You Finished the Album. Now What? Your Post-Studio Checklist

The last session's done. The mixes are back, the master sounds huge, and you've probably listened to the whole thing forty times in your car already. That feeling is the best part of this job, and we love watching artists hit it.

Then the question shows up. Now what?

This is the part nobody puts in the montage. The paperwork, the accounts, the boxes you check so your music actually earns and actually gets heard. It's not glamorous, but it's the difference between an album that sits on a hard drive and one that works for you for years. Here's the order we walk our artists through.

1. Register your copyrights

You already own the copyright the second you record something. Registration is different. It's the paperwork that lets you enforce that ownership and, if it ever comes to it, sue someone for infringing on it. It's cheap and it's worth doing.

Two copyrights live in every song. There's the composition, meaning the actual song you wrote, the melody and lyrics. And there's the sound recording, meaning the specific master you made in the studio. They're separate, and technically you can register both.

You can register a whole album of recordings in one application. Go to copyright.gov, use the electronic system, and file. A single work runs $45, and the album group registration is $65 for the batch. Do it once, keep the confirmation, move on. You don't need a lawyer for this.

If the government site makes your eyes cross, there's an easier path. A service called Cosynd (cosynd.com) prepares, reviews, and e-files your registrations with the Copyright Office for you, and handles the back-and-forth until your certificates come through. They cover both compositions and sound recordings, and they run a lot cheaper than the traditional lawyer route. For an artist who wants this done right without the paperwork headache, it's worth a look.

2. Lock down your splits and metadata before anything goes out

This is the step people skip, and it's the one that causes the ugliest fights later. Before a single file gets uploaded anywhere, get clear on who wrote what.

Songwriter splits are the percentages of each song's writing credit. If you wrote a track alone, that's 100 percent you. If your bandmate wrote the bridge and your producer built the beat, those are real ownership stakes and everyone should agree on the numbers in writing now, while you all still like each other. A short email that everyone replies "yes" to is enough to save a friendship down the road. If you want it more official, Cosynd also creates simple ownership agreements between collaborators, so everyone signs off on their share before the music goes out.

Metadata is the credit information that travels with your files. Correct song titles, spelling, featured artists, producer credits, writer names, ISRC codes. Distributors will ask for a lot of this. If it's wrong when you upload, it's a headache to fix after your song is live on a hundred platforms. Slow down and get it right once.

3. Join a PRO, then set up SoundExchange and the MLC

A Performing Rights Organization collects performance royalties for you. Every time your song plays on the radio, in a bar, on TV, or streams online, it generates a small royalty on the songwriting side. You don't see that money unless you're registered with a PRO and you register your songs with them.

In the US your two main options are ASCAP and BMI. Both do the same core job. BMI is free to join as a songwriter. ASCAP charges a one-time $50 fee. That $50 gap is not a good reason to pick one over the other, so don't let it be the deciding factor. Look at how each one reports and pays, and pick the one that fits how you'll manage your catalog. You can only be with one at a time, so choose and commit. SESAC and GMR exist too, but they're invite-only, so they're not on the table for most artists starting out.

Then there are two more accounts most people miss, and both are free. SoundExchange collects the digital performance royalty on your recording, the money that comes from non-interactive streaming like Pandora, SiriusXM, and internet radio. Your PRO doesn't collect it and neither does your distributor, so it just sits there unclaimed until you register.

The MLC is the other one. The Mechanical Licensing Collective pays out mechanical royalties on the songwriting side, the ones your song earns every time someone streams or downloads it on an on-demand service like Spotify or Apple Music. That's a different royalty than the performance royalty your PRO collects, and in the US the MLC is who pays it. If you write your own songs and don't have a publisher, you register as a self-administered member and claim that money directly. Between your PRO, SoundExchange, and the MLC, all three of the main royalty streams are covered and none of them overlap. Set them all up the same week.

4. Decide your release strategy

Before you upload anything, decide how you're putting this out. The two questions that matter are cadence and artwork.

Cadence is the rhythm of your release. You've got a finished album, but dropping all of it on one day isn't always the smartest move. The common play now is to lead with singles. Release two or three songs spaced a few weeks apart, then drop the full album once you've built some heat. Every single is a fresh reason for the platforms to feature you, a fresh reason for fans to share, and a fresh shot at playlists. If the album tells one continuous story and you'd rather it land all at once, that's a real choice too. Just make it on purpose instead of defaulting to it. For most artists building an audience, spacing singles out over a couple of months beats one big day that's forgotten by the weekend.

Artwork is the other half. You need cover art, and here's the part people miss: give every single its own cover. Don't reuse the album art for each one. A distinct image for each single gives that song its own identity, its own thumbnail in the feed, and its own moment. It also keeps your profile from looking like the same square five times in a row. The covers can share a look, same colors, same font, same vibe, so they read as a family. But each one should stand on its own. Then the album gets its own cover that ties the whole set together. If art isn't your thing, this is worth spending a little money on. Good cover art is the first thing a new listener sees, and it does a lot of quiet work.

5. Pick a distributor and get it out

Streaming platforms don't take music directly from artists. You go through a distributor, which pushes your music to Spotify, Apple Music, and everywhere else, then collects your streaming money and pays it to you. Here's where the three big ones stand right now.

DistroKid runs about $23 a year and lets you put out unlimited songs. You keep 100 percent of your streaming royalties. Add-ons like splitting payments with collaborators or distributing a music video cost extra. It's the go-to for artists who release often, which makes it a natural fit if you're rolling out singles.

TuneCore also works on a yearly subscription with unlimited uploads and you keep 100 percent of your royalties. Reports vary, but some artists find TuneCore's streaming payouts run slightly higher.

CD Baby is the outlier. It charges per release, around $9.99 for a single or an album, with no annual fee. The catch is they take a 9 percent commission on your royalties forever. If you're putting out one album and going quiet for a while, the one-time cost can pencil out. If you're releasing steadily, a subscription almost always wins because you're not giving up a cut on every stream.

The short version: if you plan to release more than once a year, and a singles rollout means you will, a subscription service like DistroKid or TuneCore usually costs you less and keeps all your royalties in your pocket. Whatever you choose, schedule each release at least a few weeks out so you have time for the next step.

6. Marketing, the light version

You don't need a huge budget or a full campaign to give a release a real shot. A few basics move the needle more than most artists expect.

First, claim your artist profiles. Spotify for Artists and Apple Music for Artists are free, and they let you control your bio, photos, and, importantly, pitch your song to playlist editors. When you upload through your distributor, schedule the release at least a week ahead so you can submit your single to Spotify's editorial team through Spotify for Artists. That pitch window closes once the song is live, so don't miss it.

Second, set up a pre-save link so fans can save the release before it drops. It builds early momentum, and the platforms notice. If you do not have fans yet, don’t bother.

Third, tell people. Your email list, your socials, your group chat. Post the release date, post the cover, count down. Line up a handful of pieces of content ahead of time so you're not scrambling on release day: a clip from the studio, the story behind a song, a short video of you playing a piece of it. You made this. Let people watch you be proud of it.

That's the whole checklist. Copyright, splits and metadata, PRO plus SoundExchange and the MLC, release strategy, distribution, a little marketing. Knock them out in that order and your music is protected, earning, and out in the world the right way.

If any of this feels like a lot, that's normal, and it's exactly the kind of thing we help our artists sort out. We offer one-on-one coaching where we can walk through your specific release step by step, and if you want your next project mixed and mastered to this same standard, we do that remotely too. Reach out anytime. We'd rather you ask than guess.