12mo out
Phase one
Lock the paperwork
The least glamorous month, and the only one that is genuinely hard to fix later.
- Get the splits in writing. Songwriter percentages, session player agreements, producer points. Every person still likes you today. That will not always be true, and a signed page is what keeps it from mattering.
- Assign ISRC codes and a UPC. An ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) is the twelve-character ID attached to each track so a play can be counted and credited to you; a UPC is the barcode for the release as a whole. One ISRC per track, one UPC per release. Your distributor can issue them, but owning them yourself keeps your catalog portable.
- Register the works with your PRO. ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC, with correct writer and publisher shares.
- Register with the MLC. This is where mechanical royalties come from, and unmatched money sits there unclaimed for years.
- File copyright registration. Sound recording and composition are separate filings.
- Sequence the album and stop touching it. Endless revisiting is usually avoidance dressed as craft.
Do not skip
Flag any explicit content now, at the file level and in the metadata. Catching it after a radio package has gone out is a problem you cannot take back, and it falls on you rather than on the station.
Meanwhile
Begin writing and recording demos, and move into pre-production for your next record now. The year you are about to spend releasing this one is the year the next one gets written.
11mo out
Phase two
Build the assets
Everything a stranger will use to decide whether to spend time on you.
- Commission the artwork. Give a designer real time and a real brief.
- Shoot photographs. Horizontal and vertical, high resolution, at least one that works as a small square.
- Write the bio. Short version at 100 words, long at 400. Have someone who is not you write it if writing about yourself makes you shrink.
- Draft the one sheet. Album title, release date, label, distribution, a paragraph a programmer can read in fifteen seconds, track list, credits, contact.
- Choose the singles and their order. The first single sets expectations for the whole record. It does not have to be the best song. It has to be the most legible one.
- Set the budget. Radio, publicity, video, manufacturing, advertising. Write the numbers down before anyone asks for them.
9mo out
Phase three
Book the people and the date
The specialists you want are already booking this far out. This is the month that decides whether you get them.
- Hire the radio promoter. Good ones book months ahead and their calendars fill. Ask what they need from you and when, then put those dates in your own calendar.
- Hire a publicist if you are using one. Four to five months of lead is the minimum that lets them work long lead outlets.
- Set the release date. Avoid holiday weeks and the weeks around major releases in your genre. Check it against the Folk Alliance conference and the festival calendar you care about.
- Order vinyl now if you want vinyl. Four to six months is normal and it slips. Vinyl ordered later than this will not arrive for release day.
- Order CDs. Folk radio still uses them, and physical product still sells at the merchandise table in this genre.
- Open festival and showcase applications. Most close nine to twelve months before the event.
7mo out
Phase four
Long lead press and delivery
Monthly publications are working on issues that will print around your release.
- Long lead press begins. Print monthlies and quarterlies close three to four months ahead. If you want a review in the issue that lands near release, the pitch happens now.
- Deliver to your distributor for setup. Metadata, artwork, audio, territories.
- Send assets to your radio promoter. Audio, one sheet, photos, bio, and the physical product schedule.
- Plan the video. Shooting now leaves room for editing without panic.
- Start routing the release tour. Venues book three to six months out and the good nights go first.
5mo out
Phase five
Announce and release the first single
The public part of the campaign finally starts, roughly eight months after the record was finished.
- Deliver single one to the distributor at least four weeks before its release. Editorial playlist consideration requires that lead time and there is no way around it.
- Pitch the single for editorial playlisting through your artist portal, with a real description of the song and its context.
- Announce the album alongside the single. One announcement, everywhere, same day.
- Open preorder and presave links.
- Release single one. Add a visual loop for streaming platforms and a lyric video if the song carries words people will want to read.
- Begin the radio campaign on the single if your promoter works singles ahead of the album.
2mo out
Phase six
Service the album to radio
Folk radio needs the record in hand well before the street date, not on it.
- The full album goes to radio six weeks before release. Hosts build shows ahead. A record that arrives on release day arrives late.
- Physical mailing to reporting stations, plus digital delivery through the platform your promoter uses. Both, not one.
- Release single two. Same four week delivery rule as the first.
- Announce tour dates.
- Reviews begin to land from the long lead pitches made months ago.
- Track the stations that do not report. Some of the most influential folk programs report nothing automatically and have to be followed by hand.
The thing most artists get wrong
Radio time is measured from the date programmers receive the record, not the date the public gets it. Six weeks early is not early. It is on time.
0release
Phase seven
Release week
The smallest week in the campaign, and the one everyone thinks is the whole thing.
- Release day. Post once, well, rather than constantly.
- Play the release show. Have physical product in the room.
- Ship preorders the same week or earlier.
- Thank the programmers who added it, by name. This is not a formality. It is the relationship that makes the next record possible.
+6months
Phase eight
The part that actually charts
A folk record does its real work in the months after it comes out.
- The radio campaign runs eight to twelve weeks past release. Adds accumulate slowly, and chart position is built during this window rather than on release day.
- Keep touring behind the record. Airplay and live dates feed each other in this genre more than in any other.
- Pitch for synchronization once the record has been out long enough to have a story.
- Submit for awards and check eligibility windows, which often close well before you expect.
- Apply for showcases for the following year, which brings you back to phase three of the next record.
- Audit your registrations. Check that royalties are matched and flowing. This is where the money from the paperwork you did fourteen months ago actually shows up.
Working backward from a fixed date
If the release date is set by something outside the music, an anniversary, a tour, a festival, then the master delivery date is set too. Count back twelve months and be honest about whether the recording can be finished by then. If it cannot, one of the two has to move, and the calendar will not negotiate.
If you truly do not have a year
Six months is the practical floor with a promoter and a publicist, and it costs you vinyl, most long lead press, and some festival cycles. Below four months you are releasing without a campaign, which is a legitimate choice for a single or a live record and a costly one for an album you spent years making.
What the year is really buying
Not perfection, and not delay. It buys the chance for the people whose attention you need, programmers, writers, bookers, listeners, to encounter the record in an order that makes sense to them. A record released the week it is finished asks strangers to care immediately. A record given a runway lets them arrive on their own.
Creekside Music ServicesFOLK & ROOTS