Music Submission Guide For 2024

If you’ve laid down your first tracks, you’ll be keen to get them to an audience and one of the best ways to do that is to submit your music to places that the audience uses to find new music.

The good news is that if you follow some fairly basic guidelines, there’s a good chance that your music can reach the masses relatively easily. 

So, here’s a simple guide to submitting your music to every kind of media under the sun.

The Absolute Basics Of Music Submission

These guidelines apply to whatever and wherever you submit your music to. If you want to succeed, you have to adhere to the basics of music submission. 

• Good manners matter. We know, you’re passionate about your tunes but if you want other people to share that passion? You have to be polite, even when people are saying “no”. No-one invests their time and effort into someone who acts like a dick.
  
• Keep it to the point. You need to create a pitch which conveys just enough information to be interesting, but not so long that it bores the person to tears. If in doubt? Cut it down. They can always ask for more data if they need it.
  
• Always provide links. Links should be relevant to the person you’re sending your pitch to but it makes sense to, at a minimum, include streaming and download links.
  
• Keep it real. You can’t pitch Quincy Jones on your first demo. Well, you can but it will go in the bin. Pitch people that are at or just above your current level if you want success. Only pitch people who are relevant and suitable to your music.
  
• Common sense rules. If in doubt? Use your common sense. How would you react to your pitch if you were in their shoes? Shape your pitch around what you’d want to see.  

Finally, make sure your music is ready to be heard. Sure, you’ve got the laptop, you’ve got the home digital audio workstation and the studio headphones but if they only arrived yesterday? 

You might want to wait a bit until your sound is a little more polished. Or not. It’s up to you. 

How To Submit Music To Blogs

There are two ways to get featured on blogs:

1. “The easy way” – use an influencer marketing tool like Fluence, Groover, SubmitHub, etc. This gets your music out to lots of people fast. Sadly, it also offers no guarantee of getting your pitch read.
   
2. “The hard way” – reach out using the blog’s contact form to each individual blogger. It’s a pain in the bum, but it does make it much more likely that your pitch will get read. 

However, neither way guarantees that you’ll get selected for that blog’s playlist. This is a numbers game. The more pitches you send, the more likely you are to catch someone’s attention. 

How To Submit Music To Spotify And Apple Playlists

Assuming you have a Spotify for Artists account, then you can submit your tracks for inclusion in playlists there.

Apple doesn’t work in the same way, you need to build up your follower count and hope that the playlisting gods notice your work. Yeah, it sucks and it means Apple should not be your top marketing priority. 

You can also use Groover and SubmitHub to try and get your song on user curated playlists. 

How To Submit Music To YouTube Channels

There’s no clever software to make YouTube promotion easy and that’s probably for the best as it means the more work you do, the more likely you are to have some success.

Find the channel owner’s contact info on their YouTube page and reach out to them with a polite email or Tweet or whatever.

Do make sure that they cover your kind of music or you’ll just be wasting everyone’s time including your own. 

How To Submit Music To Twitch Streamers

You need the Twitch Soundtrack Tool if you want streamers to use your work. First, you upload the work to Twitch Soundtrack via their preferred distributors and second, you list it.

We should point out – that uploading and listing offers no guarantees at all that your music will make the cut. Amazon’s employees curate the soundtrack list – they decide if it’s going to feature or not.

The license terms means that your songs uploaded this way can only be used in Live Streams and not in pre-recorded content. However, users can use Linkfire to add songs from Live Streams to their personal library. 

How To Submit Music To Influencers

Influencers work very much like bloggers, you can use an automated tool like SubmitHub to get their attention or you can contact them directly.

Many platforms will have a list of contacts that they can provide for a fee. We’d suggest you curate your own list, as the paid-for lists are often weak and out of date. 

Always follow an influencer’s submission guidelines if they have them, or you won’t hear back from them.

How To Submit Music To A DJ

If you can find a DJ’s contact info on their website? There’s a good chance they take submissions. 

Just make sure to:

• Send the right kind of music. If your music isn’t what they typically play, don’t waste their time or yours.
  
• Label all music files correctly. That means put your band name and track name on the track at a minimum, you might also include a label name if you have one.
  
• Send links not full files. Don’t fill their inbox with hi-fidelity files, send them download links and a brief sample to listen to. 
  
• Prepare the track for mixing. That means no gaps at the start or end and that it’s easy to mix with other tracks.
  
• Deliver a bio. That means a couple of quick, interesting facts not an authorized biography of 400 pages.

DJs may also be receptive to being approach in person at a gig, as long as you do it at a convenient time and not in the middle of their set. 

How To Submit Music For Radio Play

Get on the website of the radio station. Read the submission guidelines. Make sure your submission is in compliance. 

Alternatively, if you have a little budget, engage a PR person to do this for you. 

How To Submit Music To A Record Label

Labels also have submission guidelines on their websites. Follow them and please, make sure you’re submitting your music to the right kind of label.

No reggae label is going to suddenly publish black metal and no jazz label will take EDM. Don’t waste your time or theirs. 

Most of all, make sure your pitch focuses on how your music helps their commercial objectives. Labels exist to make money, not to give newbies a chance. 

How To Submit Music For Film And TV

You register your music with a music sync library and if somebody uses it, you’ll get paid a fee for it. 

Now, you can arrange a license directly with a show or movie’s company but the truth is? Until you’re a known quantity, nobody will do this with you – so get on Songtradr.Com and get your songs in a library. 

How To Submit Music For Video Games

The video game industry works in the same way as film and TV. 

However, because of the very long development cycles for games, they may require additional support over a longer time period than TV shows and movies, make sure you get paid for this. 

It can be a bit nerve-wracking when you first start submitting your music but keep in mind, rejection is always a part of this process and that if you’re polite and persevere?

We guarantee that you’ll find an audience by simply following these basic submission guidelines.