Tips on submitting your music for review
Submitting your music for a review or feature is a pain in the ass. It can be a largely thankless, very sucky, time consuming task that feels like shouting into the void. It’s exhausting and I don’t expect you to pretend that you aren’t also submitting to 597636 other reviewers too.
I also know that every reviewer or publication has a million different rules for how to submit. ‘I only accept wav files delivered by pigeon on the second Tuesday of the month via my glitchy contact form with 74 captchas. Please use the subject line FAO SKELETOR’.
Ugh.
I don’t have any specific submission rules and I do try to read through everything I get sent, but I thought it might be helpful to give some tips on what will help me to help you.
Things that make me a happy Smu:
- Keep your email short and factual. This doesn’t mean you can’t be funny, friendly or engaging but be clear and concise at the same time.
- If there is a release date or embargo make this obvious.
- Add any social media links directly into your email.
- If your music can be purchased add your preferred link directly into your email.
- Add your cover art as an attachment or link in your email.
- If you want to add a press pack or press release with additional information please do, but make sure the above information is included in the email itself.
And finally..
- I can’t believe I even need to say this (but amazingly I do) please add a link to the music in your email!
Basically, don’t make me Dick Tracy around the internet trying to find the info I need to feature you. If I like the music enough I might, but equally it might be the thing that tips you into the ‘aint nobody got time for that’ pile.
But really finally..
- Please do send it! 🙂
(All submissions should go to susan [at] thesmureviews.co.uk. I don’t really read DMs unless I already know you and even then they are likely to get lost in the sea of trash that comes with having a public account.)
All words by Susan Sloan.