Posting Snippets vs. Waiting until the Album is Done

[Synthetic Aurality]

This is something I've been mulling over for a bit, so I decided to ask the opinion of those more experienced than I...

So, here I am cranking away on my first real effort at a full-length album. I know one or two folks that want to hear some of it.. but I'm wondering if it would be best to wait until it's COMPLETELY done rather than post a mostly-final snippet from the tracks as I go..

I worry that I'll fret over the snippets enough to kill the creative flow..

Opinions, experiences, suggestions?

[aoVI]

Disclaimer: I am not particularly experienced in the area of promotion of one's work as I am very low-profile and often embarrassed by too much attention to my work.


I am always excited about a project when I am working on it, and want everyone to hear as soon as possible. But yes, there is a real danger of being distracted with the worry of the snippets.

I'd say it really would depend upon an honest assessment of what you consider your audience, what the general interest level in your work can sustain.

In my own experience (my most popular album, released last summer yielded 3 net radio show appearances, 90-something individual track plays, 4 full album downloads, 1 donation), I find decent support among people who are also artists, and fairly limited interest as far as people who are purely just listeners. So my audience is small and mostly passive, ie. busy with other things.

I wait until I have finished a project before putting it out there as I do not want to over saturate with material. Being that most who listen to my work are working artists as well, they have a limited amount of time between their own work, and listening to the work of other artists in whom they are interested as well. I find I will get an initial push when I announce the work, and a fairly fast and steady fade. The returns are much smaller as I send out more announcements of appearances on shows, etc. For this reason I like to have it all done and ready to present as a package--perhaps some tracks appeal more to some than others.

I feel like teasers, prereleasing tracks, and other such promotional methods are more for those who have a larger dedicated following and who's work can sustain interest over the weeks between singles and the finished album.



TLDR: Big active fanbase, yes, keep em entertained. Smaller passive audience, keep it brief. This opinion is based on my own limited experience and not based on any real research or data.

[Synthetic Aurality]

Yu make an excellent point about the audience for my works.. I consider myself somewhat fringe-y even for ambient, but I tend to get a fair number of plays per month on my SoundCloud presence.. typically 40+, I have no idea if that's good or not! But it's VERY sporadic, vast period of nobody then BOOMF a pile of plays, I suspect as someone finds me and decides to spend their time annoying themselves with my tunes.

I'm starting to get the general feeling that the best approach is to focus on completing the album, at this point, and maybe 1/2 way through pick an existing track and make it the album freebie.. but I dunno, I don't think my audience is all that large and certainly nobody is beating down the door to get an earful of me (lol sigh).

Thanks a TON for responding! It'v very appreciated!

[HypnoticImplant]

Some could say that snippets are useful in generating attention and some sort of hype, but I'm not really into that. I usually focus on finishing an album and releasing it, then I post promo tracks on Soundcloud/YouTube/whatnot (gee, I hate that word). I do release singles (with custom artwork, possibly music videos in the future) but I'm not a fan of b-sides - they are a distraction and I don't really like the idea of putting out some half-assed tracks or remixes just to have some more content to offer.

Snippets are OK, but perhaps in the early stages of your "music career" - after that they become increasingly irrelevant, though they could be useful to rekindle people's interest after a certain break in releasing new stuff, just to let them know that you're alive and kickin'.

[johny_gtr]

I can only say about my experience with release.

No snippets, sharing, fb/boards/sc news/spam before release and album has about zero listeners/ sales and reviews:highfive:

For the future albums releases I plan to release singles/photos of working proccess before main release.

Hope this helps ))))

[HypnoticImplant]

Well yeah, you gotta tell people you're working on something and show'em what you're cookin' up

[Synthetic Aurality]

Thanks for the responses! I think what I'm going to do is blog progress, then about 1/2 way through release one track "for free", as a teaser/promotion kind of thing.

Gotta learn how to promote myself.. shudder..

[HypnoticImplant]

Here you go, have a Soundcloud like.

Nowadays bands just tend to spam people with tons of news on their upcoming stuff, what might be a turn-off rather than incentive to cooperate. It's good to keep balance and post relevant, worthwhile info.

[Synthetic Aurality]

Here you go, have a Soundcloud like.

