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First Release Checklist for New Artists | TAP

Checklist

First Release Checklist for New Artists | TAP

First release PR checklist

Updated 10 September 2026

By TAP Editorial Team

Quick answer

Work backwards from your release date. Eight weeks out, have the master, the artwork and the distributor sorted. Six weeks out, write your bio and get photographs taken. Four weeks out, upload to BBC Introducing at bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader and start emailing blogs and stations one at a time. One week out, send a reminder. The checklist below is that plan in full.

A first release has no press history behind it, which sounds like a disadvantage and mostly is not. What it means is that everything a writer or a producer knows about you comes from what you send them, so what you send has to be finished. This is the list of what needs to exist before your first single or EP comes out, roughly in the order you need it. Most of it takes an afternoon each. The parts that take longer, photographs and the master, are the ones people leave until last, which is why so many first releases go out with a phone snap and a mix that was never quite done.

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Who you are, in words

Write a bio of 150 to 200 words
Critical
What you sound like, where you are from, and one thing that is specific to you. Somebody reading it has never heard of you and has thirty seconds. Cut anything that would be true of any other artist, which is most first drafts, and keep only what you could produce evidence for.
Name three artists or records you sit near
Critical
Not who you want to be compared to, who you actually resemble. This is how a writer works out where to put you and how a producer works out which show you belong on. Pick names people will recognise, and pick honest ones: an inflated comparison sets an expectation your record then has to survive.
Find the one thing about this record that is not just that it exists
Critical
Where it was made, what happened while you were making it, an instrument that should not be on it, the scene you are part of, what the song is actually about. This is the line that gets you covered. If you cannot find one, the honest answer is that the record has to carry it alone, which sometimes it does.
Write one sentence that describes you
The kind of thing somebody would say to a friend. It ends up in emails, in your own posts, on your profile, and eventually in somebody else's writing about you, so it is worth getting right. Say it out loud before you keep it.
Get photographs taken
Critical
Three or four you would be happy to see printed, at full resolution, plain and well lit. A friend with a decent camera and an afternoon is enough. This is the item most often left to the last week and it is the one nobody can do quickly. Name the photographer in the file names so you can credit them.
Write two or three quotes about the record
Fifty to eighty words each, in your own voice, about why you made it or what it is about. Not what it sounds like. Having these written means you are not improvising when somebody asks, and one of them will end up printed exactly as you wrote it.

The release itself

Pick a release date far enough ahead
Critical
Your distributor has a lead time and so does everybody you want to tell. Eight weeks between delivering the record and the date is a reasonable minimum, and it is the difference between a release you can promote and one that simply happens. Check your distributor's own deadline rather than assuming.
Get the master right and in the right format
Critical
Most distributors want a WAV at CD quality or better. Check the exact requirement on your distributor's own help pages, because a rejected file three days before your date is a bad week. If you are working with an engineer, tell them what the distributor asks for rather than assuming they know.
Make the artwork to your distributor's specification
Critical
Most want a square image of at least 3000 by 3000 pixels as a JPEG or PNG, but check yours, because they will reject the wrong thing. Keep a full-size copy separately for press. Artwork is the most shared thing you make outside the music, so it is worth more than an afternoon.
Check your metadata before it goes anywhere
Critical
Your name spelled and capitalised the way you want it everywhere, the track title, the release date, the credits, the genre. This is what appears on every platform for the rest of the record's life and changing it afterwards ranges from awkward to impossible.
Confirm your ISRC codes exist
Your distributor usually generates these automatically. Check that they did and write them down. They are how plays get attributed to you, including radio plays, and a track without one is a track whose airplay may not reach you.
Claim your artist profiles
Critical
Spotify for Artists and Apple Music for Artists, both free, both needing you to claim them. Add a photograph, the bio and your links. Anybody deciding whether to write about you will look, and an unclaimed profile with a default avatar reads as somebody who is not really doing this yet.
Record thirty to sixty seconds of yourself talking about the track
Just a voice note is fine. It is useful for stations, useful for your own posts, and it makes the first interview much easier because you will have already said the thing once. Say what the song is about, not what it sounds like.

