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 "In Part 1 of “How to Be Your Own Music Publicist,” I took you through all the different elements of an effective digital press kit and talked about the fact that you need to have them available for the media to easily access.

Here, in How To Be Your Own Music Publicist Part 2, we will go through the 5 things that need to be addressed before you can start pitching to music blogs and publications.

1. Research Music Blogs

2. Prepare Your Target Lists

3. Get Your Email and Newsletters in Order

4. Determine Your Ideal Release Schedule

5. Prep Your Visual Assets and Social Media Posts

Music Bloggers

There are currently over 200 million active bloggers on the internet. Blogs, as you know, can be about any topic. Some blogs are read by a few dozen people, while others are read by millions. The vast majority of all bloggers create blogs for no financial gain whatsoever; in fact, it usually costs music bloggers money to host their files and maintain their blogs.

Finding blogs that are right for you won’t take long – just dive in and start reading them. The ones that resonate will jump out at you.

I suggest curating a list of 25 blogs/ playlists and outlets to start. As you research add them to this so you can easily track your main targets Organizer.

Try and find a few that are related to your other interests and pursuits (not just music)!

+The 10 best blogs for musicians and bands

Here Are 4 Great Places to Find Music Blogs:

Hype Machine

According to them: Hype Machine keeps track of what music bloggers write about. We’ve carefully handpicked a set of 765 music blogs and then present what they discuss for easy analysis, consumption, and discovery. This way, your odds of stumbling into awesome music or awesome blogs are high.

I suggest spending some time on the site to figure out how it’s organized. Search for artists who are in your vein of music and see where they are getting covered. Be aware that Hype Machine covers a narrow spectrum of specific music mostly falling into the categories of Indie Rock, Indie-pop, and electronic and if you don’t make music that falls into this spectrum this is not a great place to look.

SubmitHub

There are currently thousands of active blogs, playlisters, social media influencers using SubmitHub with a combined reach of millions of fans. You need to pay to submit your music and you must do your research. SubmitHub is a great way to get to the blogs and get responses and feedback (well worth the investment!). Here’s how to use it like a pro.

+How to Find Playlists on Spotify that Accept New Music Submissions

Google

A word of warning about Google: if you are just starting out, searching for “Top Music Blogs” and blindly reaching out to the first ones that pop up is frankly not smart. These blogs get thousands of emails a day, and the chance of them even opening yours is slim to none. If you are just starting out, shoot for smaller blogs that rank lower, and are therefore not being inundated. You will have way better luck!

Twitter & Instagram

Most media creators maintain active Twitter accounts as it’s a media portal. And of course, everyone also uses Instagram. Tweet about your new releases and share music often, actively follow music blogs and playlisters on both Instagram and Twitter, and of course when pitching your music can DM through both portals.

Niche Bloggers

Work any angles you may have. Is the lead singer of the band a vegan, a parent, or really into yoga? Is someone in the band a micro-influencer?

While acting as your own music publicist, pitch to a few blogs that cover niche topics that fit your brand. A musician on a blog that is not only covering music is like a shark in a sea of tuna. You’ll stand out, and that’s what you want. Plus getting on blogs that are not all about music gives you a chance to show off your signature story and your brand and show you are a diverse human being.

+What's Your Story?

Create Your List of 25 Blogs

Your list should have quite a bit of variety. Choose a few bigger blogs – these are your stretches. You might as well aim big on a few because if you’re lucky and they come through, it’ll be party time.

But don’t spend a ton of time pitching to big names, because when you’re starting out, it’s the small and medium blogs that are going to show you the most love. Also make sure to include a podcast or two on your list, as well as a few of those niche blogs (non-music).

Add the blogs to your own google spreadsheet or Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet so you can keep track of who you pitch and when.

Make a Separate List of Your Music Industry Contacts

If applicable, make sure you have a separate list for your industry contacts as a music publicist so you can appropriately target the messaging for that audience. This includes booking agents, promoters, agents, labels, and managers.

+Three Tips for Pitching to Busy Music Executives

Curate Your List of Fan Email Addresses

In the midst of getting the attention of bloggers, don’t forget the most important people to notify about your release – your fans.

Be sure to get names and addresses on your mailing list and build your newsletter! It’s the absolute best way to let your fans know when you’ve released something new! (And you never know who owns a blog or a podcast or if a fan would love to share your music on socials).

