If you are trying to get publicity or on playlists you most probably have already heard of SubmitHub. But if you haven’t, it’s a platform that allows you to submit your music for a small fee to music bloggers, playlisters, and tastemakers who can help to give your music exposure.
If you’ve read my book, The Ultimate Guide to Music Publicity, the founder Jason Grishkoff is quoted a few times. I asked him a LOT of questions that didn’t make it into the book but add excellent insight if you are curious about Submithub.
And if you are unfamiliar with how best to use SubmitHub read on…
What should artists do before they sign up and start submitting on your platform?
First and most important: set your expectations in the right place. There are hundreds of thousands of passionate and talented musicians out there trying to do the same thing as you (500,000+ artist profiles on SubmitHub in 5 years). Yes, your song is great, but many of theirs are too. And not everyone’s going to get the pie they’re hoping for.
Secondly, understand that SubmitHub is not a get-famous-quick scheme. It’s best approached as a “directory” of passionate music curators. Our job is to make it easy for you to choose who to send your music to, and ensure that they actually give it genuine consideration. Outcomes after that are based on the subjective take of the recipient, and you should anticipate that the majority of the answers you receive will be “thanks but not for us.” As mentioned above, you probably won’t get the whole pie, but if you focus on the little victories, you’ll find yourself with a nice slice 🙂
How important is having a strong social media platform or a lot of streams before they come to Submithub?
Not even remotely important. We place emphasis on the song itself rather than the background of the artist. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that many curators prefer to find undiscovered artists — street cred is important, and there’s nothing a curator enjoys more than being able to say “I was sharing their music before they got big.”
If I am an artist who is making music that is not very trendy can I use Submithub? – Smooth jazz, cinematic classical, and traditional singer-songwriter, for example.
Yep, at this point there’s a little bit of something for everyone. Obviously some genres are better-represented than others in the digital world (classical, jazz and classic rock being under-represented). That said, we’ve got 1,750+ active curators, influencers and record labels, so even the niche genres have someone to send to.
How many submissions should I invest in to see results?
It depends on the results you’re looking for. The only thing we can guarantee you is a transparent and fast “connection”. From there it’s entirely up to 1) your song and 2) whether you managed to get it to the people who will like it. And that can be tough.
I’d strongly recommend starting off with a smaller spend — somewhere between 10 and 30 credits — to get your toes wet. Your first few submissions are likely to be your *worst*, and there are definitely many lessons you’ll be able to learn along the way.
What is your advice for DIY musicians just starting out with your platform?
SubmitHub is 5 years old. There are tons of musicians who have tried and failed (or succeeded), and many of them have shared their experiences and tips. So my advice for those just starting out is to do a bit of research beforehand. Two links I’d recommend:
- A great podcast an artist recently did about how he managed a 68% approval rate
- A video by a playlister & artist sharing his tips and techniques
Should an artist who has a small following of >10,000 try to secure a premiere in 2021?
Oh gosh. I’m pretty averse to premieres in general, but that comes primarily from the blogger’s perspective where managing those schedules tends to lead to more effort than its worth. As an artist, a premiere can help give you a slightly leg up as far as incentivizing someone to provide coverage. But beyond that, I’m not sure it’s a huge draw these days. It’s great to be able to share “victories” with your audience, but they’re not going to care whether it was a premiere or not.
*2023 UPDATE: SubmitHub no longer offers premiere submissions*
Anything else you’d like to say to a lot of indie artists about the publicity process in general?
It’s rough. I think one of the best things you can do is show your existing fan base that you’re finding success — by sharing the blog posts and playlists you’re included in. It gives them ‘social proof’ that they’re not crazy for loving your music; clearly everyone else loves it too.
Here are some tips and tricks that we utilize here at Cyber PR that may help you when submitting your music:
Don’t spend too much at one time!
With SubmitHub, it’s as easy as a click of a button to send your music off to curators and bloggers. It’s so user friendly that you can easily spend all your credits in a few minutes. While this isn’t terrible, we have found that if you space your submissions out with several rounds of submissions, you get better results as you have time to see how your music is performing and regroup if needed. You may find that your music doesn’t fit a genre that you thought it did or that certain outlets are taking a break and you may want to approach them when they are back.
Pick your genre with care.
The biggest part of submitting your music through SubmitHub is picking the right genre. When submitting, SubmitHub gives you curated bloggers, playlisters, influencers, etc., based on the genre you classified your music as. The genre you think you may be isn’t necessarily the one that the curators identify with and this is something to be prepared to adjust for.
SubmitHub matches your genre with the most likely match in sources to pitch and rate it on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being a bad match and 10 being a great match. We would suggest that you don’t pitch to curators under a rate of 7.
Submit to smaller and bigger sources.
SubmitHub has thousands of curators that range in their influence and size. It’s always good to submit to curators who are smaller and have lower influence to boost your music and it’s great to be able to get in touch with the bigger ones that are typically harder to reach otherwise. We suggest pitching to an even amount of smaller and medium to larger curators because that will give you the most diverse and successful results.