What you send people

Write a one-page release note
Critical
Headline with your name, the title and the date. Then who you are in one paragraph, what the record is in two, and your links and contact details at the bottom. One page. Write it once and reuse the top of it in every email you send for the next three months.
Put every asset in one folder with a link
Critical
Photographs, artwork, the release note as a PDF. Name every file with your name and what it is, so that a writer downloading four things does not end up with IMG_4471. A public Dropbox or Drive folder is fine. No passwords.
Write your bio at three lengths
Critical
About 50 words, about 150, about 250. Different places need different lengths and if you do not provide the short one somebody will cut your long one badly. Put the most important sentence first in all three versions, because that is the one that survives.
Test every link while signed out
Critical
Private browser window, on a phone. Streaming links, the asset folder, the pre-save. A link that only works while you are logged in is the most common and most avoidable failure in this whole list.
Build a single page online that is yours
Bio, the record, photographs, an email address. Carrd, Bandcamp or a basic site all work. It does not need to be impressive, it needs to exist, because it is where somebody goes to check you are real before they spend an hour writing about you.

Who to tell

Upload to BBC Introducing
Critical
The uploader at bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader is the route, and one upload puts your track in front of the shows for your area rather than needing you to email each one. It is free and it is the single most useful thing an unsigned UK artist can do with twenty minutes. Find your local show first at bbc.co.uk/introducing so you know who is listening.
Find ten to fifteen blogs that cover music like yours
Critical
Search for a comparable artist's name plus review and see who wrote about them. That is a better list than any directory. Check each one has posted in the last month, because half the music blogs you will find stopped in 2021 and nobody took the site down.
Find your local stations and papers
Community radio, student radio, the local paper's arts pages. These are the easiest yes you will get and they are worth more than they look: local coverage is what somebody bigger sees when they search your name. Find a person's name rather than a general address wherever you can.
Put it all in one list before you send anything
Critical
Outlet, person's name, email, what they cover, whether you have written yet. Five columns. This list is worth more than this release, because you will still be using it in three years and rebuilding it from memory is impossible.
Read something each of them has published
Critical
Two or three pieces, properly. It tells you whether you belong there and it gives you the first line of your email, which is the line the whole message depends on. This is slow and it is the reason personalised emails work.

Sending it

Write to one person at a time
Critical
Named, individually, with a first line about something they published. Never a group send, and never with everybody's address visible. Under 150 words, with the listening link in the first few lines rather than at the bottom. It is slower and it is the only version that works.
Start four to six weeks before release
Critical
Blogs and stations need time. Sending the week of release means asking somebody to drop what they are doing, and the answer is usually nothing. If you only have two weeks, send anyway, but expect the coverage to arrive after the date rather than on it.
Send a link, never an attached audio file
Critical
A private stream that plays on a phone. Attachments get caught by filters, fill inboxes, and ask somebody to download a stranger's file. A broadcast quality WAV is worth offering to stations, but as a link they can take if they want it.
Follow up once, after about a week
Short, friendly, no reproach in it. Once. A second follow-up moves you from persistent to a problem and the line between them is exactly one email. If there is no reply after the first, move on and remember them for the next record.
Log every email and every reply
Date sent, who, what they said. It shows you which kinds of outlet answer you and which do not, and it means that in a year you know who already knows your name. This log is the thing that makes your second release easier than your first.

The week itself

Send a reminder seven days out
Critical
To everybody who has the track: out on Friday, here is the link again. One line. It catches the person who filed your email a month ago and it puts you back at the top of an inbox in the week it matters. This is the highest-return email in the whole list.
Have your own posts ready before the day
Three or four things, written and scheduled, so that release day is not spent writing captions. One of them should have your voice or your face in it, because that is what people respond to, and one should just be the link with no story attached.
Set a search alert for your name and the track title
People publish without telling you. An alert is how you find the review you would otherwise never have seen, and the day you see it is the day to save it, because small sites disappear.
Decide in advance what modest looks like
Critical
A first release with no history behind it does not chart and does not go viral, and both of those are normal. Decide now what a good outcome is: some coverage, some plays, a list of people who now know your name, and numbers written down to compare the next one against. Judged against that, most first releases go fine.
Thank everybody who did anything
Individually, by name, saying what they did. No link, no ask. It takes twenty minutes and it is the reason the second release gets covered by people who covered the first.