How do you get email addresses? Put out a sign-up sheet at your concerts, and mention it during your set.

Set Up Your Email Account

Create a memorable email address – make sure it’s from a name (not newsletter@…). Not only does this make it more personal, it also reduces the chances that your emails will be filtered into spam folders.

If you want to track whether people are opening your emails (ideal for when you pitch to music bloggers), sign up for a service like Boomerang, or Hubspot’s Sidekick.

Choose (or Update) Your Email Newsletter Management System

You need to use a newsletter management system. Using one makes it easier to create and send well-formatted and on-brand emails to large groups of people. It also gives you analytics on how many people are opening your emails, what links they are clicking, and most importantly, it offers a streamlined option for people to subscribe and unsubscribe. You don’t want to annoy people with unsolicited emails. This is bad for your brand, so bite the bullet and sign up for a service like MailChimp.

Another great thing about MailChimp and similar services is that you can target specific subsets of your email list. Make a separate list for music industry contacts, or for your fans in New York City, etc.

+6 ways to persuade people to sign up for your band's email newsletter

Sit down, take a breath, and lay out your ideal release schedule. If you’re putting out an album, how many singles do you want to release? What are your target dates for those premieres? How are you going to keep your momentum going in between features?

A good rule of thumb is to release a track every 4-6 weeks on Spotify – so if this strategy suits you give it a try.

If you are aiming for a premiere (for a single, music video, or a full EP/album), choose ONE target blog to pitch to first.

A 4 week lead time is not unusual to get a response from bloggers, which is why planning ahead is crucial.

Pitch each site one at a time and give each site a few days to respond before you follow up again.

TIP: Your premiere does not necessarily have to happen on the same day your music goes live on iTunes or Spotify. It cannot, however, happen AFTER your music goes live. The whole point of an exclusive premiere is to funnel traffic to the one blog, and your blogger isn’t going to be happy with you if it turns out the song is already out on other channels. So do your best to ensure that the premiere is scheduled for either before, or the same day that your music goes live on other channels.

+A release strategy to fill your yearly calendar

When you’re in the middle of a music publicist campaign, you don’t have much time to work on the nitty-gritty details. Therefore, it will help immensely if you can get some of the smaller chores out of the way first.

Figure out what promo photos and videos you want to use. Prepare graphics for Facebook, Twitter, etc. using a service like Canva. Create a schedule of when (roughly) you want to release each component. For example, some artists create countdown graphics in the days leading up to their album release.

When you have good content ready, pre-schedule some social media posts. You can schedule posts directly on Facebook. To schedule posts on your Twitter, you can use a service like HootSuite or Buffer.

Releasing an album or an EP is a lot of work, and using one of these scheduling systems will make your life so much easier.

Our third (and final) installment of “How to Be Your Own Music Publicist” will teach you all you need to know about how to prepare and send your pitches to bloggers, how to follow up, and everything that comes after.

In the meantime, we put our heads together and created this Music PR Checksheet for you, to make sure that you’re not missing any steps. They are also offering a FREE music publicity masterclass HERE."

"Getting your music featured in a TV show, movie or even a video game can not only help your music reach the ears of new fans, but also generate a substantial amount of cash, so it's well worth looking into sync licensing.

Before we get into the HOW, let me very quickly explain WHAT music sync licensing is and WHY you need to strongly consider licensing your music for synchronization. If you already know you want to license your music and why - feel free to skip ahead!

Music sync licensing is basically placing one of your songs in a YouTube video, on a TV show, in a film or in a video game. In exchange, you get paid a synchronization fee upfront and, depending on where and how often the track is played in public, on TV, for example, you also get paid royalties.

There are other ways you can license your music - you could license a composition to a performing artist for example, but, for the purposes of this post, let’s keep it simple. We’ll focus on licensing music for film and TV.

  What, Exactly Makes a Band's Music Synch-Friendly? 

1- It can be more financially rewarding than any other revenue stream available to indie musicians

2- You can do it from the comfort of your own home

3- It won’t negatively affect your day job or family life since you can easily work on it on your own time

Now the money doesn’t have to be the be all and end all...

Having a track featured on a popular TV show can also blow up your plays on streaming platforms and become a great promotional tool. On top of that, I’ve mentioned it before but it’s well worth repeating…. sync licensing your music also allows you to work from home, at your own pace, without any huge financial outlay to get started.

