How to release Music without Spending any Money

hey guys welcome to the studio today is a very busy business day because i've planned a release plan ahead of me for a song called watch me burn that i finished like two or three months ago it will be released on the label of lost frequencies which is good news but also means a little bit of work like i'm not releasing my song myself on my own label i'm releasing it through someone else but there are still things i have to take care of and it's a perfect opportunity to guide you guys through my process that i've used a million times on all of the songs that i've ever released myself on how to promote and make your music as successful as possible without spending any money because that's exactly how i started with absolutely zero just by working hard making a good song getting it out there promoting it as much as possible and i want to like guide you through it step by step everything you need to do and i can guarantee you if you follow through you'll have success the first step to success is by far the most important everything else builds up on the first step and that is choosing the right song and making the right song making good quality music no matter what kind of style it needs to be good technically good mixing mastering the arrangement the automation the sound selection the chords the lyrics like everything needs to be as good as possible and my personal approach is to just make a bunch of songs like just the first one or two hours of making a song collect 10 20 and then select the best out of these and finish it this way i save a ton of time finishing all of them and then realizing that summer crap is a big waste of time so do like the selection at the beginning do sketches rough ideas select pick the best one finish it and then all the way through get feedback by other producers other musicians family and friends you can't really count on they will lie to you just to not hurt your feelings that won't help you you need people that are honest maybe if you play it to friends and family don't tell them it's your song so they can just like say whatever they want and don't be don't be an ass and and like give them a hard time for for trashing your son because then they will never help you again it's important that you know where you're standing at otherwise you can't prove especially as a beginner you always overestimate what you've done because you think it's brilliant but it's usually not the next big part is then deciding do you want to release the music yourself or do you want to release it through a label they're pro and cons usually if you do it yourself it's a lot more work it will distract you from making music but if you succeed you get more money you have more control more freedom and less trouble with communicating with another party that can sometimes screw you happen to me a lot if you release it with a label with the proper label they will take care of all of these tests more time for music making more time to concentrate on other stuff they will probably take away 50 to 80 percent of the income your song makes which is a little unfair but that's just how the market is right now and releasing your music yourself nowadays is super easy and straightforward you just need to try and find a distributor there are a bunch available um the most famous one is probably distrokid i can really recommend them because i heard a lot of people complaining about certain things that are going on there with like taxes and if you want to delete something have something additional any kind of small service they will charge you extra extra extra i personally at the beginning used wise band if you're interested i'll link them down below in the description you can check it out but you're free to use whatever distributor they basically do the same thing they take your song and put it out on all of the stores spotify apple music deezer and whatnot we're just talking about a digital release a physical release at the moment for an artist that is starting out i cannot recommend it's way too expensive the only way you could make money and get something moving and start it is if you're already touring and you're already selling merch then like pressing some cds or vinyl might be an option you can consider but usually i would say no and then the next steps are all about branding branding yourself think about what kind of music you make think about music that is close to your music how are these other bands djs producers singers songwriters how are they promoting themselves what does the website of them look like is it dark and moody is it happy and colorful you need to come up with like an identity for your brand the picture press pictures of you should have like a certain look the the promo videos you make should have a certain look how you treat your instagram it should have like a look that fits to the music and is rememberable and that like people that listen to this kind of music actually like for example people listening to heavy metal are probably more interested in something dark gritty moody then it's something colorful happy and bright that's really something in general you should always consider no matter what you do as an artist but then the big next step is then actually planning the release you should start by selecting a release date it should be at least a month ahead i would recommend one and a half to two so you can react if something goes wrong and at that point when you schedule in the release you need to have your song ready the mastered version that is final ready and doesn't have any mistakes anymore and then you also make a cover again here consider your ci like your identity make something that fits to the mood of the song and to you in in general just pick something you like making a cover shouldn't be that hard at the same time also start making like little teaser videos for your social media maybe a video where you show how you made the song to get people further connected to the song just a song isn't enough to sell it you need a story behind it maybe make a video where you explain the lyrics why that song what's the meaning of the song then maybe if you're a producer do a technical video on how you made the kick drum and the synthesizer sounds if you're um i don't know a guitar player do like an acoustic live version of the song and have like little chunks of the song a month ahead that you can post every day so people get like familiar with the song get teased a little and maybe also like develop already like that the melody is stuck in their head a little and i know at this point a lot of people will say they don't even have any following and any social media things going on and why should they do it but that's how you get started you have first to create the content and then people will come if you don't make anything no one will ever come and then you don't make anything because no one is there that just doesn't make any sense you have to start the beginning is extremely extremely frustrating i think if there's one thing you take away from this video is like how to deal with like being frustrated because that will happen a lot you will work a lot and nothing will happen and that just frustrates it like happened to me like my entire career is like now 15 