Album rollout plan: how to roll out an album

An album rollout is the plan that takes an album from finished masters to the day it comes out and the weeks after. Instead of dropping ten songs at once and hoping people find them, a rollout gives listeners a few songs first, lets each one find its audience, and builds toward the album date so the record arrives to people who are already waiting for it.

This guide explains each part of a rollout and why it matters. It's part of our guide to how to release music, which covers singles and EPs too.

What an album rollout is

Think of a rollout as a run of moments, each one a reason for someone to listen. A lead single introduces the record. A second single shows another side of it. The announcement gives the album a name, a cover and a date. The album day brings it all together, and the weeks after keep it in front of people while new listeners catch up.

Every moment does two jobs. It gets the song in front of listeners now, and it points them toward the album. A rollout works when each step makes the next one easier: people who liked the first single are following you when the second arrives, and they're the ones who play the album first on its day.

How many singles, how far apart and how loud each moment is depends on the record and on how many people already follow you. A debut album from an artist with a small audience needs different pacing from a fourth album with a loyal fan base. The parts stay the same.

Lead singles: why the album starts before the album

Singles do work an album can't do alone. Each one is a new release, which means a new chance at the stores' editorial playlists, a new entry in your followers' new-release feeds and a new reason to post. On Spotify, you can pitch one unreleased song at a time to the editors, and a song pitched at least 7 days before its release reaches your followers' Release Radar, as Spotify's page on pitching explains. An album released with no singles before it gets one of those chances. An album led by singles gets several.

Pick singles that show the record well and work on their own. The strongest song often goes first, because it brings the most people in for what follows. Some artists save a standout for the album day, so the album has something new to offer people who heard every single.

When the singles come out ahead of the album, the album should carry the same recordings with the same ISRCs (the code that identifies each recording). That way the plays and playlist places a single earns stay with the song when the album arrives. Our guide to the waterfall release covers one popular way of stacking singles into the album, and single, EP or album helps if you're still deciding what this record is.

The album date, and planning back from it

Pick the album date first. Everything else in the rollout is planned backward from it: when each single comes out, when the album is announced, when the cover is revealed and when the music has to be delivered to the stores.

Leave room. The stores' editors plan their playlists ahead and only consider music delivered before its date, and every release needs time to pass the stores' checks. Each single needs that time, and so does the album. A rollout planned against a date that's too close tends to lose its pitches first. Our release date planner shows the main landmarks for any date you pick, and the best day to release music covers the day of the week.

Pre-saves and pre-orders

The announcement is where you give people something to do before the album exists. A pre-save adds the album to a listener's library on release day. On Apple Music the same thing is called a pre-add: Apple says on its page about pre-adds that fans who pre-added are notified the moment the album is available, and that for independent artists the distributor sets it up with you.

An album can also take pre-orders, and the singles that are already out can play right away for people who pre-order. That turns each new single into a reminder that the album is coming. Our guide to the Spotify pre-save explains how pre-save links work.

The cover, visuals and words, ready before the first single

A rollout looks like one record when every moment shares a visual world. Before the first single comes out, have these ready:

• the album cover, square and to the stores' spec (3000 × 3000 pixels is the common standard), and a cover for each single that belongs with it;
• a Spotify Canvas for each single, the short looping video that plays behind the song;
• an artist bio in a few lengths, updated for this record, for your profiles, press and playlist curators;
• press photos from the same period as the music;
• the credits and metadata for every track, spelled the same way on every release.

Getting these right early saves the rollout from stalling halfway. Our guides to making an album cover, making a Spotify Canvas and writing an artist bio go into each one.

Posts around each moment

Each single and the album get their own stretch of posts: before the day to build interest, around the day itself and in the weeks after. Before a single, you might share a clip of the hook, a moment from the studio or the cover. On the day, the out-now post with the link. After it, the stories behind the song, live takes, fans' reposts and the playlists it's on.

The album stretch is the biggest. It's where you tell the story of the whole record: what it's about, how it was made, the songs people haven't heard yet. Posts that point back to the singles help new listeners catch up. Our guides to pre-release promotion, release day promotion and promoting a song after release cover each stretch in detail.

After the album comes out

The album date isn't the end. Listeners keep finding a record through playlists, recommendations and word of mouth for months, and a rollout plans for that. In the weeks after, give the deep cuts their moment, share what people are saying, post live versions and keep the link in your bio. A focus track picked after release (often the one listeners keep coming back to) can carry the album further.

How Audora plans your album rollout

On Audora, each single and the album are releases on one calendar. Audora dates each one to give the stores' editors time, and every release goes out with a pitch for the people who market it to the stores, written from your answers about the song. Your own moves for each one (your pitch in Spotify for Artists, the pre-save, the Canvas) come up on the release's calendar on the day they matter. Albums and EPs can take pre-orders, with the tracks you choose playing at once.

Around each single and the album, Audora plans a promotion campaign. Every post is written in your voice, with its caption, hashtags and the picture or video it needs, and you approve what goes out.

TikTok, YouTube, Instagram (Stories included) and Facebook Pages post automatically, and nothing goes out until you approve it. Stories carry no link sticker, so your release link goes in your bio.

The cover art, a bio in three lengths, a Canvas and a logo are made to the stores' spec, with full commercial rights to everything made. Each release goes to Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok, YouTube and 140+ stores, and into the databases radio stations, cars and song recognition read (Gracenote, Shazam and others). Every playlist a song is on is shown back to you, editorial, algorithmic and listener-made.

The exact plan for your rollout, every step dated to your album and each single, is in your Audora account. Audora keeps refining those steps, adding, dropping and retiming them as it learns what works best for its artists. See what every track gets for everything that goes out with each release.