# My death metal album got 4,400 streams on Spotify in one week and here's how I did it



## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 5, 2022)

I consider the release of my debut album "Vampiric" a success. I am a bedroom musician working alone, as many of us are, writing, recording, producing, releasing and promoting music all by ourselves. The tips I've read about promotion are rarely that good or simply outdated. That's why I want to share some concrete advice everyone could have some use for.

*The stats*
During the first week my album got 4,400 streams on Spotify and 2000 streams on Bandcamp in the app. 61 fans decided to purchase the album for a price they found fair and 171 downloaded it for free. I earned around $200 just from sales.



_Pictured: Spotify stats._

*The hard truth *
Nobody gives a shit about you or your 'new' music. Making good music is just the bare minimum of getting any attention at all. 2022 people are very, very, focused on the visual aspect of whatever you're trying to promote. Pure music is neither visual nor easy to access as most people on their phones won't put in headphones or start the sound just for some random guy. Good music can spread by itself, but it's so rare it's almost a myth at this point. But there are ways getting around this.

*Social Media presence*
My main channel of communication is Instagram. I've found that by using hashtags, following and talking to interesting people and releasing simple videos of me performing my music is the best way to reach out. Battling the algorithm is much harder on Twitter and Facebook, even though sharing links is easier on those platforms. I focus all my energy on Instagram, cross post everything on Facebook, copy paste and shorten for twitter and release longer, high quality content for Youtube to promote my music. If I have vertical video of a performance I will post it on IG Stories, TV, Reels, Youtube Shorts and TikTok. 

*Getting around it*
If people want visual, I give them visual. I started sharing my own photographs and curated contemporary/old art I like (always got permission if it wasn't in the public domain) and transitioned into posting my own art alongside videos of me performing my music. Now people stay for the art and may give my music a chance. I've been doing this for four years and are near 22,000 followers on Instagram. Cross platform I have around 29,000 followers (Bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok). I put no effort into the other ones, but they keep growing there too because of the cross posting.



_Pictured: Facebook reach and Instagram reach._

*Growing a fanbase*
* Every platform wants to keep it's users on that platform, so I rarely use links just to see my YouTube views get inflated by a couple of clicks, for example. Build a fanbase by grinding on that platform, and call to action down the line when it matters. Don't expect to grow by spamming links.
* Content that's purely music is hard to pierce the buzz, especially extreme music. Are you a streamer? Artist? Videographer? Photographer? Do you like to cook? Lifestyle enthusiast? Dancer? Working with clay? Literally anything else that's visual can be used to boost your music. But this is just how I like do it.
* Releasing singles keeps the attention of your fans. Releasing an album creates a bigger buzz. Don't bother sending singles to journalists and reviewers, but absolutely make an effort to promote an album.

*Chronological: The release*
* Completed the album and put it up on a music distribution service. Distrokid is popular and has a monthly cost but unlimited uploads. I use Emubands to keep all royalties and do album uploads with one time lifetime costs.
* Claim my Spotify artist page and pitch a song on the album to their editorial theme. My song didn't make the cut, but if accepted it's huge. Do this at least a month prior to release.
* Began posting short snippets of me playing the new songs to create a hype.
* Filmed and released a music video all by myself. Posted this on Reddit and submitted the video to YouTube channels like BlankTV and Black Metal Promotion.
* Ran a small giveaway (band patches) for people who pre-saved the album on Spotify via smart.url.
* Looked up reviews of bands that sounds like me, gathered the email addresses of those blogs and news outlets. I gathered around 150 of them and blasted out a press release consisting of album art, pictures of me, the songs, a private album stream, some information about the album and my band and quotes by me about the album. This got me featured on MetalSucks and a couple of other sites. Make it easy to write something interesting about you. Bloggers love fast and easy content.
* On release I put out one more music video done with a single camera and me in the woods.
* Submitted my music to 17 metal playlisters on submithub. Was accepted by half of them.
* Ran Spotify ads on Facebook for $50 for great results. I followed this tutorial to set them up.

*Ending*
I have made over 30 demos on compilations and EP:s since I started CLAYSHAPER back in 2018. I know 4,400 doesn't sound like much, but seeing actual people listening to your music in real time on Spotify's dashboard is a cool feeling. Receiving comments about AOTY is also humbling. I hope you as a reader got something out of my little write up. 

Ask any questions you might have, I'll answer if I can.


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## DiezelMonster (Jun 5, 2022)

This feels like a pyramid scheme.


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## sirbuh (Jun 5, 2022)

DiezelMonster said:


> This feels like a pyramid scheme.


how many can we put you down for?


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## DiezelMonster (Jun 5, 2022)

sirbuh said:


> how many can we put you down for?


Put me down for 32 Tony Robbins.


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## Emperoff (Jun 5, 2022)

_Are you a streamer? Artist? Videographer? Photographer? Do you like to cook? Lifestyle enthusiast? Dancer? Working with clay? Literally anything else that's visual can be used to boost your music. But this is just how I like do it._

Chuck Schuldiner would be proud


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## CanserDYI (Jun 5, 2022)

Aw fuck no didn't even make it past the title.


