Capítulo 21: Preparing for the Album Release
The difference between albums that get noticed and the ones that don't comes from
taking the time to plan and prepare for the release in advance. This means you need to
pick an official "release date" far enough into the future to give you time to do all the
necessary things to build buzz about your album and grow any publicity.
It's best to not set your release date until your CDs are in your hand. If you are going
to publicize your album in the traditional press or do a radio campaign, you'll want to
set the official release date at least 8-12 weeks after you've received the copies of your
album from the CD manufacturing house. If you forgo the traditional publicity and radio
route and focus more on running a new media campaign (blogs, podcasts, etc), which
craves immediacy, then you can have a shorter lead time. However, keep in mind you
still need time to get all your album-related merchandise, T-shirts, posters, and other
items in order.
Of course, this means you'll be sitting on the album for a while before the release date,
but fight the urge to simply release it to the public the moment you get it delivered to
your house. Following the steps below before the release will help give your album the
greatest chance for success and sales.
A. Pick a release date
This date will be used on all of your press materials (whether traditional or new media), fliers for
your CD release party, and more. Once you have this date, you can work backwards from it to
plan out the time you for the rest of steps in this section. The official release date should give
you enough time to make all the necessary preparations.
B. Prepare for online sales
One of the big reasons you don't want to get your albums back from your CD manufacturing
house and simply release the album to the public is that it takes time to get it in the stores,
both physical and digital. You'll want it available for purchase while you're busy promoting it to
encourage sales. Otherwise, you're wasting part of the benefit that your hard-earned publicity
is generating.
1. Pick your CD/Digital Distributor and sign up
You want to make your album available everywhere. CD and digital distributors are your
ticket to worldwide sales. In exchange for the fee and/or cut of the album or song track
sale, they handle all the business transactions. CD Baby is the web's biggest distributor of
independent CDs, and there are plenty of other outlets from which to sell your physical CDs
and downloads.
While you can sign up with as many CD stores as you'd like (these are usually non-exclusive
deals), there can't be more than one distributor bringing the same album to the same store (iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, etc.). Make sure the digital
distributor you sign up with gets your music in as many
outlets as possible
You always want to make it easy
for someone to buy your music.
So, keep a list of the hyperlinks
where your music is sold handy
(your CD Baby album page, your
iTunes page, etc.). These hyper-
links are the ones you'll be going
back to again and again as you
add them to your website, a new
web presence, in your newsletter in your email signature, or on
a press release. You'll also want
to add them to other "offline"
promotional items you create
such as your postcards, stickers,
and posters.
If the hyperlink is too long or
hard to remember, you can create
a shortened URL for it. Services
like tinyurl, is.gd, and bit.ly will
shorten lengthy URLs. Some, like
tinyurl, will allow you to come up
with your own custom name.
For instance, we changed the
link to our Sham Rock album
from cdbaby.com/cd/bturtle,
which isn't very descriptive in
print, to tinyurl.com/shamrock-
album.
2. Create your album's profile and upload your
album's artwork
Most distributors ask you to fill in the details about your
album and songs at their website. Here's what you should
have available for the online stores:
• Album title
• Artist or band name
• Album summary (a one-line sentence about the album)
• Album description
• Genre
• Track names, order, and timings
• Songwriters and publishers
• Album cover art ready for upload
• Your bio/artist description
• Your website
• Your contact information
• Your logo
Given your distributor will likely share whatever information
you enter into their database with other stores, getting this
information right and thinking through what you're entering is
important. For instance, CD Baby sends your albums info and
artwork to over a dozen outlets, including iTunes, Rhapsody,
and Amazon. A typo, misspelling, or half-thought-out description about you and your music at this stage will be replicated
throughout the web, and even if you fix it, the search engines
will keep the mistakes for quite some time afterwards. Get
someone else to check it over!
C. Prepare audio for promotional purposes
1. Make MP3s from Mastered wavs
If you intend to promote your music through podcasts, MP3
blogs, websites like MySpace or Facebook, or even the press,
having ready-made MP3 versions of your music will save you
time and energy.
2. Tag and name MP3s correctly
Audio promotion is not simply encoding wavs to MP3.
Once you send an MP3 of your music out in the world, you
don't know where it'll wind up. You have to fill out the ID3
tags and add the album art so anyone who ends up with
your MP3 on their iPod knows who you are and where to
find more of it. After all, your music is your greatest sales and fan generation tool.
D. Plan your CD release show, listening
party, and/or tour dates
If you play live, your CD release show will become an
integral part of the next step — your publicity campaign.
A live show to support your album release gives you an additional reason to contact the press and media and keep
them updated. If you don't play live, then throw a listening
party. As we say in the book, publicity is all about multiple
impressions. To the extent you plan a tour in support of the
album, this gives you additional, targeted places in which
to focus your publicity efforts.
If you are going to play live in support of your album,
start cementing venues and dates early. While in the past
most musicians had to play locally or in concentric circles
from where they reside, you now can tour more effectively
by playing shows where your fans are. We recommend
using Eventful.com's free and powerful Demand tool.
With this tool, you can target (and budget) your tour
accordingly based on where your fans are and where
they want you to go
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