What does it take to be an Indie Artist in 2025?

Aliza Hava sits at the mixing console at Revolver Recordings in Thousand Oaks, CA

A friend recently told me she had no idea how much work goes into releasing an independent album. When I told her, she couldn’t believe it. I thought it might be worth a share to give you an idea of what I’ve been up to while getting ready to release Into the Light. This has very much been what you’d call a DIY project, so let’s dive into what “behind-the-scenes” actually looks like when you’re dealing with both the creative and business sides of the music business.

Back in May, I started my own record label, Amoraelia Entertainment. I’ve never had a consistent manager or booking agent, so you might be surprised what I’m responsible for. I didn’t go to music business school, and the industry these days is a bit like the Wild West. All of the things below I’ve learned to do on my own. And sometimes, thankfully, I get a little help from my friends.

If I switch between writing in the first and third person, it’s because much of this list is specific to me, but a lot of it is basic and can perhaps help other artists think more about what they need to do before their next release. This post is not necessarily meant to be advice for artists, but if it helps someone with their music release journey, great! It’s literally a list of what I’ve been doing. Try not to let it make your head spin, as this is in no particular order and is pretty much stream of consciousness....

Here goes.

1. Write, record, and mix your album. For me, this took two years to complete, and I’m thankful to have had an awesome team to work with. The recording and mixing alone involved different sessions that took place over a year or so. For the sake of brevity, I’ll thank my songwriting and production team in a beautifully effusive post on release day. You know who you are.

2. Determine who your mastering engineer will be. I am honored to say one of the best in the biz, Daniel Rowland, did the mastering.

3. Find and work with a graphic artist who gets your vision. Do both digital and physical artwork design. Make sure your CMYK settings for printing are set up so it looks as good printed as it does on the screen. It took us about a year to complete the artwork for every single song on the album, no AI involved. Big thanks to Jen Fountain for her visionary designs.

4. Find and hire a publicist. I spoke with eight different publicists before hiring Clif Doyal, who came recommended by fellow Folk Alliance International artist, Rudolf Korv.

5. Hire a radio promoter, get all of the mailing and marketing materials ready, and get ready to send out a bunch of CDs. Excited to be working with Twin Vision for the first time.

6. Find the funding to record the album. This was actually one of the first steps. I took out a small business loan post-Covid.

7. Run a pre-sale/crowdfunding campaign to raise a marketing budget. Thank God for all of you who supported me in this. To be honest, as successful as it may have seemed from the outside, it was a harrowing, anxiety-ridden process. It took nine months of preparation and the skilled guidance of a seasoned mentor, Melissa Center, to hit my goal. It would not have been possible without the committed support of my crowdfunding team and everyone who backed me. There's a long list of gratitude here as well.

8. Make sure to fulfill all the perks of said crowdfunding campaign. Don’t end up being one of those lame-o’s who don’t deliver what they promise, even if takes more time than you thought it would. If you’re one of my backers who is waiting on your perks, I’m on it! Check your email for a special delivery from GoodTunes and let me know if, for some reason, you haven't received it.

9. Find an entertainment lawyer who cares about you enough to support your journey before you’re making enough money to pay them what they’re worth.

10. Book your own shows and tours, nationally and internationally. Then go give it your all.

11. Make your own promotional images and fliers. Send them to venues to print, hang, and share on their socials, too.

12. Go to music conferences and networking events to meet people in the industry to work and collaborate with. Stay up late and go to the afterparties, because that’s when all the best connections happen. Build your network and strengthen relationships as you travel.

13. Find photographers who know how to capture your artistic self. Schedule the shoots. Choose the locations and outfits. Make sure they deliver the photos to you in a reasonable amount of time. Make sure you have both vertical and horizontal promo shots.

14. Learn how to edit photos and graphic images for all different sizes, digital and print media.

15. Film and edit professional or even decent music and lyric videos. DIY or find a team that can help you, like I did with Republic Production on my trip to Romania this past Fall. Stay tuned for the groovy new music videos I've got on the way.

16. Find a social media manager who actually knows what they’re doing and doesn’t charge an arm and a leg. Thank you Jeanette Lundgren of Mother Hen Promotions. We’ve just started working together but she has done more in the past two weeks to support my release process than previous people I worked with for months who overcharged, overpromised, and underdelivered.

16. Research and determine what distributor you’re going to release your music through. In this case, I moved all of my music off of Distrokid to a newish company called Too Lost. It was a seamless process and I'm very happy with this decision.

17. Determine your release strategy and learn how to create a waterfall campaign so you don’t blow your musical load all at once. If you're doing a waterfall release, upload your music early so you can get ISRC and UPC codes assigned and can register your songs in all the appropriate places before the release dates.

18. Upload all of your music and make sure it is properly tagged with metadata, and encode all of your mp3s with the same metadata. Find a software that allows you to add artwork to your mp3s, like NCH Software, so it shows up on digital players.

19. Register your music on all the appropriate platforms that do radio reporting, royalty payouts, and rights management, like SoundExchange, The MLC, Mediabase, ASCAP/BMI, etc. Register with a PRO and create your own publishing entity so you can collect both songwriter and publishing royalties. All those little fractions of cents will eventually add up to something.