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## Werecow (Jun 5, 2022)

So.... are you selling gummies or not?


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## AwakenTheSkies (Jun 5, 2022)

DiezelMonster said:


> This feels like a pyramid scheme.


Well he's not trying to sell you anything is he?

My friend who recently got into this social media promotion thing as well with his guitar stuff has told me the same advice more or less.

But I hate promoting myself, or trying to "sell myself" through social media. I hate it!!! It feels terrible and not genuine at all. Trying to write in a positive way, trying to act "funny". Euuuuugghh  It is such a SHIT way to share your music!  

And it just keeps getting worse , now you don't even see the users you follow, getting spammed with suggested posts. My friend uploads a video and after I view it it gets taken away and replaced with more "suggested posts". Ridiculous!


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## nickgray (Jun 5, 2022)

It's a sort of a mix between melodic black and melodic death, imo at least. I wasn't prepared for this to be this good though, considering the post  It's legit pretty good stuff, congrats on the release. Good production too, a tiny bit anemic maybe, but very clean and not fatiguing at all (I'll take this any day over brickwalled productions that make your ears bleed after 5 seconds). Parts remind me of Ihsahn's solo stuff.



CLAYSHAPER said:


> Nobody gives a shit about you or your 'new' music. Making good music is just the bare minimum of getting any attention at all. 2022 people are very, very, focused on the visual aspect of whatever you're trying to promote.



Not sure if I agree. This music is pretty damn niche. Your statement is true if you had a more commercial kind of music, but yours falls more under the style of music for music fans (or even music for musicians, a little bit). Your biggest strength here _is _pure music because you are appealing to the in-the-know crowd, and we don't really care about flashy stuff. I mean, I'm still listening to it on the bandcamp in the backround as I'm writing this post. It's very rare that I find something new that's even remotely worth listening to.

If I were you I'd consider making tutorials/videos about the production, composition, and recording process. The way I see it, that's one niche that is yet to be filled, as typically big YouTubers (like Ola) are more focused on broader appeal videos, and the really in-depth videos from actual musicians are hard to find. Andy Gillion's videos on Mors Principium Est tracks are the closest related thing I can think of (different kind of melodeath than your though).


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## Winspear (Jun 5, 2022)

Great post and rundowns, thank you!
Your visuals are _excellent _and are indeed so important. They shape so much of the perceived atmosphere around the act, which is to me at least, the most important thing by far. 
Solid music. The instagram is superb - I love how uniform it feels even though it's not all original content, well done.


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## BlackMastodon (Jun 5, 2022)

Pyramid-scheme title aside, I actually really appreciate the transparency and rundown, it shows the side of self-releaaing music that isn't often talked about and what's behind the sales-pitch posts.


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## OmegaSlayer (Jun 6, 2022)

Congrats on the amount of streams

On the downside it depresses me a lot about releasing my stuff, as I'm sure I won't have your consistency in promoting


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## ParanoiaEngine (Jun 6, 2022)

It seems that instagram is a good place to promote death metal


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

AwakenTheSkies said:


> Well he's not trying to sell you anything is he?
> 
> My friend who recently got into this social media promotion thing as well with his guitar stuff has told me the same advice more or less.
> 
> ...


I am a solo musician so social media is my only "stage" so to speak. I never post content I'm not comfortable with. You don't have to be funny or acting a way that's fake.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

nickgray said:


> It's a sort of a mix between melodic black and melodic death, imo at least. I wasn't prepared for this to be this good though, considering the post  It's legit pretty good stuff, congrats on the release. Good production too, a tiny bit anemic maybe, but very clean and not fatiguing at all (I'll take this any day over brickwalled productions that make your ears bleed after 5 seconds). Parts remind me of Ihsahn's solo stuff.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you. You're right, the niche group loves it! Of course it isn't AOTY, like I receive comments about, but maybe for this niche group it is. My point still stands though, you said it yourself: "It's very rare that I find something new that's even remotely worth listening to."
I'll consider making studio tutorials! I have a very simple setup like most of us do. Focusrite, GGD Drums, Fabfilter VTS:s in Cubase. But I don't fuck with amp sims in the DAW, I find that you can get decision fatigue pretty quickly. I have my presets in my Kemper and record them straight into the DAW without DI-tracks. That way I get what I get, if it sounds like crap, it's on me. This is why the mix is a bit anemic, I had removed a bit too much of the body in the guitar sound, but I had to go with that sound as I noticed in the mixing process. It's not the greatest, but it's unique at least. With DI I would just have fixed it and sounded like everything else out there.
Also: It was not my intention of coming of cheezy in the post. I genuinely want to share some advice I never got when starting out.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

Winspear said:


> Great post and rundowns, thank you!
> Your visuals are _excellent _and are indeed so important. They shape so much of the perceived atmosphere around the act, which is to me at least, the most important thing by far.
> Solid music. The instagram is superb - I love how uniform it feels even though it's not all original content, well done.


