PMApub / Artist guides

How to Release Your First Single: A 6-Week Rollout Plan

By PMApub Academy · Last reviewed 2026-10-13 · About 8 min read

The 6-week map at a glance

Six weeks sounds like a lot for one song. It is not, because most of the work is waiting: waiting on artwork, waiting on your distributor to deliver the release to stores, waiting for friends to open your messages. Starting early removes the panic.

Here is the whole plan in one place. We will walk through each step below.

1. Week 6: Finish the master, pick a release date (a Friday is the usual convention), choose a distributor.
2. Week 5: Gather your metadata, credits and splits. Get your ISRC sorted.
3. Week 4: Finish artwork and upload the release to your distributor.
4. Week 3: Claim your artist profiles and pitch the song to Spotify editors. Set up a pre-save link.
5. Week 2: Start posting your content, collect early reactions, line up your first listeners.
6. Week 1: Remind people, finalize release-day plans, double-check the live links.
7. Release week and after: Show up, say thank you, learn from what happened, and plan the next one.

The upload lands around week four on purpose: distributors need time to deliver, and you generally cannot pitch until the release exists in the system.

Weeks 6 and 5: Distributor, metadata and ISRC

A distributor is the company that delivers your song to Spotify, Apple Music and the other stores. If that part is new to you, our lesson on the role of DSPs and distributors explains how the pieces fit together.

You do not need to hunt for the single best distributor. You need one that fits how you work. Compare them on the same short list of things:

• How they charge. Some charge per release, some charge a yearly fee, some take a cut of earnings. Fees and plans change, so check current pricing on their own site rather than trusting a blog post.
• What you keep. Make sure you keep ownership of your recording and that you can take your music down or move it later.
• Delivery time. Look for their stated lead time for new releases, and plan to upload well ahead of it.

Then do your metadata homework. Metadata is simply the information attached to your song: title, artist name, writers, producers, genre, language, whether it has explicit lyrics. Errors here are the most common reason a release looks sloppy or payments go astray. Our essential metadata lesson covers the full list.

Two things deserve extra care. First, spell your artist name exactly the same everywhere, because the stores use it to match you to your profile. Second, agree on splits now. If a producer co-wrote the beat, talk about who owns what while everyone is still friendly. Our guide to writer versus publisher splits will help you have that conversation, and songwriting versus master copyrights explains the two kinds of ownership you are dividing.

One more item for this stretch is the ISRC, a 12-character code that identifies one specific recording. The international ISRC agency says it lets a recording be uniquely and permanently identified, and it is used for usage tracking and royalty payments. Many distributors assign one for you at upload, which is fine for a first release. You can also get your own prefix from your national agency. The US ISRC Agency listed a one-time administrative fee of 95 dollars at the time of writing, but fees change, so check. One recording keeps one code forever, so reuse it if the same recording appears on an EP later. Also write down every credit (lyrics, production, mixing, mastering) in one note, and see the royalties setup checklist for where it goes next.

Week 4: Artwork, final checks and upload

Your cover is a thumbnail first and an artwork second. On a phone, it will often be about the size of a postage stamp, so make sure it still reads at that size. Big shapes, high contrast, and very little tiny text.

Distributors and stores publish their own image requirements, and they differ, so follow your distributor's current specs rather than any number you read online. Generally you will want a square, high-resolution image with no blurry upscaling. A few rules of thumb that save people trouble:

• Do not use logos or images you do not have rights to. That includes photos you found online.
• Do not put website links, prices or social handles on the cover. Stores can reject these.
• Make sure the artist and title on the cover match your metadata exactly, if you include text at all.

Then upload. Choose your release date, fill in the metadata from your notes, and submit with room to spare. Distributors review releases and can ask for fixes, so give yourself buffer. If something gets flagged, you will be glad it is week four and not release eve.

Week 3: Claim your profiles, pitch Spotify and set up a pre-save

Claim your artist profiles before anything else. Spotify for Artists is free, you sign in with a Spotify account and claim your profile, and it gives you tools to customize your page and see your audience. Apple Music for Artists works similarly for Apple Music. Do this now so your photo, bio and links are ready when the song appears.

