You have your music mixed and mastered, it sounds amazing and you are ready to release it on Spotify (and all other streaming services).

Submitting your release

The most important thing to keep in mind is to plan things ahead of time. It may take up to 7 days for your songs tho show up on all services, and that’s assuming everything goes smoothly. The further out you schedule the release date, the better and I will go into the details shortly. For now, this is how you can get started:

Open up an account on DistroKid. Here’s a discount link.
I suggesting signing up for ‘Musician Plus’ plan. It will let you release an unlimited number of tracks for a flat rate and schedule releases.
If you schedule a release in the future, DistroKid will give you a ‘Pre-Save’ link. Save it and we’ll talk about that in a bit!
Register on artists.spotify.com

A word about the artwork

It’s worth mentioning that your artwork can delay your release if it does not meet the technical specifications. It’s nothing crazy and will just ensure that your releases will look great. Here are the official artwork guidelines.

In addition, when releasing singles, you will need different artwork for each release, so don’t risk uploading the final album artwork for a single, or you will find you won’t be able to use it for the actual album. For instance, an easy way to alter the artwork for a single is changing the color scheme, or even just adding the song title in a different color for each single on top of the art.

Album artwork: single vs album — Vivifyd’s single ‘Walk Away‘ artwork on the left vs ‘Beliefs & Insanity‘ album release on the right

How to get on official Spotify playlists?

You can let Spotify editors know that you would like your song to be featured on a ‘New Music’ playlist. If that happens, you get thousands of new listeners out of the gate. It’s free but there are a few caveats:

You can only suggest one release at a time.
You can only suggest one song per release.
The more time between submission and release, the better (minimum 7 days).

Therefore, to maximize your chances your best bet is to release singles every two weeks or so and suggest every song. In the end, you can bundle everything into an album and release again (ideally with a bonus track to make it special). Here’s an example timeline:

Schedule song 1 for release at least 7 days in advance.
Submit the song to editors via artists.spotify.com.
Schedule song 2 for release at least 7 days after song 1.
Once song 1 is released, immediately suggest song 2 to Spotify editors.
Repeat for all songs.

What’s a ‘Pre-save’?

It’s a web page from DistroKid that will let your fans get notified when your song releases. The more pre-saves you have, the higher your chances of getting noticed. A nice added bonus is that any fan that pre-saves, will also get notified of all your future releases as well.

Once your release reaches the release date, the ‘pre-save’ link is still useful and transforms into a page that has links to all major streaming services.

Spotify pre-save before and after release — Before release ‘pre-save’ on the left and after release on the right.

After releasing singles, how can I make sure that the album version will retain the play count?

DistroKid should usually do that for you, as long as you upload the exact same file. However, if you want to be absolutely sure, note down the ISRC number for each single that you released. This is a unique identifier for your song. When uploading the same song as part of the album, make sure to manually specify ISRC in DistroKid and paste the matching ISRC from the single version.

I’m done. Now what?

It’s time to promote! Here’s a simple guide to promoting your music online.

Would you like to get paid for your music? How about getting some nice perks, like music store, car rental and hotel discounts?

So you finally finished your album, you uploaded it to a distribution service, such as DistroKid so it shows up on iTunes and Spotify, and you’re done, right?

Well… yes but you might be missing out on some of the money your music earns you.

Your distribution service will collect money from iTunes sales and Spotify streams but there are additional revenue streams.

You might be missing royalty payments from the traditional radio (yes, still alive), college radio, TV, satellite radio, Pandora, webcasts, internet radios, and much, much more.

It can be surprising to find you have unclaimed royalties, so don’t assume your music will never get played in these situations. Instead, be prepared to get paid what you deserve for your hard work.

BMI, ASCAP, and SoundExchange are three top organizations that track your plays and collect the royalties for you.

BMI / ASCAP

Both organizations are pretty similar and you need to choose just one and stick with it. They collect royalties whenever your music is played publically – traditional radio, sports arena, club, a mall, etc.

Additionally, they can also pay for your live performances as long as you are the songwriter. For that, look up BMI live/ASCAP Plus.

The difference between them mostly comes down to fees and perks. At the time of writing this article, BMI offers discounted medical insurance, instrument insurance, discounts for Fedex and DiscMakers.

SOUNDEXCHANGE

For any non-public plays, SoundExchange is your best friend. This includes Satelite radio, Pandora, internet radio stations. Best of all, it’s free!

The most important step

Registering with these organizations is a great step in the right direction but you actually have to register your songs in order to collect royalties! It’s not the most exciting process and involves filling out some forms but that’s what makes this whole thing worth.

Keep in mind that each band member needs to register with BMI/ASCAP and SoundExchange but only one person needs to submit the songs.

Additional reading

Overview of Performing Rights Organizations

A detailed article about SoundExchange

Collecting royalties for live performance

How to effectively release on Spotify (and everywhere else)