Thank you! I spend quite a lot of time making my "brand". Fonts. colors, aesthetic, sound, etc. 
PS. All recent content is original I do metal album art-esque digital collages using public domain imagery.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

OmegaSlayer said:


> Congrats on the amount of streams
> 
> On the downside it depresses me a lot about releasing my stuff, as I'm sure I won't have your consistency in promoting


Thanks! 
Yes, I was (and certainly am) in your shoes still. It's hard releasing music. It's your little baby and it hurts when it's ignored or get verbally abused  
I stopped nagging my friends to get some inflated numbers on whatever platform I was focusing on and just went to the grind to get some results. However, these numbers and achievements will quickly fade into obscurity and I know that. I would say* the most important* step is not having a constant social media presence, it's doing *some work* the weeks prior to the release.* Check out those blogs and save a couple of email addresses. Do a video with your phone. Generate some cool art with AI or hire someone. *If you begin spreading the music after it's out you're at a disadvantage already, bloggers might not want to review it because it's considered old when the can get to it.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

ParanoiaEngine said:


> It seems that instagram is a good place to promote death metal


It actually is. It's gotten better over the four years I've been on there. It takes a while to find your crowd but after a while Instagram recognized your interests and begin recommending people who might like what you do/you like what they do.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

BlackMastodon said:


> Pyramid-scheme title aside, I actually really appreciate the transparency and rundown, it shows the side of self-releaaing music that isn't often talked about and what's behind the sales-pitch posts.


Yeah, it wasn't my intention sounding like that. I just had to get it all into the title 
I was pretty bummed out for many years that I didn't get any attention at all, the music was so cool though! I thought.
I reached out to mid sized acts to get some tips, but they didn't even bother to answer, and I know now that I came of as naive. There's not a short answer to getting your music out to people and everyone can carve their own path. I would suggest NOT selling out and doing social media stuff you're not comfortable with. I don't.


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## prlgmnr (Jun 6, 2022)

Emperoff said:


> _Are you a streamer? Artist? Videographer? Photographer? Do you like to cook? Lifestyle enthusiast? Dancer? Working with clay? Literally anything else that's visual can be used to boost your music. But this is just how I like do it._
> 
> Chuck Schuldiner would be proud


I bet Marco Pierre White has a good death metal album in him


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## ParanoiaEngine (Jun 6, 2022)

CLAYSHAPER said:


> It actually is. It's gotten better over the four years I've been on there. It takes a while to find your crowd but after a while Instagram recognized your interests and begin recommending people who might like what you do/you like what they do


Antropofagus from Italy followed me before anyone else and that blew my mind and I have had the good fortune to have a brief conversation with Stay Metal Ray about pickups on there in the past few days since I signed up. Still gotta post some music lol. I’m lacking the proper mic to finish recording my demo…


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## BlackMastodon (Jun 6, 2022)

So this got me to listen to your album this morning and it's a really solid, cohesive album. Great work, and be proud of what you've accomplished!


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## Flappydoodle (Jun 6, 2022)

This looks like really solid advice. A hell of a lot of hard work, but what you say makes total sense. Agree with you 100% that visual impact is incredibly important, and also what you said about bloggers wanting easy content and how it can be used for free promotion.

Listening to your stuff now


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## STRHelvete (Jun 6, 2022)

My death metal album got 4400 streams on Spotify in one week and here's how I did it.
I posted in music groups about getting 4400 streams so people would click on my spotify and listen.


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## neurosis (Jun 6, 2022)

To the OP. You're putting int he work and being thoughtful about the work. The music is cool. keep doing what you are doing. There is no recipe for success but there a re definitely steps you can take to doing things in a sustainable way that keeps you engaged with an audience. You're doing a lot of that. If anything it's a good way to learn first hand what works and what does not work for you, gather ideas and get feedback. 
Godspeed!


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## neurosis (Jun 6, 2022)

Also, hex rites is an awesome tune btw.


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## bostjan (Jun 6, 2022)

I guess I'm totally vague about the overall message of your thread.

Too much of how promotion works out is chaotic enough to appear random, so I don't think anything you've outlined here is reproducible. It's a good method to try, though, but I wouldn't expect similar results every time. Also, if anyone starts this process today, by the time their music is ready to release, there's a chance that something monumental could change and result in this method no longer working.

In the case that you are merely sharing your success story for what it is, great job!


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## GunpointMetal (Jun 6, 2022)

I appreciate all the information. I don't feel like it's anything new for me, but its nice to see how it all shakes out. My biggest question/concern/problem with social media marketing is when I add up all the time I'd spend doing all this shit I could have made $800 doing random engineering shit, spent $350 of it on ads, and probably made the same $200. If I were billing myself for social media time at my hourly work rate, it actually ends up costing me thousands of $$$ for a $200 return.


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## eaeolian (Jun 6, 2022)

I applaud both your work ethic and your lack of trying to sell someone your "tips and tricks".


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## coreysMonster (Jun 6, 2022)

One thing I learned when making games is that marketing needs to be thought of at the beginning of development, not afterwards. It needs to LOOK fun to play, and have an interesting hook to get people's attention. You can't jam that in after two years of development - well you can try, but that usually involves reworking huge parts of the project, which is incredibly time consuming.