20. Research and determine who is going to print your short run of CDs. Make sure your artwork is formatted according to their template specs.

21. Set up your own LLC and record label so you can separate your music business from your personal finances.

22. Set up a business bank account and make sure all of the royalty services you’re registered with are using that account for payouts.

23. Set up your vinyl pre-order campaign. I'm launching mine on Friday via GoodTunes and am in good company alongside Tony Levin and Sixpence None the Richer.

24. Set up your Bandcamp release.

25. Post consistently on social media and respond to as many people as you can manage to.

26. Build and send announcements to your email list consistently. Do your best to reply to as many people as you can when they write back.

27. Design and print physical merch including stickers and t-shirts to take on the road. Find quality vendors.

28. Make sure all of your merch is available in your Store and that it integrates with your Spotify for Artists and other social media sites so that fans can find and buy your stuff if they like.

29. Set up your business PayPal, Venmo, etc so people can easily buy your merch.

30. Make a business card with your picture on it. People can scan your digital contact info into their phone, but if they’re meeting tons of people and don’t take notes, chances are they’ll forget who you are and what you were talking about. A photo on a business card helps jog their memory.

31. Plan your touring routes. Research and contact venues that are a good fit for your music and audience size in all the major towns and cities along those routes. Post all of your confirmed gigs on Bandsintown and Songkick. Make sure to customize your URL extension and share your link so people know you're on there and can easily get tour updates.

32. Book a place to stay everywhere you go.

33. Network with musicians in those areas to see about sharing gigs or collaborating while you’re in town.

34. Prep your car and tires for the long haul.

35. Make sure you have all of your vitamins, protein powders, and medicine that you’ll need for your tour, especially if you’re like me and have an autoimmune condition, food sensitivities, and are living with a benign, yet troublesome brain tumor. This takes extra work and adds extra stress. Luckily, and thank God, Source Naturals is my number one sponsor!

36. Keep your website updated and do a redesign to integrate the new release.

37. Upload and schedule new music videos to YouTube and make sure not to neglect YouTube Shorts.

38. Determine ad budget and run ads on Meta to help get your music in front of new listeners. Do the same for YouTube ads.

39. Rewrite your bio or have a professional help you. Don’t use Chat-GPT. It’s generic and won’t read right without major tweaking. I mean, use it if it helps give you ideas, but don’t just cut and paste.

40. Use 30 different apps and softwares to do all of the above.

41. Try not to cry when the utility company accidentally cuts your internet/phone line one week before your launch, then takes five days to fix it and get you back online. Nevermind that you live off-grid in the middle of nowhere and the local library is only open four days a week at odd hours. At least there still is a local library.

42. Mourn the fact that you didn’t get your independent musician startup, Musician’s BASS, off the ground to help you manage all of the above. My music-tech startup died of Covid. Sorry for the bad joke, but it really has been a grieving process for me. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a full account.

43. Set up a pre-save link and hope people use it when you ask them to because folks don’t always understand that the more pre-saves you get, the more likely streaming services are to share your music with new listeners and help you grow as an artist.

44. Create content for each song on your album, including reels, stories, promotional images, audio clips, Spotify Canvases, etc. and be ready to publish them on the right days and times to go along with your release schedule. Pre-scheduling doesn’t always get the same reach as organic uploads, so keep that in mind, and don’t overuse hashtags.

45. Make sure to communicate regularly with everyone on your team that you’ve worked so hard to build and give them the tools they need to help you succeed. Respond to emails in a timely fashion, and if you’re not able to, apologize for the delay. Be respectful of their time and yours.

46. Mentally and emotionally prepare for the vulnerability of putting out an album about healing from child abuse. I am still not completely there but am putting one foot in front of the other, not to mention spending years working on trauma recovery and finding the strength and courage to write the album to begin with. But that’s another story for another time.

47. Find the time to write and share meaningful posts that actually have value for other people and aren’t just about how awesome your music is.

48. Do interviews -- radio, podcasts, music blogs – and then repost them so people can understand better who you are and what makes you tick.

49. Practice regularly and perform as much as possible to keep your voice strong and your chops up.

50. Try not to freak out that Los Angeles is on fire and your family, friends, and fellow musicians who helped make your album – people you dearly love – are all going through some version of hell. #PrayForLA

51. Eat, sleep, shower, repeat

Why do I feel like I’m forgetting something? Oh yeah!! Hug my husband and thank him for supporting me every step of the way. Find time to hang with friends, celebrate wins, and make sure to enjoy the process! It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey, right?

Friday, Jan. 17, the title track of ‘Into the Light’ will be out on all streaming services. Please do me a solid and pre-save it here.

Thank you!

Btw, I know what else I forgot. Make sure to copyright your music, both the sound recordings and the underlying compositions. This has gotten very expensive in the past few years. Use a site like Songuard for a quick poor man’s copyright, and then make sure to send two copies of your CD to the Library of Congress (if you’re USA-based) to protect the sound recordings, artwork, and liner notes.

Anything you’d like to add? Please leave it in the comments below.