How To Release an Album, Part One

This is a multiple-part post on getting your CD out of your living room. Part One is about radio airplay. Part Two will be about getting reviewed and sending your CD to record labels. Part Three might be about distribution if we have some by then.

I thought of blogging this a while ago, but wasn’t sure if it was information that people wanted. Well, we got a call a few nights ago from an acquaintance asking for some tips on releasing his first CD and ended up chatting for a while about our process for self-releasing Brave Radar’s first album. Following the classroom logic of “If you have a question, odds are that at least a few other people in room would like to hear the answer”, multiplied by the internet, I decided it was time to share our story. We’re really really really not experts, we just did it and can now tell you how it went. It starts with Brave Radar printing 100 copies of Distracting Strangers…

Canadian Non-Commercial Radio

After giving away many many copies to friends, we handed about 35 CDs to our friend, Mitz Takahashi. Mitz is Fixture’s radio expert, having worked as station manager at the Uni of Lethbridge. He helped us mail packages to the Canadian campus and community radio stations who report to earshot (ie. Reporting Stations). [The deal on why some report and others don’t or can’t is here.]

Earshot provides a list of reporting stations with their mailing addresses, station manager names, email addresses for follow-up, and website links for info on each station. It’s awesome.

Notes about mailing packages to radio stations:

* Campus and community stations are really important! People in other cities will listen to your music and come to your shows when you tour.

* You need a press kit (including press release and one-sheet). Definitely read this article from Rightround on putting together a press kit. I would consider our article an experientially annotated follow-up to that piece, which I think covers most of what you need to know. For press releases, be brief! And Risa’s words on finding your voice in writing make sense here too. We send a CD case-sized piece of paper printed with: a paragraph about Brave Radar, a photo of the band, Fixture’s mailing address and contact info. That’s it. In the paragraph, we bolded the name Brave Radar and the album name, we included the names of all band members, and made sure to mention that Brave Radar has played some festivals (Pop Montreal and SXSW), use 2 guitars, kitchen-sink drums, shared vocals, and that this is their first full-length release. Think of it as pitching a story. What is interesting or important? In short, give context. Imagine your package being opened by someone who hasn’t heard of you. Who are you? What do you play? How will you be talked about by DJs and listeners? A lot of the time, you’ll hear or see your press release being quoted as the description of your band, so write something that you like and that has lasting meaning. And be humble, for goodness sake.

* For one-sheet info, read the rightround article. But the main thing here is: name of band, name of CD, date of release, location in the world. Though it’s usually recommended, we chose not to pick “singles” or suggested tracks. This worked out fine; most stations chose the same 2 or 3 songs to play. Maybe it meant they listened to the whole album since we hadn’t specified what to listen to. Maybe it meant some stations skipped over the CD entirely. Just keep in mind, you wanna make the station manager’s job easy.

* Use simple simple simple packaging that appeals to you. If your CD comes in a a cardboard sleeve (like Brave Radar’s does), or in anything else that isn’t a jewel-case, you should put it into a jewel-case. If your CD is added to a station’s rotation, they’ll store it on their shelves with the spine facing out. Jewel cases with clear text on the spine can be seen (and found, and played). Non-jewelcased CDs may be hidden (and not found, and not played). We got our jewelcases in bulk from this cheap electronics store on Mont-Royal in Montreal. Look for chinese import/export shops in your town. For your actual CD (not the promos you send to radio stations), look for more environmentally friendly options that won’t crack and die in a few months.

* Mail your whole package in bubblewrap-lined envelopes. These you can get for free from radio stations who receive hundreds of them each week and throw them away. Your CD may arrive broken if the bubbles in the envelopes have deflated after their first mailing, so I don’t know, check the state of the bubbles in your bubblewrap. Or just buy/make CD mailers. Try the dollarstore. We bought ours from the post office for like way too much.

* Follow up by sending (very brief, friendly, calm) emails a week after your packages should have arrived (so about 2 weeks after you mail them out). Stations will let you know if they’ve received your CD and have added it to their rotation.

This whole radio mailout process cost us between $60-$85:

• printing press release ($5 for 35)
• jewelcases ($5-$10 for 35)
• mailers ($1 x 35=$35)
• postage stamps ($0.96 x 35=$33.60) [I can’t remember if CD mailers are light enough to count as lettermail, in which case the price is half this amount]

Not cheap. But the majority of this cost is in the actual mailing of the CDs. Try internet radio if you refuse to pay this much to get played. It can also be much cheaper if you learn from our mistakes and also pick up your own tips.

Ok, Part Two of this article will talk about sending CDs to record labels, weeklies, magazines, blogs, etc. Watch out!

Another good resource in the meantime:

Dave Cool’s website for Stand Alone Records features some extensive links and pdfs on marketing, radioplay and media coverage tracking, distribution, online promotion and networking, and other stuff.

Photos in this post from YlvaS and Ross Murray.