It's a bit cynical to apply that to music, but if you're trying to make a product, it's inevitable that you have to think that way. Album art and the visual representation of the band (be it real or fictional members ala gorillaz / Dethklok) needs to be immediately interesting and distinguishing and reinforce the "vibe" of the music. I think OP's Instagram is definitely going in the right direction.
Good write-up, OP!


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

BlackMastodon said:


> So this got me to listen to your album this morning and it's a really solid, cohesive album. Great work, and be proud of what you've accomplished!


Thanks for listening and for the kind words! I've been on this forum for a while under different names and I wanted to give something back. Even though I kind of regret the post title now


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

neurosis said:


> Also, hex rites is an awesome tune btw.


Thank you! Yes, I was the kind of guy who looked for the button to press to succeed. Back in 2008 I ran a world wide Facebook ad for my band page I was in back then. I quickly got over 10,000 likes and was exhilarated. Little did I know this would completely destroy the page and the few real fans I had gathered. All the Malaysian bots that had liked the page soaked up all the reach and killed it. Lesson learned!


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

bostjan said:


> I guess I'm totally vague about the overall message of your thread.
> 
> Too much of how promotion works out is chaotic enough to appear random, so I don't think anything you've outlined here is reproducible. It's a good method to try, though, but I wouldn't expect similar results every time. Also, if anyone starts this process today, by the time their music is ready to release, there's a chance that something monumental could change and result in this method no longer working.
> 
> In the case that you are merely sharing your success story for what it is, great job!


I don't agree at all. I am very aware that my way of promoting myself is niche and hard to reproduce, I stated that it's the way I like to do it, but there are many ways to success. The tips about the release are very concrete: Claiming artist page, posting teasers, posting on reddit, reaching out to YouTubers, run giveaways and pre-save campaigns, gather email addresses of blogs, what to include in a press release, making simple music videos (static camera in the woods), submit to playlisters, how to run a cheap and successful Facebook ad campaign ... the tutorial I linked to is great.
My following on Instagram has little to do with the success of the release. I would say the most important steps was the press release, submithub and Facebook ad.


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## wankerness (Jun 6, 2022)

How much do you actually make from Spotify? Popular discussion leads me to believe 4400 streams = 32 cents of royalties but I'm guessing it's at least a bit more than that.

I wasn't sure if the 200 figure was spotify +bandcamp combined or just bandcamp. If combined, I'm guessing most of that 200 was from bandcamp?


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

GunpointMetal said:


> I appreciate all the information. I don't feel like it's anything new for me, but its nice to see how it all shakes out. My biggest question/concern/problem with social media marketing is when I add up all the time I'd spend doing all this shit I could have made $800 doing random engineering shit, spent $350 of it on ads, and probably made the same $200. If I were billing myself for social media time at my hourly work rate, it actually ends up costing me thousands of $$$ for a $200 return.


Very true. It's more of a game for me than an actual job. Sometimes I watch movies, play video games or take a hike in the woods, other times I record music and post stuff on social media. When everything is set up I actually only make a post every other week or so just to keep people interested. I did work a lot more during the weeks prior to the release.

As you kind of pointed out. Very few can make a living doing niche metal music. I am not trying to either. I do sell merch, get royalties from all streaming platforms and work as a hired gun (commissions of different kinds) so I make a lot more than just the 'pay what you want' from Bandcamp. The $200 is also just the first week, while writing this the number is getting higher.

Some people also get income from Patreon and ad revenue on YouTube and streaming. Live bands play paid gigs.

I keep tab of all my spendings on recording equipment, camera gear, ads, distribution and so on for the last ten years and it's several thousands of dollars at this point. But last year I actually made more than I spent and it's already the same story this year.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

eaeolian said:


> I applaud both your work ethic and your lack of trying to sell someone your "tips and tricks".


Thank you! Information should be free


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

wankerness said:


> How much do you actually make from Spotify? Popular discussion leads me to believe 4400 streams = 32 cents of royalties but I'm guessing it's at least a bit more than that.
> 
> I wasn't sure if the 200 figure was spotify +bandcamp combined or just bandcamp. If combined, I'm guessing most of that 200 was from bandcamp?


$200 is only from 'pay what you want' option from bandcamp. A lot of people throw in a dollar in the tip jar, one person paid $30 dollars for the album.
I haven't gotten the data from this release yet, but my prior releases has earned me $40 dollars in royalties in two years. That's 14 000 streams across all streaming platforms (Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify, Amazon Music and more). $30 of those dollars came from Spotify's 11500 streams.
As I said in another reply I also sell merch and do commissioned work which is a lot more profitable. With that said I absolutely do not do this for the money, I actually spend most of the money from my hobby on my hobby to keep CLAYSHAPER growing. I have a real job and family outside of music.


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## ArtDecade (Jun 6, 2022)

When does the world tour start? Will LA Guns be opening?


