you pitch for Spotify editorial playlists and have some advice on that here.
Mistake to Avoid: Submitting to Spotify too late. Official playlist curators value new music. The Spotify for Artists portal won’t accept song submissions after release date. Submit for playlists between six and two weeks prior to the release of a particular track.
7. Optimize Your Music on Streaming Services
Spotify For Artists:
Take advice directly from the source. Spotify has gone into great detail on how artists can and should utilize the service. It’s totally worth spending several hours searching around the Spotify website artist section. Get access to your stats through Spotify For Artists. Check out their guides, videos, FAQs, and best practices.
Apple Music:
Apple has a portal for artists called Apple Music Connect. It’s where you can share video, audio, and images with your fans in a sort of Facebook wall environment. Claim your artist profile and tap into Apple Music Connect. Read through the FAQ’s to learn more.
Pandora AMP & Song Boosts
Pandora recently extended their hand to the artist community with a suite of artist tools called AMP. They let you pitch your music directly to them much in the way Spotify does. To learn about it, Pandora has provided this AMP Playbook. Recording radio style liners and song boosts are game changers for music streaming.
Amazon
Amazon Music For Artists has a very similar pitch process as Spotify for Artists. They allow you to pitch new music up to 14 days after it’s released. So don’t miss out!
YouTube – YouTube is #1 for music streaming globally (in terms of volume). We’re talking serious traffic. So make sure you capture as much of it as possible. Feed the algorithm and optimize your music video. To learn optimization techniques I recommend you do a Google search and read up on three or four recent articles. Recent is key. Search “music video promotion on youtube”
TikTok
There are two types of music distribution for TikTok. “original sounds” which you upload directly to your TikTok feed, and distributed “sounds”, which your distributor feeds TikTok and you can monetize. And when you setup distribution they allow you to choose your short snippet of the song. (most digital distributors have this capability now) So when somebody searches through sounds on TikTok, they don’t have to start from the beginning of the song. This is key. You want people to hear the perfect snippet that’s ideal for their short video clip.
Mistake to Avoid: Missing out on streams from Pandora, Amazon, Soundcloud, and YouTube. Some digital distributors require some extra push to ensure your tracks go up on Pandora in a timely manner. (Like on release date). It’s common for Pandora to only put your music on the “paid” tier, and not the “free” tier. So be proactive and reach out to Pandora Artist Support and your digital distributor ahead of time.
Still like what you’re reading? I teach my full Spotify and fanbuilding strategy inside Band Builder Academy. I’ve also developed free software that taps into the Spotify API and it’s for members only. CLICK HERE to Learn More.
8. Revamp Your Social Media Strategy
All of these social platforms reward consistency and high quality content. What I’ve noticed moves the needles is when your audience starts to show up in the comment section regularly – being “social”. I won’t say it all boils down to comments, because there are other engagement actions users take to help tell the algorithm your content is popular. For example: saving, sharing, liking, session duration. But once they see that you have a community of regular people engaging in the comment sections, that is usually the turning point.
Use each platform the way they are intended so get to know the best practices for each one. You can sell, but make sure it’s in combination with something interesting or normal conversation. Instead of simply saying “watch our video”, try asking a question about the video, start a conversation, or say something intriguing that begs a click/view.
9. How to Release an Album Like a Pro
Check out my musician’s guide to the music industry. It lays out an overview of the various departments at a record label.
EXERCISE: Case Study Research
Have each band member research a band. Do this all in one day. Don’t just pick your favorite bands. Pick bands that have records coming out 2-4 months from now. That’s easy to find, just go to every record label’s website and look at their “coming soon” releases. Then go to those bands’ social media pages and websites, and study how they are setting up their albums. Compile all of your research and take note of things that were positive and things that were negative. If you follow the same best practices, you will be ahead of 90% of other bands.
Disclaimer: Not every label does it right. Choose labels that you respect and have a reputation for cutting edge rollouts.
Take notice of how they announce their album and artwork. How do they launch their pre-order? Watch how they promote their first single and music video. Work with your team to incorporate some of the things you learned and challenge yourselves to come up with your own unique release plan.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to release an album, get your plans together and make it happen. Help the community learn from your process and share your experiences in the comments below.
- How to Get On Spotify Editorial Playlists - April 7, 2025
- How To Create an Artist Playlist on Spotify - November 28, 2024
- Singles Vs. Albums - November 12, 2024
23 Comments on “How To Release an Album: 9 Tips for Self Releasing Music”
Thanks for this Todd. Plenty of great advice.
Awesome! Thanks for this Todd!
Hey Todd,
Really great blog, quick question for you. Do you need to have a label thats been up and running for two years in order to report sales at shows or can an independent do this as well?
Hey Drew, Any artist can can use AtVenu to submit venue sales. You don’t have to have a record label. You just need to ensure your physical album (CD or Vinyl) is assigned a UPC and that UPC is registered to Nielsen Soundscan. Don’t assume your digital distributor will submit a physical UPC to Nielsen Soundscan (most don’t offer that).
Awesome Thank you Todd…
You’re welcome!
Yes I have a question!!!