 +General Licensing Infographic 

So now that I’ve made my point about why it makes sense to invest some time in licensing your music, let me give you the 3 main strategies that are available to you.

1- Get a publisher that will find, negotiate and sign licensing opportunities for you.

2- Place your catalogue in music libraries and benefit from the traffic these platforms get.

3- Build relationships yourself, bypass publishers and libraries to license your music directly to customers.

As with everything, there are good points and bad points to each of these 3 options.

Good points: The publisher takes care of all the boring admin stuff and leverages their relationships.

Bad points: High-end publishing deals (those that will help you advance your music licensing careers) are sometimes exclusive. That means that if the deal doesn’t work out for you (and it can definitely happen), you’re stuck.

How to mitigate the risks? Make sure you don’t sign a lifetime exclusivity deal. Keep the agreement period reasonable. Negotiate an advance that makes sense for you. That means it should be big enough that you’re not in trouble if you don’t get a single deal from the publisher.

Here are some music publishing companies you could consider: Music Gateway, Sentric Music, & Music X-Ray.

+Position Music's Jake Versluis: What to Have Ready When Approaching Music Publishers

Good points: Once you’ve set up your tracks in music libraries (under non-exclusive deals, you can upload your catalogue in multiple libraries), the income you get from these platforms is passive. There’s no extra work.

Bad points: There are so many music libraries of varying quality that it’s difficult to know where to start and easy to suffer from information overload and analysis paralysis and do nothing.

How to get started? Take it slow but take action. For example, you could aim to submit 3 tracks to 3 libraries every week. You don’t have to start big and have a huge catalogue of tracks ready. Slow and steady is a good way to go.

How to avoid mistakes? You can’t avoid “mistakes”. You will absolutely waste time on some libraries that go out of business 3 months after you’ve been accepted. That’s ok. It’s part of the game. Just make sure you stick to non-exclusive libraries or very short-term exclusive deals (say 1 year). This will ensure your career doesn’t stall because of so-called “mistakes”.

How do you know which libraries to send music? You don’t! A library that does a good job for me won’t necessarily be a good fit for you. To some extent, you’ll need to spray and pray when you’re first starting out.

Pro tip: You can check a library’s monthly traffic for free using tools like SEMrush or Serpstat. This is helpful to evaluate big music libraries. Keep in mind, however, that small boutique libraries may generate very little traffic and still have great relationships in the industry. They may be more hands-on and available to discuss your music as well.

+Licensing Your Work to Music Libraries

When first getting started with music licensing, a combination of options 2 and 3 is ideal.

First of all, you’d need as much time researching publishers as you’d need research music libraries, might as well stay in control of your catalogue then!

Secondly, publishers usually won’t want to sign you until you’ve proven you’re financially viable. Publishers who want to sign you before you’ve had any success are not always good news…. Whatever their sales pitch, it’s more likely that they’re taking a punt on your music and trying to beef up their roster to look more impressive and professional. That doesn’t mean they can’t work for you. It just means that there’s no guarantee that they can make you any money and signing your catalogue over to them on an exclusive basis is probably not a great idea.

If you’re a more experienced and seasoned musician who has seen it all in the music industry, then that’s a different story! You can probably smell a nasty scam from far away. In that case, if you find a publisher that seems like the right fit for you, it could be a great deal that saves you a lot of time and effort.

+What I Learned About Music Licensing After Dedicating A Month To It

With that in mind, let’s get back to options 2 and 3…

Here’s why I encourage all indie musicians who are getting started in the music licensing business to approach non-exclusive music libraries and start building their own relationships.

First, researching and submitting to music libraries is a great way to discover the world of music licensing, to understand what kind of music is being used on TV and film, what a license agreement looks like, how you get paid and all that super important information that you’ll need to know if you’re going to start making decent money.

Second, going direct-to-customer is like a real-life MBA that costs you nothing! Researching and talking to potential customers gives you immediate feedback, good or bad. If nobody wants to license your music, it can mean 3 things: the production quality is not up to standards (poor quality product), you’re pitching to the wrong person (wrong market), you’re not pitching the right way (bad communication).

Pro tip: The problem is rarely the music itself. You can find licensing opportunities in any genre if you have a good product(ion), take the time to do your market research and work on your communication.