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

coreysMonster said:


> One thing I learned when making games is that marketing needs to be thought of at the beginning of development, not afterwards. It needs to LOOK fun to play, and have an interesting hook to get people's attention. You can't jam that in after two years of development - well you can try, but that usually involves reworking huge parts of the project, which is incredibly time consuming.
> 
> It's a bit cynical to apply that to music, but if you're trying to make a product, it's inevitable that you have to think that way. Album art and the visual representation of the band (be it real or fictional members ala gorillaz / Dethklok) needs to be immediately interesting and distinguishing and reinforce the "vibe" of the music. I think OP's Instagram is definitely going in the right direction.
> Good write-up, OP!


Very interesting! Thanks for sharing. I do have a background in marketing, hence why I think it's fun. I know whole bands who work really hard for several years doing an album and when it's released they get 40 streams, half of which is from the band members and the rest from their suffering family. When talking to these people they're always disappointed of the outcome. Sure, you can work your ass of and roll the dice that the algorithm will magically put your songs in front of a important industry person, or you can put in the work to get at least a chance to reach out to someone who might care.


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## bostjan (Jun 6, 2022)

Well, feel free to disagree. I've seen the way marketing changes drastically and unpredictably first-hand over a dozen times. I've done all of the things you mentioned in your post for releases I've done a decade ago, and it all boils down to luck. For example:

Claiming an artist page - if no one follows your artist page this makes diddly squat difference. Even with dozens or hundreds of followers, if you post updates when no one is watching - it's the same outcome.
Posting teasers - if no one follows, no one will see them. If tons of people are following, and your followers are the types who think teasers are annoying, they'll unfollow. This is one of those methods that needs to be done sparingly and done at just the right time otherwise you'll just ultimately take a net negative.
Posting on reddit - so does everyone else. If people are in a mood to check it out they will, otherwise, not. There's not much in ways to control this. Even if you have a good artist, if no one opens the thread, it doesn't matter.
Reaching out to youtubers - most of them will ignore you. If you get lucky, one that people actually watch will read your messages, otherwise, it's a waste of time. You may even get unlucky and have someone you sent your link to mercilessly disparage you if they are in a bad mood or just want to feel powerful and be shitty. It happens a lot actually.
Run giveaways - Again, if no one is following you, no one will know you are giving anything away, and no one will care.
Gather email addresses of blogs - same as youtubers, you could get your stuff posted on a hundred blogs, and, even if people follow those bloggers, if no one who blogs about you blogs about you on a day when people are particularly interested in reading their blogs, it doesn't matter. This is potentially the most wildly variable effect of the things you mentioned.
Press release - if you are a small artist, no one cares about your press releases either way, so I'm not even sure why this would matter.
Facebook ads - tried this numerous times. They have to be targeted properly or else they don't work. Facebook's targeting algorithm is unpredictable - sometimes it's effective, usually not. It all depends. That's my entire point - so much of all of this is purely up to luck.

I'm not saying that your points are bad. On the contrary, if you don't work really hard to get your stuff out there, it definitely _won't_ get out there, but I've released shit music and music that I'm really proud of (which might still be shit, who knows?), and there is no consistency. Nowadays, when I release something, I don't even post it anywhere. One of my more recent (couple years ago) releases outperformed all of my previous releases, and I didn't do _any of those things you outlined. _It's not _all_ luck, but a majority of it is luck. If you release the right thing at the right time and just the right person notices it, it will do a million times better than if you release the wrong thing at the wrong time and no one notices it until after your window of opportunity.

And that's not just for music, but it applies to everything.

Call me jaded or call me a debbie downer if you will, but this is just the way it is. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you don't. I don't even really think it has much to do with the quality of the music. My most successful release in the past decade was a cover song I released as a hidden bonus track as a joke. The entire release was a nightmare for us and the quality of the final product suffered greatly due to circumstances that all seemed as though they were out of our control. I've since eliminated every trace of it that I could, because my band ended up literally embarrassed by how poor quality that release was. Plenty of my buddies my age have similar stories about how a joke song nearly made them famous, yet the songs where they pour their very essence of being end up going completely overlooked. I've jammed with people who spent their youth trying to break into the industry who later died and then their stuff got more successful after they were gone, with no one who was involved in it actively promoting it anymore.

Every avenue you use for promotion is simply casting a die. The more dice you roll, the higher the odds of something succeeding. That's all it is. You can think there's some magical method to doing it a certain way, but the magic is nothing, and the statistics are that you just cast as wide a net as possible. Get your stuff into as many ears as you can, and maybe some of those ears will be connected to mouths that tell other people about your stuff. Maybe some of those other people will do the same. Maybe it catches a wave of word-of-mouth, or maybe not. If you don't try, it's less likely to happen than if you do, but there are absolutely no guarantees either way.

I wish you all the best. You seem to be moderately successful. Enjoy it while you can.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 6, 2022)

ArtDecade said:


> When does the world tour start? Will LA Guns be opening?


Soon! That sounds great, as long as I don't have to share the greenroom with the nerds in The Sticky Wickets.


