Do's and Don'ts To Getting Your Music Posted On Blogs

I read this article over at TJ’s spot today about getting your music posted at music blogs. Since I know some artists come through P&P from time to time, I wanted to take a minute to add to this list of Do’s and Don’ts from the perspective of a music blogger. From what I’ve experienced, there are a lot of good people in this music blogging world, but I’ve seen how frustrated artists get with us. I’ve even seen artists go so far as to diss music blogs on tracks for not posting their shit. If you’re an artist and you hate music bloggers, you’re doing it wrong. Either your music sucks, or you’ve got to take a new approach, because we’re not all assholes ignoring you for no reason. If you’re interested, read on for the list.

DO’s

1. When you’re sending out an email, include a couple of tracks, a picture, any links you want included, and some info. This makes it very easy to do a quick post without digging through your MySpace for pictures and background information.
2. Send MP3′s only. You can do this by including direct links, links to file sharing sites like Usershare or Mediafire, or attaching the files. Nobody wants your .wav files.
3. Tess mentioned this in the original article, but I want to emphasize the importance: Make your email as personal as possible. Try to compliment the blog, and thank them for taking the time to check out the music. Emails can look personal even if you’re sending them out to hundreds of blogs. Which leads me to my next Do.
4. Use the BCC function! If you don’t know what this is, look it up. Exposing your entire list of contacts in an email is a bad look.
5. Ask for feedback, positive or negative. This takes the pressure off the blogger and shows them some respect for their taste instead of just demanding or begging for a post.

DON’Ts

1. Don’t submit your music on Twitter. 95% of bloggers will ignore you unless they already know who you are. Personally, it doesn’t bother me when artists try this (Twitter me!), but for some reason it seems to really piss a lot of bloggers off.
2. Don’t act like you’re doing people a favor by sending them your music, e.g., “Thank me later! Hot new exclusive smash hit from Lil’ Crusha for you to post on your blog!” Being humble pays. If you’re honest about trying to get your music heard, most of us will be more inclined to want to help out.
3. Chances are bloggers aren’t going to have a chance to listen to everything you send, so don’t send everything you do. You don’t want our introduction to you to be a recording of you freestyling to “Paper Planes” in your car or you and your band covering “Freebird” in your grandma’s basement.
4. Don’t forget to say “Thank You”. It may seem unnecessary, and maybe it is, but everyone likes to be thanked, even bloggers.
5. Don’t be too pushy. There’s a fine line between being persistent and being annoying, but once you cross that line you’ll find your emails in the trash/spam folders. There’s nothing wrong with following up (once, maybe twice), but eventually you should just move on. There are plenty of other blogs.

Keep in mind, music bloggers get a lot of submissions and it’s impossible to listen to all the music available to us. Following these rules should give you a much better chance of getting heard and developing a good relationship with some people who can help spread the word. And remember, if we don’t post your music, that doesn’t make us assholes, asshole.
If anyone has anything I missed, feel free to add it into the comments.
-confusion