years in the making i'd say 12 of them were just frustrating highly highly frustrating since three years things are starting to to move like steady slowly but it's it's it's going up a little it's frustrating anyways let's let's continue with the stuff that gets you to success um have a pre-save link ready have um like your links convert them into links you can actually track um there's like bitly where your short links but there are other companies where you can shorten it and track it so you can see where people are coming from focus on that that's really important for the future maybe already build up a newsletter so people can like leave their email address and you can inform them every time you have a release those are things you really have to build up over time also during this phase start already a month ahead again start writing to blocks that cover your type of music be nice to them write a personal email hey guys i'm a fan of your blog i'm reading about it and i'm now releasing my song is there any chance you could feature it do the same for private spotify playlist that's probably right now the most important to focus on try to convince them ask them nicely if they could help you hey i'm a young artist i'm just starting out i love your playlists i think this song might fit in there could you please please please put it in your playlist probably 99 won't respond but that one percent could be the one percent that is enough to spark something for you for example one of my very early songs all about was like a chill deep house song i sent it to a bunch of players and no one responded except for this one playlist and it then got a lot of place within a short amount of time which then triggered the algorithm which then again made spotify recognize the song put it in one of their big playlists and it has now over three million place you also do the same for youtube channels it's not as important as it used to because the youtube algorithm changed a little it doesn't support music as much anymore as long as you don't release it officially over a distributor to youtube so um yeah still reach out to to bigger youtube channels because it's like they have a big following in a certain style if your music gets released there it will instantly grow also all of your social media so all of these parts that i'm talking about they interact if you do one the other will benefit and the other way around so so definitely again be active so now we talked about all of the stuff you do in advance now comes the day when you release your music and not a whole lot changes you still write all of these blogs youtube channels maybe even radio stations remind them on the release day hey today is the day where it's being released if you could feature it it would be so nice that's the way you have like a second chance with everyone you already contacted have a list with all of the contacts for the next release you already have these you don't have to search them anymore and you can add more and more and build up your connections this way same for the social media content post more and more very important to post a link to spotify probably because that's usually the most important for most artists and make sure people like share and put your song into their playlist this helps to trigger the algorithm at least a little and again if if at the beginning your song you picked is actually good all of this will be a lot easier some people do all of this stuff and nothing happens and yes this can happen but if you do it 10 times and nothing happens you should reconsider like the first step if the music is actually good enough and and makes sense also at this point when you release your song you should like register it with your royalty collecting company you can do it before the release you can do it like up to half a year or a year after the release but do it don't forget it because then all of the money is gone and they will keep it but it can be almost as much as you make through spotify directly so you can double your income on your music by just registering it with the royalty collecting companies and collect these royalties and then after the release keep up the promotion keep on posting keep on making video content i don't know if you're into tick tock do tick tock content make sure to link everything to your song make sure to like engage with people answer to the comments really important especially at the beginning you should answer every single comment and like just just build that up over time that's i think the most crucial when you like follow all of these steps because at this point like two three four weeks after your release the next release should be already ready ready to go to start this entire cycle all over again you should have at least six releases per year at least if you're really good and you can keep it up and keep up the quality then maybe try even 10 to 12 but that's no 12 don't do 12 10 i'd say 10 is the absolute max also by the way do single releases don't do eps don't do albums that's like a thing of the past it just doesn't work anymore since there's spotify algorithms it just doesn't just doesn't make any sense anymore most big artists yes they still release albums but usually they have like five singles before the album release and then five singer afterwards like it's like the album is just like a fan tool and if you're a young artist you don't have a big following just doesn't make any sense it's just a big waste of your energy your time putting towards like 15 songs and none of them get any place you need to build up the following and you build it up by constantly doing the same stuff that i just mentioned which also already concludes the video all of this only works if you repeat it if you just i don't know you make a song you like it and then you do all of this you promote it and then nothing happens and it's very likely that nothing will happen you get frustrated and then don't have the energy to do it again the next month that's how you set up failure instantly you need to do it again you have to fight and and like do it again all over again and like one or two times isn't enough five to ten and then you're probably standing already somewhere entirely else than when you started so don't be frustrated just believe in your music enough to keep on pushing it or listen to the feedback of other people implement it improve your music with every release improve your connections improve your promotion skills and i'll guarantee you by following all of this without spending any money you have a high chance of succeeding so just try and do it don't give up and that's basically it let me know how you release your music what you've done right in the past what made it successful for you or if you've never released something and this video helped you let me know we'll see us tomorrow back here in the studio more tips around music music production um maybe also advancing a little here in the studio there's still small things that need to be changed for example there's like a gap there needs there needs to be another another little sentence

Channel: Jon Sine

Views: 4,481

Rating: 4.869565 out of 5

Keywords: Jon Sine, dj vlog, producer vlog, season5

Id: d6vGGnODXGI

Length: 16min 9sec (969 seconds)

Published: Tue May 25 2021