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## ArtDecade (Jun 6, 2022)

CLAYSHAPER said:


> Soon! That sounds great, as long as I don't have to share the greenroom with the nerds in The Sticky Wickets.



Does no one get cricket references around here?


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## DiezelMonster (Jun 6, 2022)

ArtDecade said:


> Does no one get cricket references around here?


No.


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## wheresthefbomb (Jun 6, 2022)

ArtDecade said:


> Does no one get cricket references around here?


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## works0fheart (Jun 7, 2022)

I know this post is catching a lot of flak for sounding (admittedly) somewhat like one of the late-night click bait ads that pop up here, but after having read it and your replies, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. Advice for this type of thing isn't always free, and like you mentioned, people extending a hand or offering constructive advice like this is pretty few and far between in general. Some of the people here are being a bit over-critical I think but the take home for me here is, for better or worse, that music has a hard time standing on it's own without something else to get it recognition, at least in 2022.

I dabble with art myself, be it drawing or photography, and I'm branching out to streaming my practice sessions within a relatively small, but growing community. I'm not really sure what the right move is now days for doing something on the side with music but I like what I read earlier and I might give it a try myself. As someone else mentioned already, I feel like there's not a big enough community for bridging the gap between guitar technique and songwriting. There are plenty of great musicians out there who don't really know how to elaborate on their craft very well other than to say something like "I just felt inspired and 'BOOM', Wonderwall". For me, that's the audience I'd like to reach personally, and I'm trying to start working towards that (motivation outside of work is a bitch sometimes).

I really like your take on the money thing and trying to make a justifiable income on this (a whole other discussion) and I think it went right by a lot of people, and probably will continue to. The more niche' of a genre of music you're into the less you stand to make. At some point you're making music for a small target audience, and honestly, that's ok! I've accepted a while ago that I'm never going to make a ton of money off of music, but I'd at least like to reach as many ears as possible to give it a chance. Hell, I'd give my music away for free if it meant people giving it the time of day. I know this isn't everyone, and the "I'm-gonna-be-a-rockstar" thing doesn't leave a lot of people's heads easily, but for me, it means more to me if people appreciate my music.


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## M3CHK1LLA (Jun 7, 2022)

op, thanks for posting and trying to help this community. good luck


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## John (Jun 7, 2022)

DiezelMonster said:


> This is a pyramid scheme.



Amended and revised.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 7, 2022)

works0fheart said:


> I know this post is catching a lot of flak for sounding (admittedly) somewhat like one of the late-night click bait ads that pop up here, but after having read it and your replies, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. Advice for this type of thing isn't always free, and like you mentioned, people extending a hand or offering constructive advice like this is pretty few and far between in general. Some of the people here are being a bit over-critical I think but the take home for me here is, for better or worse, that music has a hard time standing on it's own without something else to get it recognition, at least in 2022.
> 
> I dabble with art myself, be it drawing or photography, and I'm branching out to streaming my practice sessions within a relatively small, but growing community. I'm not really sure what the right move is now days for doing something on the side with music but I like what I read earlier and I might give it a try myself. As someone else mentioned already, I feel like there's not a big enough community for bridging the gap between guitar technique and songwriting. There are plenty of great musicians out there who don't really know how to elaborate on their craft very well other than to say something like "I just felt inspired and 'BOOM', Wonderwall". For me, that's the audience I'd like to reach personally, and I'm trying to start working towards that (motivation outside of work is a bitch sometimes).
> 
> I really like your take on the money thing and trying to make a justifiable income on this (a whole other discussion) and I think it went right by a lot of people, and probably will continue to. The more niche' of a genre of music you're into the less you stand to make. At some point you're making music for a small target audience, and honestly, that's ok! I've accepted a while ago that I'm never going to make a ton of money off of music, but I'd at least like to reach as many ears as possible to give it a chance. Hell, I'd give my music away for free if it meant people giving it the time of day. I know this isn't everyone, and the "I'm-gonna-be-a-rockstar" thing doesn't leave a lot of people's heads easily, but for me, it means more to me if people appreciate my music.


Appreciate it! 
Good luck with your endeavors!


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 7, 2022)

M3CHK1LLA said:


> op, thanks for posting and trying to help this community. good luck


No problem, I love this place. Gotten some good gear advice in the past.


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## Vres (Jun 7, 2022)

This forum is so negative and uninformed that people will call a motivating post a "pyramid scheme" rofl.


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## AkiraSpectrum (Jun 7, 2022)

thank you for sharing!


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 8, 2022)

Vres said:


> This forum is so negative and uninformed that people will call a motivating post a "pyramid scheme" rofl.


It's probably mostly because of the title. It's pretty hard condensing everything I wanted to say in the title, so it inherently became a bit sharp and to the point, I guess. I have no idea how I would have rephrased it, though.


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## BlackMastodon (Jun 8, 2022)

Vres said:


> This forum is so negative and uninformed that people will call a motivating post a "pyramid scheme" rofl.


Not gonna lie, at first glance I thought this was gonna be one of the spam threads that pop up in the early morning before the mods can clean them out. But after actually reading it I was pleasantly surprised. 

