As an indie musician, one of the best ways to spread the word about your music is through music blog submissions. More specifically, you send a polished track to a specific blog, and hopefully, they can send some exposure in your direction. Unfortunately, it’s not just about finding random music blogs and sending your tracks. If you are going to make a good first impression, you want to consider a few things before pushing the send button.
1. Make Sure You Have Quality Tracks
While the recording quality doesn’t always have to be perfect, it is important that you have music worth listening to. The reality is that some are more talented than others when it comes to music, and if you are going to send out tracks, get some opinions first. At the same time, put effort into the recording and production part of the track.
2. Aim For Appropriate Music Blogs for Submission
Even though it sounds logical to send a music blog submission to every blog you can find, you are actually just wasting your time according to SMVT. What you should be doing is scouting for music blogs that cover your style of music on a regular basis. Make sure they are friendly to indie artists and they want to support you before you just start sending emails.
3. Pay Attention To Submission Guidelines
Every music blog will have its own guidelines for music submissions, and this makes sense. For example, some are going to ask for additional information or a link to your music. While others might only want a song sent through email or uploaded to the site. Pay close attention to the submission guidelines and follow them as best you can. Otherwise, you are not going to get the coverage you are looking for.
4. Double-Check The Details
Even though there will most likely be a contact form available on the blog, it is not the only manner of contact you should depend on. Also look for an email to confirm that you’ve sent a submission. Because when contact forms are outdated or not working properly, you can be waiting for a response that will never come.
5. Spelling And Grammar
While you are a musician with a dream to sell records and not books, it is only professional to check your spelling and grammar whenever submitting anything to a music blog. Of course, a few spelling errors won’t dictate whether you are going to get featured, but it can make a bad first impression and even lead to misunderstandings.
6. Make It Easy To Find You
Links can be very effective in terms of getting more exposure, mainly because they are convenient for users. If they can just follow a link to your Spotify or YouTube channel as supposed to downloading endless files, it will count in your favor. In fact, some music blogs are going to insist that you share links instead of using the upload option.
For the most part, a degree of information is asked about the band or musician. This information is typically used when the track is featured, and how much you need to share depends on the music blog requirements. And as a final tip, make the submission quick and effective. Point out what’s important and let the music speak for itself. Because if the submission text is one long essay, you shouldn’t expect people with busy schedules to read it.