How Do I Self Publish My Music? (Part One)

There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of talented singers, songwriters, producers, musicians, bands, and groups over the world, but the truth is, we probably won’t ever hear more than 1% of these talented performers. For years, major record labels have dictated the kind of music we have access to. Radio stations wouldn’t take the risk of breaking a new independent artist in fear of an audience backlash causing a loss of revenue. Those days are gone!

With the evolution of social media, streaming music services, and ease of access to the internet, many of the previously unknown artists can now be heard. The question now is, how does it work? The answer may seem simple, but there are a lot of moving parts to success in today’s music industry. There is still the traditional record label route. If you are talented enough and have amassed a following large enough to attract their attention, they might sign you to a contract with a nice signing bonus.

For those of us who aren’t so fortunate, there are options. You could self publish through one of the streaming services. I think the easiest is SoundCloud. There you can post your music for free and start growing your audience. The free version is limited in the amount of storage you can use, but it’s a great way to start. Start being the operative word, you now need to create your own marketing campaign. (Be careful of strangers promising thousands of plays if you use their service.) Everyone already uses social media to interact with their friends, but now you need to use it to interact with your fans.

I would suggest, once you are ready to publish your music, upload it but keep it private. Then you can start your publicity campaign. Budget permitting, create handbills with a QR code that links to your music. You can pass these out at your shows. If you have music on multiple sites, use a service like LinkTree. This gives your fans a list of links to your music and your social media sites.

Build your audience from the ground up. Start with people who already like your music and have them like your social media pages. Ask them to share it with their friends. Believe it or not, many of them will. When you are ready, let your audience know you have an upcoming release. Set a firm date and advertise that date. This will build anticipation from your audience. Soon after the release date, go live on social media letting all your friends hear your music.

The fun doesn’t stop there. You will need to keep posting regularly to keep your music in front of your audience. Don’t be afraid you are going to wear out your welcome, everyone is already accustomed to seeing multiple social media posts about the same things. Once you get rolling, there is a lot more for you to figure out. I’ll cover that in a couple of weeks when I do part two.