Also this community is understandably cautious against snake oil salesmen with the amount of people burned by custom guitar builders, but this thread ain't that, so I'll just take it as people taking the piss.


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## tedtan (Jun 8, 2022)

CLAYSHAPER said:


> It's probably mostly because of the title. It's pretty hard condensing everything I wanted to say in the title, so it inherently became a bit sharp and to the point, I guess. I have no idea how I would have rephrased it, though.


Record companies will *HATE* you for using this one *EASY TRICK* to get Millions of followers!


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## Iron1 (Jun 8, 2022)

CLAYSHAPER said:


> $200 is only from 'pay what you want' option from bandcamp. A lot of people throw in a dollar in the tip jar, one person paid $30 dollars for the album.
> I haven't gotten the data from this release yet, but my prior releases has earned me $40 dollars in royalties in two years. That's 14 000 streams across all streaming platforms (Apple Music, Deezer, Spotify, Amazon Music and more). $30 of those dollars came from Spotify's 11500 streams.
> As I said in another reply I also sell merch and do commissioned work which is a lot more profitable. With that said I absolutely do not do this for the money, I actually spend most of the money from my hobby on my hobby to keep CLAYSHAPER growing. I have a real job and family outside of music.


That pay scale is so insanely discouraging... was part of two bands who released music thru labels in the 80s/90s and we got $4/unit sold. Granted, the record label ripped us off... lol.


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## eaeolian (Jun 8, 2022)

Iron1 said:


> That pay scale is so insanely discouraging... was part of two bands who released music thru labels in the 80s/90s and we got $4/unit sold. Granted, the record label ripped us off... lol.


They ripped everyone off. That's how the record industry worked.


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## jack_cat (Jun 8, 2022)

Although in a very different niche, as a restaurant dinner-musician for many years, I've always cultivated diverse income streams by necessity. Home-cooked CDs were a big money maker for a long time and they are dead now, so Spotify has taken their place. As matters stand, we pull in a steady $50 USD a month from Spotify. We only put the music up there in the spring of 2020. It is growing, but it is clear that it would grow more with a promotional program like Clayshaper's.

Friends have advised me for many years that we should do intense promotions like the OP here has done, and I am not surprised to hear that the process has worked so well for him. I have never been willing to put so much time into online promotions. Yet it is clear that to associate the music with a visual advertisement campaign is a very good idea, and I applaud. The relatively low income that we get from Spotify is very nice to have, but if it were ten times as much... well.
Those of us who inhabit the nether regions of the commercial music world are happy for every extra bit of coin.

When we launched our own Spotify playlist it was because we were dead in the water with no gigs because of the pandemic. We did a small promotion campaign at that time, and to our surprise we received upwards of $500 in sympathy donations - which handily covered our upfront costs to put the music up! So it has been all profit since then. I think our music has a little more middle-of-the-road appeal than Clayshaper's death metal, which is why we have done pretty well with almost no promotion, so it is very encouraging from that point of view to read about his success at promoting music nobody would ever be looking for -- whereas our playlist consists of popular covers, and depends on people searching for those songs, not for us, and this is a different strategy aimed at money, not glory. Thanks for the inspirational story, Clayshaper.

When I first considered Spotify before the pandemic, that infinitesimal ...0000003 cents per play really did look like a total ripoff. Sort of like, a "song" is now devalued as much as it can possibly be. Yet, we can't sell CDs, and need to sell something, so I bowed to the reality of our time and accepted the deal. OK, 50 bucks a month for your life's work.

(BTW, search Spotify for "Jack and Frances Two Guitars" - heh, nothing you metal-heads will be into! All romantic and sugary!)


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## TheRealMikeD (Jun 8, 2022)

Thanks for the write-up. I think there is some solid advice in there. And congrats on the amount of success you have had so far. I hope you are able to continue growing your audience. Cheers!


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 8, 2022)

BlackMastodon said:


> Not gonna lie, at first glance I thought this was gonna be one of the spam threads that pop up in the early morning before the mods can clean them out. But after actually reading it I was pleasantly surprised.
> 
> Also this community is understandably cautious against snake oil salesmen with the amount of people burned by custom guitar builders, but this thread ain't that, so I'll just take it as people taking the piss.


Yeah, I didn't know about those spam threads. I think the initial reactions was pretty funny.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 8, 2022)

Iron1 said:


> That pay scale is so insanely discouraging... was part of two bands who released music thru labels in the 80s/90s and we got $4/unit sold. Granted, the record label ripped us off... lol.


