distribution7 min read
The release timeline: what to do in the eight weeks before your track drops
Most independent releases are not under-promoted. They are under-timed: delivered ten days out, pitched too late for editorial, and live before anyone knew they were coming.
Everything below is counted backwards from release date, which is the only date that is genuinely fixed. Eight weeks is not a luxury — it is the minimum that leaves room for the two deadlines you cannot move: store ingestion and the editorial playlist pitch.
Eight weeks out — lock the record
- Master approved and delivered. After this point the audio does not change.
- Artwork finished at 3000×3000 px, RGB, no store logos, no URLs, no text that is not the artist and title.
- Splits agreed in writing with every collaborator, remixer and vocalist. This is the single most common cause of a release being pulled after it goes live.
- Sample clearances in hand, if any.
Six weeks out — deliver to the distributor
Metadata is delivered with the audio and it is what the stores index: artist name spelled exactly as on every other release, featured artists in the artist field rather than in the title, remixer credited in the version field, ISRC per recording, UPC per release, genre and the exact release date. A misspelled artist name here creates a second, empty Spotify profile that splits your streams — and merging them afterwards takes weeks.
Four weeks out — pitch and pre-save
- Submit the Spotify for Artists pitch. One track only, and use the description to say where the record fits, not to tell your life story.
- Open the pre-save / smart link. A pre-save converts into a day-one stream, and day-one streams are the signal that triggers algorithmic playlists.
- Send promos to DJs and radio with a private link and a clean one-paragraph note.
- Confirm the Beatport release date with your distributor — it is supplied separately and does not always match the DSP date.
Release week and after
On the day, point every link you control at the same smart link rather than at a single store — you do not know which platform each follower uses, and a broken preference is a lost stream. Then keep working the record for at least four weeks: the algorithmic systems evaluate save-rate and completion-rate over a rolling window, not on day one, and a record that is still gaining saves in week three is a record they push.