Releasing An Album

[john]

Hey

if you were releasing your album, how would you go about it? I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on strategy, things to look out for, things to make the most of.

Cheers

John

[tommy]

Hi,

Although I'm not an expert on the release of records, here are a few things that would come to mind.

Upon the release of a new C.D., I think that shows promoting the album are obviously very important to your music's success. One way I would use to get fans excited for a new release would be to slowly reveal the album one concert at a time. This could be done in one of two ways: just play the one or 2 best songs off the album per show or alternatively if you traveled a lot you could play a different song for each city. I like the first option best because it'll show the fans the best of your new stuff and they'll buy the album if they enjoy your featured songs even though some other tracks may be slightly weaker. The strong point I see in the second option is simply not wearing a few songs out in the ears of the public.

Past these very rudimentary ideas I can't really say much accept for submitting a featured track to radio stations in hopes of some airplay which is a major boost.

[FinnArild]

I think two keywords are "presence" and "target". Target being your potential customers and presence being your inability to be two places at once.

The smaller the target, the larger presence you can have over it and vice versa.

I will share with you some thoughts regarding my upcoming release:

This time around I have from the start defined my target as "medium to hard progressive rock fans". I will also limit the target further by targeting certain countries/areas/languages separately, starting with presence in Nordic (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland) progrock sites,radio shows and magazines with reviews, interviews and whatever possible. Hopefully this will be centered around a release gig where I can get some video footage done.

A key is that it is widely available for purchase online - though I will not bank on getting any wide distribution. Progrock fans are used to not seeing their CDs on Walmart (actually, that would be a definitive negative point ...)

After the local release effort I will build presence online by getting out as much video clips out as possible as well as being VERY active on forums like the one you are on now (and some not so much like it). Hopefully CDBaby will now have a wide digital distribution of my CD and have gotten some reviews.

Then I will concentrate on other regions - without deciding now, they are likely to be divided into: Italy/Spain/Portugal/Latin America (big on progrock), Central Europe (with Germany as base), Eastern Europe (Poland is a good start probably) and (if at all) USA.

In these other regions I will work with trying to get distribution and/or licensing on one end, and reviews/interviews/radioplay/articles on the other end. Any gigs in Europe are unlikely bar any larger licensing deal should happen.

All this is gonna take me roughly 18 months of promotion work, give or take 6 months depending on how people will like Testament.

[MusicKing]

As Finn said, you need to define your target audience.

If this is your first release, my question to you would be ; " Are there people ready to buy your album"

If not, you may end up very frustrated trying to promote your CD.

In my experience, it is really important for you to know your fans very well, possibly even before you go into the studio.

Why? Because you might create recordings they might not be interested in.

If you have money - record 3-4 good songs and use them to build a fan base. After you see what their response is go in and do the album.

Honestly, one post will not be enough to tell you all you need to do. Educate yourself as much as you can on music business and promotion.

There is no way you can avoid it if you really want to succeed.

All the best!

[FinnArild]

I tried that, and didn't get too much sales from it. I learned a whole lot, though.

[Chokai]

The best possible way to get those sales is simply getting it to all the right places. Get the music at least 3 months before the release date to as many digital distributors as you possibly can, so when it becomes available, its easy to get ahold of both digitally and physically. If you have CDs, get it distributed and sold to retailers and quickly as possible and then spend the time to release date promoting it hard. If it does not sell, leave it for a year and release it again!

The recent kings of leon "shove my music down your throat" technique has gotten them a top-selling album. This was not down to the fact that it was good (but in this instance, it is good..) but down to the fact that it had stacks of radio play, tons of Internet advertising and DJ asslicking. If you study how others do it you'll find a good model. The only thing is you'll need a million quid to do it.

First of foremost, if your not happy with it in any way, dont release it. Oh, and make sure its mastered to a good standard.

[Lazz]

1. It is very very easy to spend money on advertising and promotion

2. It is very very hard to make advertising and promotion effective

3. The one and only single guaranteed effective promo strategy we have is performance

[typo]

good topic, lots of useful little nuggets in there

what about royalties collection? music contracts?