It seems like we're operating in a bizarro world these days in the independent music industry. Before the rise of streaming a good musician could expect to sell some CD's at their shows and get some press in local and music publications without money changing hands.
Now, musicians need to generate thousands of streams to get compensated the cost of one CD sale lost to streaming. And in order to get considered for an album review, an artist would likely need to pay to be considered for a review or inclusion in a playlist.
What's going on here? Well, just as the business model for recorded music has been flipped on its head, this has also happened in journalism. Readers can find free news and blogs to read all day long, just like they can find free music to stream all day long.
Journalists were paid little enough in the old business model when there were large subscriber bases for print editions. Now that there's an abundance of online information, writers need a new paying customer - and it's not the reader.
Now, this does necessarily change the art of writing from journalism to something else, perhaps publicity. If it were still journalism, the writer would have an ethical conflict with accepting money from an artist to write about that artist. So, if we change the frame from journalism to publicity – is it worth it for a musician to pay for a review or a feature in a blog? Maybe.
Are you prepared to benefit from your investment?
Money a musician spends on publicity and advertising can be a gamble, an educated investment, or both. People will see something about you in their social media feeds or on a web site they read regularly. But will they be motivated to take action? Will you see a bump in streams? video plays? email sign-ups? Or are you just trying to raise awareness of who you are and what you do?
The conventional wisdom is that a person needs to see your message 7 times on average before they'll take the action you want them to. With social media algorithms suppressing your posts, especially those containing external links, it's very difficult to get in front of the same person 7 times unless they're on you're email list and you're sending an email.
Getting other people to promote your album, song, video or merch can be helpful in overcoming the algorithmic buzzkill, but you may not know in concrete terms how much help you're getting that way. But you can do things to help your own cause when you pay to be featured in a publication.
It's not “Set It and Forget It.”
If you pay for consideration to be placed in a publication and you get featured, you'll want to magnify the effects of it by sharing it with your fans and the potential fans in your orbit.
- Email your mailing list a link to the article. Your fans will be eager to read what music writers have to say about you.
- If you have a “Press” section on your web site (or linktree), make sure you put the feature there.
- On platforms that support links in posts (Facebook, Threads, X, Mastodon, BlueSky), share the link to the story, along with a quote from it.
- On Instagram, create a graphic containing a quote from the story. On your mobile device, add that graphic to an Instagram story and place a “link” sticker leading to the article.
- On TikTok, make a video where you read an excerpt from the feature. Tag the TikTok account of the outlet that featured you.
Social media platforms may show your post to your followers, but they may also show them to new people who could take an interest in what you're doing and then follow you. That's the part you're not really in control of.
Take Measured Risks
You never really know the effect an ad, a playlist inclusion or a feature will have on your acquisition of new fans. So, make the smallest possible investments first to test the performance of any outlet. If a music blogger offers a review of a single for a lesser price and an album review for a higher price, try out the single first. If you do get featured, do your part to maximize its impact. Then take in the overall effect of the article. Did your fans read and comment on the story? Did you see a bump in your stream count or video play count? Any increase in site visits? Linktree clicks? Any email sign-ups or merch sales?
Did the outlet you paid do more than the bare minimum? Did they write the review in a way that indicates clearly that they listened to your music and reacted to it? Or did they copy-and-paste your press release? Did they promote their article or playlist on social media?
This will help you decide whether to invest with this outlet again or cut your losses moving forward. If you see modest gains from a review of a single, you may decide to increase to a full-album writeup.
Paying for Consideration? What's Up with That?
Platforms like SubmitHub and Groover operate by having you purchase credits that you can then spend on opportunities for a playlister to listen to your song and decide if it fits their vibe. Similarly you can spend credits for a blogger to consider whether or not to write a review about you.
There is a less-than-even chance that you will get included in a playlist or featured in a blog this way. Rejection rates are generally around 85%. And that's after you've paid to be considered.
I've found that how well you fit into a specific genre will affect your chances of getting your music accepted by the curator you're submitting to. My genre, broadly speaking, is Jersey Rock, which doesn't really align with any of the curators I've found to submit to in Groover or SubmitHub. A rock curator may be looking for a very specific rock subgenre like alternative or “indie rock.” If you sound like a classic rock act, say Bruce Springsteen, that doesn't make you a classic rock artist, because you weren't famous decades ago. You're influenced by someone who was.
SubmitHub and Groover are a better bet if you are very clearly in a tightly defined genre like “alternative rock”, “reggae,” “hyperpop”, “hip-hop,” “alt-country.”
Paying to most likely be rejected doesn't seem very appealing to an artist like me, but it works around some problems for curators. Since bloggers no longer make enough money renting out space on their blogs to advertisers, and since journalists have lost their jobs at reader-supported newspapers, they can make a livelihood off the collective pool of artists that submit to them. Also, the pay barrier becomes a sort of filter that should weed out artists who don't believe in their talent enough to invest some money. This cuts down their workload of listening through incompetent or inappropriate submissions somewhat.
Playlisters are not allowed (per Spotify's policy) to accept money to guarantee placement on a playlist. However, there's no rule about accepting money in exchange for considering an artist for inclusion. And the pay barrier again weeds out many artists who don't think their stuff measures up to overcome those high odds of rejection, making the playlister's job easier.
I have a rather low batting average getting included in these pay-to-submit playlists, mostly because my stuff doesn't tightly fit the playlisters' specific subgenres.
I actually do better by running my own playlist and including other artists I get to know through social media (not for pay) and finding artists who also run playlists and might want to include me.
What about Platform-based Ads?
I personally haven't seen “relevant” growth from these ads. Ads I've placed on Facebook and YouTube have juiced my view counts for the one video I've promoted, but have not meaningfully increased people who subscribe/follow/keep coming back for more of my videos. It's a quick hit and a loss of money. And then there's a letdown when you don't promote the next video and you're back to disappointing stats.
There are ways to target ads that should improve the relevance of your video to the people being shown it. This depends on the platform. YouTube lets you pick countries (to minimize language/cultural barriers), but not areas of interest. Facebook lets you pick areas of interest, but doesn't offer “and/or” logic to really dial it in.
Bottom line - I'd rather pay bloggers I know and trust, whose opinions I respect, than pay an advertising algorithm that will temporarily juice my numbers and leave my career no further along than it was before.
Did you find these tips helpful? Do they track with experiences you've had? Let me know about it in the comments.
If you want to see what my weekly emails to my closest fans look like, sign up for my mailing list.