It's pretty bad ... I can't imagine there are many modern metal bands that are able to live of selling music alone. I don't remember where, but there was talk about a redistribution of royalties within the streaming world. Now all of the subscribers on Spotify, for example, pay Doja Cat and Harry Styles salaries, even if they exclusively listen to a few death metal bands. That's not right.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 8, 2022)

jack_cat said:


> Although in a very different niche, as a restaurant dinner-musician for many years, I've always cultivated diverse income streams by necessity. Home-cooked CDs were a big money maker for a long time and they are dead now, so Spotify has taken their place. As matters stand, we pull in a steady $50 USD a month from Spotify. We only put the music up there in the spring of 2020. It is growing, but it is clear that it would grow more with a promotional program like Clayshaper's.
> 
> Friends have advised me for many years that we should do intense promotions like the OP here has done, and I am not surprised to hear that the process has worked so well for him. I have never been willing to put so much time into online promotions. Yet it is clear that to associate the music with a visual advertisement campaign is a very good idea, and I applaud. The relatively low income that we get from Spotify is very nice to have, but if it were ten times as much... well.
> Those of us who inhabit the nether regions of the commercial music world are happy for every extra bit of coin.
> ...


Spotify is actually one of the better, if not the best, paying streaming service out there, which is kind of crazy ...
You guys should absolutely try some of my tricks, check out the Facebook ad tutorial I linked to, just skip a couple of beers and try a small ad campaign for $20 to see how the audience responds to it. There are a lot of guys calculating money spent vs royalties and eventually there's a tipping point when the ads pay for themselves. Most people making money from royalties are EDM guys ... so I have no idea if it works for metal. As I said in another comment, I just think it's cool to get my music out there and as long as the hobby pays for itself and keeps growing it's not hurting my finances.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 9, 2022)

TheRealMikeD said:


> Thanks for the write-up. I think there is some solid advice in there. And congrats on the amount of success you have had so far. I hope you are able to continue growing your audience. Cheers!


No problem. Thank you, I will try


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## ShredmasterD (Jun 9, 2022)

CLAYSHAPER said:


> I consider the release of my debut album "Vampiric" a success. I am a bedroom musician working alone, as many of us are, writing, recording, producing, releasing and promoting music all by ourselves. The tips I've read about promotion are rarely that good or simply outdated. That's why I want to share some concrete advice everyone could have some use for.
> 
> *The stats*
> During the first week my album got 4,400 streams on Spotify and 2000 streams on Bandcamp in the app. 61 fans decided to purchase the album for a price they found fair and 171 downloaded it for free. I earned around $200 just from sales.
> ...


thanks for the "recipe" ! good luck going forward.


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## budda (Jun 9, 2022)

I finally “made money” on music by doing nearly everything myself and thus keeping any payment for the music. I dont promote unless I’ve released something else.

A moderate success story is nice to hear about.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 10, 2022)

ShredmasterD said:


> thanks for the "recipe" ! good luck going forward.


Thank you! There are many recipes, I wanted to share mine. Many of the advice is universal though.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 10, 2022)

budda said:


> I finally “made money” on music by doing nearly everything myself and thus keeping any payment for the music. I dont promote unless I’ve released something else.
> 
> A moderate success story is nice to hear about.


Yes, that's the way to do it. I can't imagine splitting the little money that comes in with a whole band.


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## budda (Jun 10, 2022)

CLAYSHAPER said:


> Yes, that's the way to do it. I can't imagine splitting the little money that comes in with a whole band.


My pro level band didnt split money because we had expenses lol.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 11, 2022)

budda said:


> My pro level band didnt split money because we had expenses lol.


Damn, that's rough. When I think about it my band didn't even share the expenses equally, there was always some dude short on cash who managed to escape paying for rehearsal space rent or gas money. Really cultivated some resentment. 

Oh well, those are days of the past!


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## fookite (Jun 13, 2022)

I absolutely love this album.


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## CLAYSHAPER (Jun 14, 2022)

fookite said:


> I absolutely love this album.


Thank you for saying that!


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## STRHelvete (Jun 14, 2022)

budda said:


> I finally “made money” on music by doing nearly everything myself and thus keeping any payment for the music. I dont promote unless I’ve released something else.
> 
> A moderate success story is nice to hear about.


This. I make enough to where my music pays for itself. A yearly release is all that's needed to cover the year's expenses and the extra money sits in a fund for things like music videos, artwork, and other things I can't/don't want to do myself.
Doing the one man band thing has been lucrative.


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## CanserDYI (Jan 6, 2023)

Weird to make an account to bump this 7 month old thread about some indie death metal project getting attention. Almost like you were made by someone to get attention going again on something.


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## CanserDYI (Tuesday at 8:27 AM)

WilliamhGibsona said:


> I think most of you know how the Spotify mechanisms work, so exist ways to increase the popularity of your Spotify products. For example, you can buy a place in playlists for your music. Also, you can find a reliable service where you can buy monthly listeners. All these actions will increase the popularity of your music on Spotify so Spotify mechanisms will suggest your music to other users more often.


Did you just reply to yourself?


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## ArtDecade (Tuesday at 8:43 AM)

CanserDYI said:


> Did you just reply to yourself?


The William Gibson cyberbot has become aware. The future is already here - it just isn't equally distributed.


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## bostjan (Tuesday at 9:49 AM)

If that was a clever way to spam that link to sell spotify streams, I'm not even mad. That would be way more creative than the typical bot that just rams random music terms into ads for whatever gummies they are peddling...


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