None of this is the interesting part of being in a band and all of it is the part that decides whether anybody hears the record. The good news is that it is finite: work through this once and most of it, the bio, the photographs, the list of people, the folder of assets, carries straight into the next release with an afternoon's updating. The first one is slow because you are building the machinery. After that you are just using it.

Pro tips

1. The BBC Introducing uploader is one upload rather than fifteen emails, and it is free. Do it first, do it early, and find your local show at bbc.co.uk/introducing so you know who your track is reaching.

2. Book the photographs before you do anything else on this list. It is the only item that depends on somebody else's diary and the weather, and it is the one that holds everything up in the final fortnight.

3. Search a comparable artist's name plus the word review to build your blog list. It takes an evening and it produces a better, more current list than any directory of music blogs you will find.

4. Never attach the audio. A link that plays on a phone gets played on the bus; a fifty megabyte WAV in an inbox gets deleted unopened, and sometimes never arrives at all.

5. Write down your streams, saves and followers on release day and a week later. They will be small. They are also the only thing your second release will have to be measured against, and you cannot recover them afterwards.

Frequently asked questions

Should I pitch the big music sites and national papers for a first release?

No, not yet. They almost never cover an artist with no history, and the time spent writing to them is time not spent on the blogs and stations that might say yes. Start with BBC Introducing, small outlets that already cover music like yours, and anything local. Coverage from those is what you point at when you approach somebody bigger for the second release.

How does BBC Introducing actually work?

You upload the track through the uploader at bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader, and it reaches the shows covering your area rather than needing an email to each one. It is free and there is no gatekeeper between you and the upload. Find your local show at bbc.co.uk/introducing first, so you know who might play it and can listen to what else they play.

Do I need a press kit, or can I just send the link?

You need a press kit, but it is smaller than the phrase suggests: a one-page release note, three or four photographs at full size, the artwork, and a bio at a couple of lengths, all in one folder with one link. Somebody who wants to write about you needs those to do it, and asking them to come back to you for each piece is where interest quietly dies.

How many places should I write to?

Twenty-five or thirty that are actually relevant, written to one at a time. Not a hundred sent at once. The reply rate on a personalised email to somebody whose work you have read is not in the same category as a mass send, and the mass send also costs you the outlets on it for the next release.

What is a realistic result for a first release?

A handful of pieces of coverage if the emails were good, some plays if the record suits radio, a few hundred to a few thousand streams, and a list of people who now know your name. That is a first release going well. It does not look like much and it is the foundation everything after it is built on, which is why writing the numbers down matters more than the numbers do.

From the field

Proof points

Optimal pitch lead time for a debut: 8 weeks before release for radio specialists, 4 weeks for press features (Liberty campaign cadence)
Named contact reply rate vs generic inbox: 5x higher (Liberty internal data)
Best UK send window: Tuesday and Wednesday 09:00 to 10:00 UK (Across 60+ campaigns)
Pre-release vs post-release plays: Roughly 60% of plays land in the first 3 weeks, with a tail through week 8 (WARM monitoring across recent debuts)

What actually happened

Eyes Glued, BBC Radio 6 Music: Debut framing with track-led pitch, 153 plays (March 2025)

The trap with debuts is pitching them as if they are album campaigns. They are not. Specialist shows want to be the ones who discovered the artist, so I lead with that framing. A line like 'haven't pitched anyone else this' lands well with named producers because it matches what they actually want, which is a record their listeners haven't heard yet, brought to them first.

Chris Schofield, Radio plugger, Liberty Music PR

Related resources

BBC Introducing strategy for new artists: A Practical Guide

guide

Building press relationships from a debut: A Practical Guide