+Never Say These 11 Phrases When Pitching Your Music For Film and TV

One of the major goals of any entrepreneur or an aspiring businessman is to build a sustainable business. But what exactly is a sustainable business? In the present context, business sustainability refers to the overall business model and the decisions taken in the realm of financial and social aspects. Building a sustainable business is all about building a business with a long-term perspective in mind. Building businesses and ventures that offer short-term monetary benefits are relatively easy and require less thought and efforts into action. At the same time, sustainable business models have a very high capability to make money when compared to the non-sustainable ones.

Before we get into the part whether music streaming businesses are sustainable or not, let us briefly know the story of music streaming services. Much before these music streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Prime Music were in the picture, the CD records and their sales were the only way people got to listen to their music of choice on demand.

The advent of music streaming began with Napster. Napster made use of peer-to-peer exchange method for sharing music files and streaming them. This new method sent ripples of shockwaves all across the record companies and artists. With this peer-to-peer sharing system, people started sharing music illegally without paying for the music they listen. After two years, Napster lost the legal battle to the record companies and artists for copyright violation. The end of Napster’s era and the beginning of Pandora Radio almost happened simultaneously. Launched in 2004, Pandora radio started off as a music streaming service which had automated music recommendation and internet radio services. Though it started initially as a paid service, it then became free and made its revenues through advertisements. As of today, it is a free music streaming service.

After Napster and Pandora Radio, the entry of Spotify in 2011 followed by Apple Music in 2015 happened. As of now, these both services have been the most successful music streaming services ever. From a culture where people were used to buying things and owning them, they have slowly evolved to purchasing their access to them but not owning them. Initially, people owned music CDs; now they’re purchasing their access to these music tracks.

Another important development in the field of streaming services, in general, was the rise to prominence of YouTube. YouTube has rapidly grown and established itself as one of the most used streaming service ever. Though YouTube primarily is a video streaming service, people use it equally for audio streaming as well. Despite the fact that YouTube doesn’t help you in discovering new music and keeps showing the same songs you’ve listened to, many people use YouTube for music streaming. A recent study said that YouTube has more music streaming than all the other platforms combined.

Now, when it comes to the sustainability of the music streaming services, two things are to be understood. One, if they are purely streaming music and are charging based on the advertisements, and are not connected to any product (like a phone, for example, iPhones and Apple Music), then they are not sustainable, and there is little to no chance for those services to make it big. Two, if the streaming services produce unique content alongside streaming other artists music, then they can be sustainable. The main issue with music streaming services is the fact that the amount of money made by the artists is lesser when compared to the CD and record sales. At the same time, YouTube also underpays the musicians when compared to music streaming services. Therefore, in this perspective, music streaming services have the edge over YouTube.

However, for these streaming services to succeed, they mustn’t purely depend on the music by other artists. By building programs, shows and creating content of their own, they can capture a user community and keep them in a loop. Like how Netflix produces its originals, these music streaming services also need to produce their own original content. Doing so will lead to sustainability in the long run. A music streaming service that goes by the name of Saavn creates its own podcasts and exclusive interviews that are aired every week through its audio streaming app. Apart from that, this company also has two services. One is the regular method of streaming music and listening to advertisements in between. Two, buying their premium service and going ad-free. Also, by having a large group of people subscribing to your services is essential. Retaining the users that come to a particular music streaming service also plays an important role in the success and sustainability.

Business models like these have the capability to sustain. Without a unique selling point and differentiating their services, music streaming cannot become a sustainable business. Creating original and unique content while offering competitive pricing plans alongside a top-notch UX and UI will make music streaming sustainable. By following the footsteps of successful streaming services and understanding their USP, one can build sustainable music streaming business. On the whole, music streaming business can be sustainable, only if built in the right way.

"In a world of ALTERNATIVE FACTS, we should remember that alternative versions of our songs are very important to have.

If you are trying to license your music then you really need to think about alternative versions. Especially, instrumental versions of your songs. This recently came up with my band, in fact. We were contacted about one of our songs for a possible placement in a movie trailer. The only problem was that they needed an instrumental version. This is something I knew we needed, and it was sitting on my “to do” list. To be honest, this was on that list for a few years now. Anyway, I asked for a possible extension in order to get the instrumental version mixed. Like so many opportunities in music licensing, the deal needed to happen ASAP.

Not having the alternative version just cost me and my band the possibility of having a song in a movie trailer.

More importantly, it just cost us the potential to make some serious money.