Now the pitch. Spotify lets you submit an unreleased song to its editors for playlist consideration. According to Spotify's own support page, you open Spotify for Artists, go to Music, then Upcoming, choose the song and fill out the pitch form. You should pitch at least seven days before release. Pitching that early also lets Spotify add the song to the Release Radar playlists of your followers.

A few honest notes about it:

• Only unreleased songs qualify, and you can only have one active pitch at a time.
• Pitching does not guarantee placement. Editors may pick a different song, or none.
• More detail helps. Fill in genre, mood, instruments and a short story of the song, and be specific about what makes it yours.
• You can edit the pitch until release day, but editors may not see late changes.

Your song generally appears under Upcoming once your distributor has delivered it, which is another reason not to upload at the last minute.

Next, a pre-save link. A pre-save lets a fan queue your song to their library before it exists. Spotify's own Countdown Pages are for albums and EPs, not singles, so for a single you will usually use a link page from a third-party tool. ReleaseReady's smart pages at /hub can host your links in one place if you want an option. Whatever you use, test the link on a phone before you share it.

Weeks 2 and 1: Plan your content and warm up your people

Content planning sounds corporate. It really just means deciding what you will post so you are not inventing it at 11 pm on release day. Imagine you are a singer-songwriter with a day job and three free hours a week: five or six simple posts across two weeks is plenty.

Some ideas that cost little:

• A 15 to 30 second clip of the hook, filmed on your phone, with the lyrics on screen.
• The story behind the song in your own words. Be truthful, not dramatic.
• A simple visual for the song. If you want to try a generated music video, CineTrack at /cinema can build scenes from your audio, but a lyric video or a clean performance clip works just as well.

Then talk to people one at a time. Send a personal message to ten friends, family members and fellow artists who like your music. Tell them the date, give them the pre-save link, and tell them the one thing that would help most, whether that is saving the song, sharing it, or listening on release morning. Real people asked kindly will do more for you than a generic broadcast.

In week one, confirm everything still works. Check the pre-save link, confirm the release date with your distributor, schedule your posts, and charge your phone. Resist the urge to redo your artwork now.

Release day and the week after

Release day is for showing up. Post your link, answer comments, thank people by name, and message the friends who said they would listen. Check that the song is live on each store, that the artwork, title and credits look right, and that it is attached to your correct artist profile. If something is wrong, contact your distributor right away.

In the week after, do three things:

1. Check your pitch result. Spotify says to look at the Playlists tab under Music after release to see whether you were picked. If you were not, that is normal and not a verdict on your song.
2. Keep posting. One or two more posts a few days apart. Share a fan reaction, a favorite lyric, or a thank-you.
3. Write down what happened. Which post got replies? Where did listeners come from? Which friends actually shared it? That note becomes the plan for the next release.

Also make sure you register for royalties. Your song can earn in several places beyond the streaming store, and the checklist linked earlier walks you through them. Over time, the lesson on scaling your audience shows how to think about growing without burning out.

Never pay anyone who promises guaranteed streams or playlist placement. Spotify says it prohibits third-party services that promise either in exchange for money, and the streams they produce can be removed.

Common mistakes to avoid

Almost everyone makes a few of these on a first release. Knowing them ahead of time is enough to dodge most of them.

• Uploading too late. If you submit days before release, you may miss the pitch window and leave no room for fixes. Upload around four weeks out and check your distributor's lead time.
• Inconsistent artist names. A small spelling or punctuation difference can create a second profile or send your song to the wrong page.
• Skipping splits. Agreements made in a group chat are easy to forget. Write the splits down and have everyone confirm.
• Treating the pitch as a plan. The pitch is a free lottery ticket, not a strategy. Build your rollout as if it will not land.
• Buying streams. It is against platform rules and can get your music removed or your distributor account penalized.
• Going silent after day one. One post and a link is not a rollout. Keep showing up for a couple of weeks.

Your next 3 moves

1. Pick your release date six weeks from today and write the seven weeks of the plan into your calendar.
2. Choose a distributor by comparing current pricing, lead time and ownership terms, then start your metadata and credits note.
3. Claim your Spotify for Artists and Apple Music for Artists profiles so they are ready when your song shows up.