Nowadays bands just tend to spam people with tons of news on their upcoming stuff, what might be a turn-off rather than incentive to cooperate. It's good to keep balance and post relevant, worthwhile info.

Always good advice, that. I try to keep my blog semi-daily, Facebook weekly or so, I have no mailing lists because I figure if someone wants to know what I'm doing it's easy enough for them to hit the blog or Facebook. I hate spam to pieces!

[S1gnsOfL1fe]

Great topic!

I too struggle with this. I remember with my first album I released every-single-track on SoundCloud before the album was released, except one...and the album still did well. I think this is the appropriate tactic for any artist trying to make a name for themselves. The more you release, the more people will remember who you are and are likely to A.) listen and B.) buy your album because they feel connected to the music.

As for nowadays...don't even get me started. The bigger you get the more secretive things have to be. It gets undeniably aggravating when you so desperately want your fans to hear all this new music you've created...and have to keep it behind closed doors before release. The upside of that tactic is people get to truly "experience" the album the old fashioned way. Every song is brand new, the album in its entirety is the adventure in and of itself. :tu:

Best of luck and we can't wait to hear it!

[Synthetic Aurality]

Thanks!

This is a thing I've fretted about a LOT, and it seems to be little-discussed in real-world terms. When I was tryiung tio becme an author I had similar issues.. release periodic excerpts to keep interest up, and maybe risk ruining the overall reading experience? There was much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and rending of garments involved before I discovered that I can't write on a fixed schedule.. lol.. thankfully I always seem to be motivated and ready to lay down some new tunes!

And people, I REALLY appreciate all the input. The community here is GREAT! :thumbsup:

[Trônes de l'Obscurité]

I have a graduation in Marketing and, of course, it's aimed at products. And with music, the same principles are valid, specially the "need to consume" you must create on the costumer.

In your case, how do you create the "need to consume" on your listeners? Through snippets, demos, previews, call it whatever you want. some websites even say that you need to post snippets to the songs that will be part of the album about 6 months earlier than the release date, and add videos with the production process 3 months before the date. According to them, this will make the listener interested and create the necessity to consume your music afterwards.

I have been posting snippets and facebook updates since I started making my first album, and got some pretty decent results for a somewhat restrict genre (dark ambient/industrial) and restrict niche as well. This will also be better than simply don't putting out anything during the production, as people tend to lose attention on an artist due to the lack of activity.

Since I've released my debut album (three months ago), it has been listened to 323 times on soundcloud, with 18 likes (may not be much, but for an unknown brazilian act it's pretty much), and have been listened 300 times on bandcamp, with 21 free downloads so far (again, may seem low but it's actually pretty much due to circumstances). To give a comparison, I didn't invest any effort into marketing on my first ambient song, just uploaded it and posted on to forums, and it got 135 plays and 8 likes on soundcloud.

[earthsidesacrifice]

I'm not experienced in the Marketing side of things at all, kind of feeling my way with it all.

This is just what I'm doing.
Been making and putting out weekly (mostly weekly) videos on my YouTube channel of "Ideas" that I've been working on when writing tracks for a longer release and have put them all in a playlist titled 'Song Crafting'.

For me its a way to be able to put out regular content that still allows me to work at a full-length release at the same time... hopefully gaining a few extra listeners along the way.

Since we are in this age of being constantly bombarded by information it's easy to forget or move on to something else.

[earthsidesacrifice]

Thanks for the responses! I think what I'm going to do is blog progress, then about 1/2 way through release one track "for free", as a teaser/promotion kind of thing.

Gotta learn how to promote myself.. shudder..

I feel the same haha.

Promotion is more important then ever these days with the amount of music out there.
And to fine a balance between spam and promoting yourself enough to get your music out there.

[seismic1]

Accidental (or was it?) promotion is the way to go. I tweeted one of my tracks last night. When I got home from work tonight, I found this:-

http://paper.li/fullcirclec/1397673927?edition_id=0ff23840-ffea-11e4-8ecd-0cc47a0d1605

Blink, and you'll miss it.

I'm thinking of giving all of my future tracks topical, trendy titles in the hope that they will make it into Cosmopolitan