This was the case with my band. We did not think about this when we budgeted for the album. When we ran out of money, the album was done. Now, years later we had to ask the studio to find our original tracks and mix us an instrumental version. Luckily, the studio still had the tracks and could make that happen. This task would have been very easy to do when all the other mixing was being done, and maybe could have been less expensive if we bundled it into the original studio work. The moral of the story is to get this done while you are doing the original tracks.

How about a live version of your songs? Maybe an acoustic version would be cool? Have another artist that you like, cover your song. Be creative."

Let’s face facts: Being an actor is the best job in the world! Sure, there are challenges to the job, but even with all the hard work, auditions, late nights and early mornings on set, the classes, the memorization and even all the rejection, acting is the most fun you can have without getting arrested. And for it to be a job where you get paid money is more than any sane person should ask for!

The great news is that acting is getting easier than it has ever been — or at least looking for acting work is. For instance check out NYCasting’s audition opportunities – and self-submit today! There’s no better place to putting yourself in front of the widest range of casting directors and producers who are looking for actors today! 

One other new innovation almost all of these acting opportunities have in common is that you will need to self-tape at least once in order to be considered. That’s why it’s so important to make sure you’re on point when it comes to your on-camera auditions, especially when you’re self-taping. Here are a few ways to make sure you’re giving them the best you’ve got every time you audition on camera!

Whether you’re self-taping or preparing to go in for an on-camera audition, it’s vital you take some time to play director as well as actor. That means taking the time to really study yourself and what you look like on camera. One of the biggest mistakes actors make when it comes to self-taping is they’re often unprepared for the technical aspects of it. Every self-tape opportunity that comes along they act like it’s the first time they’ve ever heard of such a thing. They go into panic mode and flail around getting a rushed self-tape piece done and sent off.

And then they cross their fingers and hope for a phone call that’s never going to come.

Much like we do with the actual acting part, it’s a good idea to rehearse. At the very least take the time to look over other self-tape auditions you’ve done. Study what you look like on camera and work on any quirks you might be throwing out there – which you will often be unaware of! Bobbing your head in time to words you emphasize in your lines, blinking too much, or darting your eyes around are all very common tics – and they’re all very distracting.

As mortifying as it can be, you really need to watch yourself a lot in order to even know what you look like on camera. And then you need to watch yourself even more as you go about correcting it. The camera picks up on and vastly magnifies these tics – and we all have them! Don’t stress about them, nor should you feel as if you have to stay perfectly still. You want to aim for natural, of course. But as they say, knowing is half the battle, and that applies to knowing what you look like on camera.

No, really. It’s hard to overemphasize how important it is to really know not only your lines, but what lies beneath them, the true depth of what your character is trying to achieve. We all are aware of this, of course. But the fact remains we also have all at one time or another rushed it when it comes to thinking we’re truly off-book. This ties in with the first note above when it comes to self-taping: the tendency is to rush and record a self-tape before we’re really ready to give it our best.

And granted, there is almost always a time factor when it comes to sending in a self-tape audition. But sending in a piece before you’ve got it down solid is less than useless – you might not think CDs remember you out of the thousands of actors they see, but if you send in a few sloppy, under-prepared self-tapes you might find the offers to record new ones drying up.

So make sure you’re giving them your best! Here’s another place where we can use our training in and understanding of the importance of rehearsal to our advantage. That is to say, the more often you turn around self-tape pieces the better you’re going to get at it, and the faster you’ll get at memorizing and going deep on the material too. Recording a monologue or two to self-evaluate can’t hurt either as you work on getting better. After all, it should only take one to two minutes to knock out a monologue! The main thing to keep in mind is to recognize in yourself when you are truly ready to hit record on a self-audition, and to make sure you’ve got those lines internalized and that you’re fully embodying the character.

The thing about rehearsing is that it is possible to over rehearse. Perhaps the biggest challenge in the actor’s life is learning to recognize that fine line and understanding how not to cross it. Knowing the words and the objectives they impart to your character is just that: it doesn’t imply that you’re going to say the words the same way every time, or use the same tactics to try to achieve those objectives.

It’s vital to be nimble mentally and emotionally, to be figuratively light on your feet when it comes to on-camera and self-tape auditions.

Think of the difference between a boxer and a wrestler: a wrestler is plodding, solid, low to the ground – he is the unmovable object.