I’m setting up an album for preorder with distrokid but I want to be able to release the singles as they lead up to the album release instant gratification only allows a few stores but I’m looking to everyone be able to hear and download the single for the rest of the stores like Spotify, Pandora etc not just iTunes and stuff. I’m having difficulty with this can anyone explain further as this is my first go around making a preorder.
Hey Michael, Unfortunately with digital aggregators like DistoKid, CD Baby, TuneCore, you don’t have the ability to drip multiple instant grat tracks on iTunes ahead of release. You need a major or major-indie distributor to utilize that. But don’t fear, instant grat tracks are a dying format since iTunes recently buried the iTunes store. iTunes is completely gone from Apple’s new Catalina OS. It’s still available on PC machines, but it’s an automated version of what iTunes used to be. So switch your focus away from instant grat tracks and to stand alone single releases in the lead up to the album. Ensure you use the same ISRC codes from the stand alone singles on the album.
I’ve updated the article to reflect the changes at Apple, as not to confuse anybody with instant grat tracks.
How many singles can you release from the same album to be counted towards soundscan/Billboard?
Hey Tieran, thanks for your questions. Good ones. I’ll answer both comments/questions here.
Overall
There are no Soundscan/Billboard rules preventing you from packaging up a group of singles into one album and releasing it later. That is how it worked in the early days of the album format. Singles first, then albums later.
No. For example you have “Best Of” or “Greatest Hits” albums that all chart in the Billboard.
I answered this above. But current artists are also doing this more frequently now. They’ll release 10-12 singles over a 6-12 month period and then package it as an album. With the way music is released and consumed it makes good sense.
Here is the mistake or misconception. Some artists incorrectly thought that they could accumulate streams for their singles. For example, get 10 singles to 500,000 streams each, and then when they release the album, they combine 10 songs for 5,000,000 streams. And they think that will get them a high chart position on release week. NO, this is NOT POSSIBLE. Nielsen/Billboard does not accumulate single streams or sales and save them up for the chart week (1st week). ONLY your first week streams/sales count toward the chart. Friday through Thursday of release week. That is it.
There are many benefits to releasing singles from your album before release date, but your first week chart position is not one of them.
Todd
Thank you so much Todd, I’ve been searching for this info for months. Releasing a lot of singles sounds like a good idea for getting more album presales which could help you chart in the first week but could hurt your first week streaming numbers if you get all the streams before you release the album. It sounds like you should release a bunch of singles and when one goes viral make sure you release the album that Friday so those viral streams chart your album (which I’m sure is why labels try so hard to sign a viral sensation immediately)
Is there a limit to how many singles you can release before you release the album? Is there a maximum allowable time limit from when you release your first single until you release the album? What’s stopping someone from releasing every song from their album as a single and waiting 10 years for the singles to accumulate record breaking streams and then releasing the album?
Loads of great advice thank you Todd. I am currently recording an album of progressive rock music from a band I had in the early 80s. Is there a particular distributor or firm that specialises in this genre for when it is completed?
No problem Gawen. I don’t know of any specialist prog rock distributors, but there are labels. I’m biased toward Inside Out Music, because they were under my watch when I was a sales guy at Sony. They operate very much like the indie label that they truly are. One of the best label staff I ever worked alongside. K Scope is another active and well respected label in the genre. I don’t recall Inside Out doing much with re-releases of old material. The focus seems more on frontline new music. But there is a general interest in catalog right now. Prog rock has a small but very fanatic fanbase. I would say the promotional part of the prog rock community is the same. Small but passionate. Good luck to you! Todd
Thanks so much Todd I have loads of recordings from bands on that label and they do an amazing job of promoting the genre. I think I’m going to start by trying to get the tracks on a digital platform to begin with and then write new stuff which might be suitable for a label. The music I am recreating is from a band I ran called Elyssia who were out around the time of early Marillion and Pallas but we never actually got into a studio, so it’s a kind of unfinished business from my point of view. Any other thoughts or suggestions you might have about the scene would be great. Thank you for getting back so quickly.
No problem. Here are a couple of my favorite progressive rock recommendations. TheProgReport.com (and podcast) Roie Avin who runs it is an encyclopedia of appreciation for the genre. Another podcasts called Radical Research. radicalresearch.org You can’t dig any deeper into the music than these guys do.
Todd
Thanks again Todd I’ll look into these.
Good stuff!
Very interesting & thank you . Studying is on the horizon .
Hello how are you brother..!! Can i release 3 up to 4 singles before launching my Album.. Magezi
I’m doing well 🙂
Yes, that is recommended. Learn more about it in this YouTube video I made – around 5:00 minutes – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYcmaOwX-8Q
Todd
What a great article, I really enjoyed the steps you provided, I will publish a translation of this article on my website
Thank you
What a strange comment. People just say, “I will publish a translation of this article on my website”? I understand people out there share content with their audience and credit the creators. But this not that. Iman is saying he’s just going to translate it and “publish” it on HIS website. Or is it? I understand I can’t reach everybody using English language, but at least if you’re going to put it on your website, give credit to the original author.
I wouldn’t take somebody else’s music and say, “great song, I’m going to sing it in English and release it”. That’s called a “derivative work”, and you need permission and a license.
Todd