Hello all 2 of you that will read this,
My new album will drop on 02/17/2026 at 4:12 am because that's the height of the fancy eclipse “Ring of Fire” in my timezone and we are also in the Fire Horse year. Now, do I know much about all of that? No, but the woo-woo people on TikTok said it was a day for new beginnings. So, basically, I should buy some Grammy polish to prepare for my new career.
It is a huge process to get an album released and this is after you recorded the songs. I'll talk more about recording in a future post. Things you'll need to do…
A website, which this is it for me. I've liked this site so far and you own your domain name. Not too expensive each year, $110 per year for the “Lite” option.
Social media profiles (ugh!) on Instagram, Facebook (I know it's for old people), TikTok, etc. I refuse to make a Twitter because Elon sucks. You gotta post stuff on them, but be creative. I'm sure you're weird like me after all considering you're reading this blog.
A Bandcamp profile and you'll need to put all the information about your tracks and album on there. This will take forever and be very annoying, but worth it to do it right. I uploaded individual pictures for each song. Make sure you use pictures you take so you don't run into trouble with takedown notices.
An ASCAP or BMI account to register your music on a performing rights org. It is free to sign up and do publisher and writer. When you do performances, be sure to enter the songs you did because ASCAP will pay out royalties. This is also how you get paid for radio plays of your songs. Submit your shit to college radio. There's an insta profile that helps you with their contact information. No swearing in your songs for radio.
A Sound Exchange account and you'll need to enter your recordings' information into there. This will be a huge pain in the ass, but worth it. If your song gets streamed on non-interactive means, like XM Radio and stuff like that, then that is how you get paid.
An account on the US copyright website (or one for the country you are in) to copyright your songs. You should send in the copyright request before it is 90 days past release because of legal mumbo jumbo about statutory damages. You can copyright your own sound recordings, even for covers, and you can copyright the composition for your original songs. This way if some trick ass bitch steals your music, you will be able to stomp them in court with all your extra money for lawyers. It is $85 to do 10 songs and it's a one time fee for each batch.
A distribution service for streaming services and I use Distrokid. This is also how you get paid for on-demand streams, like stupid ole Spotify and such. However, I'm not putting my music on Spotify because I hate them. Maybe I'll get my $0.0000003 cents from Apple Music streams or something.
If you have covers, you'll need a mechanical license to sell those bad boys in physical or digital form in addition to your streaming licensing from your distribution service. I shall be using Harry Fox's Songfile service. For the 4 cover songs I have, it'll be about $300 to have 250 downloads and 100 CDs. This is just the right to sell them. Now, if you're small potatoes, like me, probably you will not run into any issues, but if have any respect for the artists you are covering, then they should get their due from you. If you want to do more downloads. or physical copies later, you'll have to pay the processing fee ($14-16ish) again with the other fees for how many you want.
Next, get your little butt to some open mic nights or if you have connects, try to get shows at smaller venues. Get footage for your social media and shit.
Hope for the best. Being somewhat attractive and friendly helps. No one wants to work with an asshole. Best of luck my friends.
Sincerely,
Laurel
Me at the Greaze Factory in October 2025. My shirt says, “I read the news today oh boy”
