SubmitHub – A Review of the Reviewing Service

This week we’ll be doing a review of the blog/label submission service – SubmitHub. The service was created by Jason Grishkoff of Indie Shuffle for the purpose of simplifying the song submission process, he knew that blogs/labels want music and that artists want exposure, reviews, and signing. In Josh’s own words, “The goal of the website is to centralize the disorganized process of submitting to music blogs. We’re here to help curators and artists connect. It’s up to them to take it from there 🙂 “.

We had a chance to see the blog review process from the beginning and wanted to share the experience with you.

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Submitting a Song

 

The options are: submit a link from Soundcloud, Youtube, Audiomack, or Fanburst; or to directly upload an Mp3 version of your song. The song used was hosted on a private Soundcloud page so we posted that link (song by Beatlab Alumni Mikey Backpack) and were prompted to create an account. Options to connect Facebook, Google+ or Soundcloud were offered, we chose Soundcloud. We really liked seeing Soundcloud as an option, it makes sense to connect the music streaming platform to the music submission platform with a simple click.

 

 

After connecting or creating an account you are brought to a page where you fill out the metadata and description of your song, allowing for similar artists to be tagged, and providing a link to more of your music (a chance for remarketing old content or hipping reviewers to your vibes).

 

 

We used the box at the bottom to write the artist’s introduction and provided links to his website and EPK (electronic press kit), all this working as a cover letter. If you are submitting your song to multiple blogs it’s not possible to address each individually, so if you really feel inclined you could use this form repeatedly and write a personalized message each time. We chose to submit to multiple blogs at once using their filters and aiming for the right match, we’ll show you that process in a bit. After filling out this information you choose which form of currency you would like to use, Premium or Standard credits.

 

 

We chose to submit a song to blogs for review but if you are looking to submit to Labels this is the page where you select that option above the credits buttons. Between the two types of credits options, we went with Premium credits because it offered a better return on the investment being made (at most $1 per credit, at most 2 credits per submission, but typically 1 credit): 1) response within 48hrs 2) your submission gets preference over Standard credit submissions 3) forces blogs to listen to your song for at least 20 seconds before making a decision 4) if your song is declined for review then blogs must provide feedback. The last offering was enough to convince us on its own, even if your song isn’t reviewed publicly you’ll get a private review in a way. Premium credit pricing is as follows – $40 for 50 credits, $25 for 30 credits, $9 for 10, and $5 for 5.

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Choosing Blogs

 

 

Here’s where the convenience of this service comes to show, on this page the site lays out the names, media type (online Blog, Radio station, Soundcloud channel, Spotify channel/playlister, or Youtube channel), number of fans, response rate, feedback quality, and notes on the blog. To optimize your chances of getting featured on a blog and increase your return you’ll want to be selective about which blogs you submit to. Pay close attention to the notes provided on each blog as they’ll tell you which types of music they tend to share. On the left side of the page is a filter section, use this. Here you can filter blogs by media type, genre, how many credits they want, if they have a spotify channel, are listed on hype machine, and if you are looking for a premiere. Using the genre filter is extremely helpful to isolate the types of blogs more likely to accept your submission, you can select multiple genres to get more specific while also best categorizing your song. Choose the blogs you think are the best matches and go to the next page.

 

 

This is the final page before submission, here you’ll be asked about how important feedback is to you, the type of coverage you more interested in receiving (written reviews, Spotify playlists, or either). Lots of blogs are international and sometimes written in languages other than English so Submithub asks if you’re comfortable receiving feedback that way. Finally, there is space for ‘the Quick Pitch’ which can be about the song, about the artist, or anything else as long as it can be said under 100 characters. After you submit all you have to do is wait for their responses, and if you get accepted a communication thread will be opened up on SubmitHub. Go to your Dashboard to view your approvals and followup in the chatroom.

 

 

This site is very helpful if you don’t know where to start looking for PR coverage as it consolidates over a hundred blogs and allows you to easily submit to multiple ones in the same go. Using this service is far better than the frowned upon method of copy-and-paste emailing, blogs utilizing SubmitHub know what they’ve signed up for so don’t worry too much about the shotgun approach. The service has set up some nice checks and balances for itself, for example, if a blog takes a premium credit for review compensation but doesn’t give feedback after declining your song then they have to refund your credit. All in all, we found the process extremely easy to submit music for reviews and would do it again.