How to release and promote singer-songwriter music

Singer-songwriter music travels on the song: the words, the voice and the story behind it. Listeners find it on acoustic and mood playlists, in live sessions on YouTube, at small shows and through a friend who sends a song on because one line stayed with them. Promotion that fits this music shows the song being sung and the person who wrote it.

This guide covers how to release a singer-songwriter or acoustic song and how to promote it: where your listeners are, what the release needs before it goes out and what to post around it. The phases are the same as for any release, and how to release music walks through them in order. This page is about what changes when a voice and a guitar or piano carry the record.

Where singer-songwriter listeners find music

Acoustic and singer-songwriter listening tends to be close listening. People put a song on while they cook, drive or wind down, and they come back to the ones that say something. That shapes where they find new music.

• Mood and acoustic playlists. Spotify and Apple Music run editorial playlists for acoustic, folk and quiet late-night listening, and listener-made playlists fill the same space. Spotify's own recommendations (Release Radar, Discover Weekly and radio) are built from who plays, saves and returns to a song.
• Live sessions on YouTube. One microphone, one room, one take. Session channels and your own performance videos let people see the song made in front of them.
• Short video. On TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, a verse sung straight to a phone camera with the lyric on screen is one of the most natural formats this music has.
• Small rooms. Open mics, writers' nights, house concerts and support slots. Each one is a room of people who might want the next song, and a mailing list sign-up at the merch table keeps them.
• Direct support. Bandcamp, a mailing list and fans who buy a record or a ticket because they want to keep you writing.
• Community radio and blogs. Folk, acoustic and community stations and small music blogs still play and write about independent songwriters.

What a singer-songwriter release needs

A sparse recording shows everything, and so does a sparse release. Get these in place before you pick the date.

A master that keeps the room. Breath, string noise and the space around the voice are part of the sound, so let the master keep them. Send it as a WAV or FLAC file at the quality it was mastered: Spotify's audio guidelines ask for the file as it was mastered, with no converting on your side.

Every songwriter credited. Spotify shows all credits from the metadata your distributor sends, from songwriters to producers and featured artists. For music people choose for its writing, the "Written by" line is part of what they read. Credits are also how songwriting royalties find you, so register your songs with your collection society too. Song credits and metadata explains each field.

The lyrics, final and typed. You'll use them in lyric videos, in posts and wherever the words of your songs are shown. Check them against the recording: listeners notice a line that differs.

A cover that sounds like the song. A photo often suits this music. Keep it square (3000 × 3000 px is the size most distributors ask for) and keep words to your name and the title. How to make an album cover covers the rules.

The story behind the song. Where you wrote it, who it's about, what you played it on, the line it started from. Spotify's pitch form asks about the song, and Spotify's own advice is that more detail gives your song a better chance. For a singer-songwriter, that story is also the material for your posts and your bio.

A date with time in front of it. Spotify takes pitches for unreleased music, and a song pitched at least 7 days before release goes to your followers' Release Radar. A date weeks out leaves room for the pitch, a pre-save and the people who'll want to hear it first.

What to post when the song carries everything

You don't need a concept or a trend. You need the song, sung, in a way people can feel. Posts that suit this music:

• A verse or chorus sung to camera in one take, the lyric on screen.
• The voice memo the song started as, next to the finished recording.
• The line that started it, written out, with a sentence about where it came from.
• The room you wrote it in, or the instrument you wrote it on.
• A live take from a show, phone footage included.
• A reply to a comment, sung: someone asks for the bridge and you play it.
• A lyric video that starts on the chorus.

Post before release day so people know the song is coming, on the day so they know where to find it, and in the weeks after, when listening builds and the stores' recommendations take notice. How to promote your music covers each channel, and post ideas for musicians has more to film.

Acoustic versions, live takes and second lives

A song can come out more than once. A stripped-back version, a live take or a new arrangement is its own recording, with its own ISRC (who owns your ISRC codes explains why). Each version gives a song another release day, another pitch and another reason to post about it, and it lets listeners who loved one version find the other.

In Audora, a version of a song (an acoustic or live take, a clean edit, an instrumental or a remix) starts from the song's credits, lyrics and store answers. A single holds up to three songs, each with its own audio and ISRC, so a song and its acoustic take can come out together.

Shows, your page and the fans who stay

Small shows build the kind of listener who comes back for every release. Give them somewhere to go afterward. On Audora, your own artist page online plays your songs, and a show can go on it for your fans. Fans sign up for new-music emails on your page and get one email per release: the pre-save while it's coming, the out-now with your store links on the day.

Ask people at shows to follow you on Spotify as well. Follows are what put your next release into their Release Radar. Turning listeners into followers covers it, and how to get more listeners covers what moves the numbers after release day.

How Audora runs a singer-songwriter release, track by track

Each step above happens in your Audora account, for every song you put out. You bring the song and the story; Audora sets up each step or puts it on the release's calendar.

• The pitch. Every release goes out with a pitch for the people who market it to the stores, written from your answers: the story, the instruments, the mood.
• The date. Audora dates your release to give the editors time to hear it.
• The delivery. Your song 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), with every release.
• Your own moves. Your pitch in Spotify for Artists, the pre-save and the Canvas each come up on the release's calendar on the day they matter.
• The look and the words. Cover art, a bio in three lengths, a Canvas and a logo, made to the stores' spec. Everything made is yours, with full commercial rights.
• The campaign. A promotion campaign planned around the release, every post written in your voice with its caption, hashtags and the picture or video it needs, including lyric videos that start on your chorus. Each post says the shot it needs, and What to shoot lists them so you can film them in one sitting. You approve what goes out.
• The weeks after. Every playlist your song is on is shown back to you (editorial, algorithmic and listener-made), with plays and saves from the stores' own reporting.

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.

Your account holds the exact steps for your song, each one dated from your release day. Audora keeps tuning that list as it learns what works best for its artists, adding steps, dropping some and retiming others. Audora is the label on your release, and the masters and the ISRCs stay yours. When you have a question, a person answers, and you usually hear back within one business day.

What every track gets lays out a release in Audora from before the day to the weeks after.