A boxer, on the other hand dances around his opponent, he bobs and weaves and is constantly in motion as he seeks an opening for attack. The opponent, and the objective – which is beating him – doesn’t change. But the boxer’s approach to beating him is constantly in flux, in motion, and changing in the blink of an eye. Be like the boxer: be ready to adapt and to attack the objective from an endless variety of angles.

That is, don’t act. Dovetailing with the note above, the way to really stand out on camera and especially in a self-tape audition is to show you’re fully engaged and of a piece with the scene you are playing. Yes, you are going into a character. But the more that character seems like a real person, the better the response is going to be. A big obstacle for less-experienced actors when it comes to self-taping and really any kind of on-camera auditions is managing to put aside the nerves and awareness of the camera. Again, practice is your friend here: the more time you can spend in front of the camera whether it be in self-taping monologues, performing scenes with your friends, creating your own work for YouTube or actually working on set, the more you’ll be able to forget about the camera and just be.

Another valuable tool is to always remember the moment before and the moment after. If you’re going to be reading a scene for a self-tape with an off-camera reader, take a few minutes to just converse with your reader in character before you start to record. Where were these people just before the scene? What were they doing or what might they have been talking about before getting to “the heat of the meat” in the real scene? You’ll be amazed at how much more genuine and sharp your reads will be if you take just a little extra time to do this! 

"As an aspiring artist, you probably understand the significance of self-promotion. Creating a following involves allowing the world to familiarize itself with you and your music as a joint entity. So, in attempts to do this, you’ve created your Facebook page, released your first single, and perhaps even created a video to go with it. The final step in your self-promotion efforts, however, should be none other than creating an EP. For those new to the industry terminology, an EP refers to an “extended play record”, a compilation of 4-6 original songs from an artist that is typically released prior to a full-length album. Having an EP is great for giving people a taste of your musical sound and style. Think of it as your curriculum vitae, a summary of your most impressive and promising work.

EPs are an especially great solution for rising musicians on a budget. After all, recording a professional sounding EP requires high-caliber equipment often only found at studios. Therefore, if you need to book a studio to get this done, at least this way you pay for less studio time than a full-length album. In addition to this, EPs allow you to test out new music styles or sounds. So, if you’re really looking to test out your idea of hybrid classical and jazz fusion music but aren’t sure if it’ll fly, this is the best way to do it.

The limited length of EPs also give you a great opportunity to really assess your overall quality of work. Since they serve as an insight to potential singles also, they allow you to begin cherry-picking which songs best represent your vision and sound as an artist. And, if you’re worried that your classical/jazz fusion hybrid doesn’t sound the way you want it to, use the EP as a way to gain constructive feedback about your sound. Whether you send it to friends, studio heads, or just post in on social media, it’s an excellent way of determining whether you’re headed in the right direction.

Okay, so, you’ve recorded your EP and you like the way it sounds. Now, what is it good for? As we mentioned, EPs are promotional material at their core, but there are more specific uses for your now-finished product:

• Advertising a tour. Maybe you plan on playing some live shows soon. If you’re trying to entice newcomers to your show, handing people a free copy of your EP is a great way to get them hooked on your sound.
• Pitching to publishers. Think of your EP as a pre-recorded audition tape. You may even want to send a few out to record labels. Who knows, it might just get picked up!
• Gratitude. Handing out your EP or selling it at a low cost to fans who attend a live show can be a nice way to say “thank you for your support.” This also keeps your music in their mind, and serves as an incentive for them to attend future shows.

Music’s ever-changing format has also changed the way we define EPs. Extended play records, in conjunction with long-playing records (LPs), were originally used to describe vinyl records. LP’s typically referred to full albums, while EPs referred more to extensions of singles. They typically consisted of bonus material, such as remixes or demos of the single, but did not necessarily contain much varying content. While vinyl records have recently risen to popularity once again, streaming is music’s main contemporary format. With this change in format, the meaning of EPs is also changing.

Nowadays, artists are more likely to use EPs to release material between albums. Where EPs previously served as an intro tool whose material was later featured on the artist’s full-length album, modern-day EPs actually often serve to introduce entirely new content. They are also used for songs that didn’t make the cut on the full-length album, serving almost as a B-side.

Now that you’re all filled in on the nature of EPs, remember that your EP doesn’t need to be a bestseller. It’s just your introduction to the world. Share it on social media, pass it along to friends, or even take a chance and mail it to Capitol Records. Self-made musicians are the majority, and even the best started somewhere."