If you only pitch to smaller outlets, you won’t get the reach you want. If you only pitch to medium to larger outlets, you won’t get many hits and you won’t get the reach you want.
Ready to learn how to master your own publicity? Order The Ultimate Guide to Music Publicity! Out now.
Now let’s get into the interview…
What should artists do before they sign up and start submitting on your platform?
First and most important: set your expectations in the right place. There are hundreds of thousands of passionate and talented musicians out there trying to do the same thing as you (500,000+ artist profiles on SubmitHub in 5 years). Yes, your song is great, but many of theirs are too. And not everyone’s going to get the pie they’re hoping for.
Secondly, understand that SubmitHub is not a get-famous-quick scheme. It’s best approached as a “directory” of passionate music curators. Our job is to make it easy for you to choose who to send your music to, and ensure that they actually give it genuine consideration. Outcomes after that are based on the subjective take of the recipient, and you should anticipate that the majority of the answers you receive will be “thanks but not for us.” As mentioned above, you probably won’t get the whole pie, but if you focus on the little victories, you’ll find yourself with a nice slice 🙂
How important is having a strong social media platform or a lot of streams before they come to Submithub?
Not even remotely important. We place emphasis on the song itself rather than the background of the artist. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that many curators prefer to find undiscovered artists — street cred is important, and there’s nothing a curator enjoys more than being able to say “I was sharing their music before they got big.”
If I am an artist who is making music that is not very trendy can I use Submithub? – Smooth jazz, cinematic classical, and traditional singer-songwriter, for example.
Yep, at this point there’s a little bit of something for everyone. Obviously some genres are better-represented than others in the digital world (classical, jazz and classic rock being under-represented). That said, we’ve got 1,750+ active curators, influencers and record labels, so even the niche genres have someone to send to.
How many submissions should I invest in to see results?
It depends on the results you’re looking for. The only thing we can guarantee you is a transparent and fast “connection”. From there it’s entirely up to 1) your song and 2) whether you managed to get it to the people who will like it. And that can be tough.
I’d strongly recommend starting off with a smaller spend — somewhere between 10 and 30 credits — to get your toes wet. Your first few submissions are likely to be your *worst*, and there are definitely many lessons you’ll be able to learn along the way.
What is your advice for DIY musicians just starting out with your platform?
SubmitHub is 5 years old. There are tons of musicians who have tried and failed (or succeeded), and many of them have shared their experiences and tips. So my advice for those just starting out is to do a bit of research beforehand. Two links I’d recommend:
- A great podcast an artist recently did about how he managed a 68% approval rate
- A video by a playlister & artist sharing his tips and techniques
Should an artist who has a small following of >10,000 try to secure a premiere in 2021?
Oh gosh. I’m pretty averse to premieres in general, but that comes primarily from the blogger’s perspective where managing those schedules tends to lead to more effort than its worth. As an artist, a premiere can help give you a slightly leg up as far as incentivizing someone to provide coverage. But beyond that, I’m not sure it’s a huge draw these days. It’s great to be able to share “victories” with your audience, but they’re not going to care whether it was a premiere or not.
*2023 UPDATE: SubmitHub no longer offers premiere submissions*
Anything else you’d like to say to a lot of indie artists about the publicity process in general?
It’s rough. I think one of the best things you can do is show your existing fan base that you’re finding success — by sharing the blog posts and playlists you’re included in. It gives them ‘social proof’ that they’re not crazy for loving your music; clearly everyone else loves it too.
Here are some tips and tricks that we utilize here at Cyber PR that may help you when submitting your music:
Don’t spend too much at one time!
With SubmitHub, it’s as easy as a click of a button to send your music off to curators and bloggers. It’s so user friendly that you can easily spend all your credits in a few minutes. While this isn’t terrible, we have found that if you space your submissions out with several rounds of submissions, you get better results as you have time to see how your music is performing and regroup if needed. You may find that your music doesn’t fit a genre that you thought it did or that certain outlets are taking a break and you may want to approach them when they are back.
Pick your genre with care.
The biggest part of submitting your music through SubmitHub is picking the right genre. When submitting, SubmitHub gives you curated bloggers, playlisters, influencers, etc., based on the genre you classified your music as. The genre you think you may be isn’t necessarily the one that the curators identify with and this is something to be prepared to adjust for.
SubmitHub matches your genre with the most likely match in sources to pitch and rate it on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being a bad match and 10 being a great match. We would suggest that you don’t pitch to curators under a rate of 7.
Submit to smaller and bigger sources.
SubmitHub has thousands of curators that range in their influence and size. It’s always good to submit to curators who are smaller and have lower influence to boost your music and it’s great to be able to get in touch with the bigger ones that are typically harder to reach otherwise. We suggest pitching to an even amount of smaller and medium to larger curators because that will give you the most diverse and successful results.
If you only pitch to smaller outlets, you won’t get the reach you want. If you only pitch to medium to larger outlets, you won’t get many hits and you won’t get the reach you want.
Ready to learn how to master your own publicity? Order The Ultimate Guide to Music Publicity! Out now.
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