A Musician’s Guide to getting your music on Spotify

If you’re new to releasing music you should know it’s not a one-click process. Here’s everything you need to know to get started.

by Randi Zimmerman from the Symphonic Blog

So you’re an independent artist who has recently created an awesome track and mastered it to perfection… Now that you’ve done all the hard work, I’m sure you’re wondering how to get your music on Spotify so it can be heard by a worldwide audience. No problem. Getting your music on Spotify is pretty straightforward. In this post, we’ll explain exactly how to do it.

Make Sure You Own The Rights To Your Tracks

First off, you shouldn’t make covers or use samples without the proper permission to do so. It can cause some major issues for you down the line. In order for you to receive the royalties you’re rightfully owed, your songs need to be properly registered. To ensure you do everything right here, we wrote an article that covers many common mistakes artists make during the song registration process. From not properly registering your co-writers, not providing your IPI number, entering incorrect metadata and more, there are many factors to keep an eye on to ensure proper licensing and publication moving forward.

Create Original Album Cover Art

Your album art should be 3000px by 3000px. You’ll also want to make sure you aren’t using any explicit images or unofficial logos without permission, because Spotify won’t accept it. We have a killer creative design team that is known for creating next level album art. If you need help, we can create your cover for you.

Hit Up Your Distributor

Distributors (like us ) are the ones who handle music licensing, distribution, and pay streaming royalties out to artists like you. You’ll need to work with a distributor to get music on Spotify. Symphonic is actually on Spotify’s official list of preferred distributors!

Once you’re ready to get started, you can do so and learn more here. — If you’re just starting out in the industry, our Starter plan was built specifically for you. With it, you keep 100% of your royalties AND you get more tools and analytics than any other distributor for only $19.99 a year. We distribute your music to the masses, collect royalties from DSPs, make payments to your collaborators, and more, all while you keep complete ownership of your music. In addition, you get features like:

• Zero Fees
• UGC Monetization
• Next Level Analytics
• Split Pay
• Unmatched Customer Service

All you have to do is upload your release with us, and we’ll handle the rest. Once your music is on the platform, you can also keep track of your streams, sales, and other analytics in our Symphonic Management System (SMS).

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When does the release go live on Spotify?

Symphonic enables you to set a global release time if you want to. If not, new releases will go live usually around 12:00AM Eastern Time but, there may be some delays. In addition, some releases may go live based on the territory you are in.

• If you are in Australia and it is 12AM of the release date, you will see the release before Canada as they will show it live when it reaches 12AM on the release date of the release and so on, territory by territory.
• If you release doesn’t show at 12AM, you may have to close the program entirely then re-open it. If your release still doesn’t show it may not be live for any other reason so feel free to create a ticket.

In Conclusion…

We love being able to provide insights into the world of Spotify as much as we can. In doing so, we created the ultimate Spotify guide for musicians including all of the latest features, how to use them, and how to promote your tracks.

Our Spotify Guide for musicians will teach you everything about:

• Verifying your Artist Profile
• Analyzing the data Spotify gives you
• Customizing your profile
• Expanding your reach with playlisting and more!

If you’re ready to master your Spotify skills, download our official (and FREE!) Spotify Guide here.

Good luck!