Even in an age of streaming and social media, interviews, reviews, previews and features are still an essential part of building a musical career.

There’s a reason that press releases always have quotes from critics at the top: audiences want to know what journalists think. Reviews are still valued.

However great your personal website and social media, being featured in a respected, independent arts publication will do wonders for your profile, reputation, and your SEO.

So here’s my advice – as a music journalist – for how you can give yourself a better chance to succeed!

Research your writer

Before you fire off any introductory emails, it’s important to find a writer who’s interested in, and sympathetic to, the kind of music you make.

Read their work, find a piece about another artist you know or admire, and when you get in touch, mention that. Explain that you think they’d be interested in your own music because it offers something similar, if also – crucially – different and original. (You don’t want to be a clone!)

If you can also refer to a kind of article – the long-form interview, or preview feature – that the writer specialises in, so much the better.

Requests to feature types of piece the writer’s publication won’t usually include (such as requests to feature videos, to a site that never does that, something I receive almost daily) not only go straight in the bin, but tell me that the publicist (artists are usually more careful) knows little about what I write. So I’m unlikely to want to work with them.

Initial Pitch

What do you play? Who do you play it with? Why should we be interested right now?

These are the crucial questions that need explaining in your introductory pitch. And given that most of these pitches will these days be sent by email, make sure your subject heading contains the essential information about your act. It needs to stand out from the dozens, if not hundreds, of similar emails that writer receives every day.

In many cases, the journalist you approach will need to pitch their coverage to a section editor on their publication, justifying why your music deserves attention.

So help them out.

If you have just released a new album, or are starting a new tour, or collaboration with different players, or have won a competition, are starting a residency somewhere, and so on, mention it straight away. It’s news. News is what they deal in.

Selling your own music is perhaps the hardest part of the pitch, since it requires both self-knowledge and a boastful attitude that doesn’t come naturally to everyone. But explaining why your music is fresh, different, original, and NOW is essential.

How are you different from everyone else? What makes you fresh and contemporary?

These are the central questions. Succeed here, and you have an interested journalist who can really help you out.

Practical Information

Once you’ve explained, in a punchy couple of paragraphs, why your music deserves coverage right now, there’s a bunch of practical details you must include in your first contact. These may seem obvious, but I frequently see pitches that omit some.

Perhaps the most important are links to places the writer can hear some of your music straight away – if they’re interested, that’s the first thing they’ll want to do, so make sure you have a selection of your most representative tracks available on a private Soundcloud page or similar.

Video clips can be very persuasive, but they can also be awful. If it was shot by your friend on his phone, without professional recording equipment, lighting or editing, and it’s been watched by 14 people (I’ve seen lots like this), leave it out.

Other crucial information includes all relevant contact information:

Your website

Your live tour schedule, with dates and venues (perhaps the writer doesn’t have time for a profile or interview but would like to review your live show?)

Album release details

A discography for previous releases (if you have them)

Your Biography

The bio you send on first contact should be brief and only include a concise account of where you’re from, what you play, where you studied, where you’ve gigged and what you’ve recorded.

I have, truly and honestly, read all kinds of weird and wonderful artist bios that only come onto these questions on page three, after a painstaking account of how a childhood dream in which John Coltrane appeared like an angel got them playing sax at the age of five. Save these stories for your autobiography.

Most journalists will do the detailed biographical research once they’re already sold on your music. There’s no harm in having a longer biography on your website, but in the first instance, stick to the essentials.