How to Do Your Own Music PR

Doing your own music PR means doing the same core work a publicist does, on a smaller scale and for free: building a targeted list of blogs, playlist curators, and radio shows that cover your genre, writing a short pitch that a busy editor will actually open, timing it around your release with real lead time, following up once without being annoying, and tracking every contact so your outreach becomes a repeatable system instead of scattered emails. You will not have a publicist's relationships, and that is a real limit worth being honest about, but for most independent artists the early wins in press and playlists come from exactly this kind of direct, well-targeted outreach. Here is the step-by-step playbook I use.

Step 1: Build a targeted media list

Everything depends on the list. A tight list of 30 outlets that genuinely cover your sound beats a blast to 500 that do not. Pull from three buckets:

• Blogs and online publications that write about your genre and your career stage. Read what they actually publish before adding them, so you know a pitch fits.
• Playlist curators whose playlists match your sound, both the independent curators and the editorial route through Spotify for Artists.
• Radio shows and stations that take unsolicited music, including community, college, and internet radio, which are far more open to independents than commercial radio.

For each contact, record the outlet, the specific person or show, their preferred submission method (a form, an email, a portal), and the genres they cover. This is the slow part, and it is where accurate contacts save you the most time.

Step 2: Write a pitch that gets opened

Editors and curators get buried, so your pitch has to earn its read in the first two lines. What works:

• A subject line that is specific and honest: your artist name, the genre, and the one thing that makes this release worth a look. No all-caps, no "URGENT," no fake familiarity.
• A short opening that shows you actually know their outlet. One real sentence about why your music fits what they cover beats any amount of flattery.
• A one-line hook: the story or angle in plain language.
• A private stream link and the key facts (release date, genre, a sentence of context). Do not attach large files.
• A close that makes the ask clear and low-pressure.

Keep the whole thing short enough to read in fifteen seconds. Personalize the parts that matter (the outlet name, why it fits) and reuse the parts that do not need to change. A pitch that is obviously a mass blast gets deleted, and a pitch that is obviously written for that one outlet gets read.

Step 3: Time it right

Timing is where DIY PR most often goes wrong. Blogs and radio need lead time, so start pitching around four to six weeks before your release date, not the day it drops. That window lets a writer plan coverage and lets you pitch the unreleased track to Spotify editorial through your dashboard (do that at least seven days out). Send a private stream of the finished, mastered track, not a rough. Pitching after release is not useless, but you have lost the "premiere" angle that many outlets want, so the earlier you start, the more doors stay open.

Step 4: Follow up without being annoying

Most pitches get no reply the first time, and that is normal, not a rejection. Send one polite follow-up about five to seven days after the first email if you have not heard back. Keep it to two lines: a short bump to the top of their inbox, the stream link again, and nothing more. One follow-up is good practice. A third or fourth is how you get blocked. If they pass or stay silent after that, let it go and put your energy into the next outlet. Relationships build over releases, so a no this time is not a no forever.

Step 5: Track everything

DIY PR succeeds or fails on follow-through, and the difference is a system. Track every contact you pitch: who they are, when you reached out, what you sent, whether you followed up, and how they responded. A spreadsheet works fine. The point is that you never pitch the same curator twice by accident, you follow up at the right time, you learn which angles and outlets actually respond, and next release you start from a warm list instead of scratch.

Where to find the contacts

The hardest part of all of this is a current, accurate list, and that is exactly what I built Heard for. It is a directory of verified music blogs (770+), playlist curators (880+), and radio stations and shows (1,900+), each tagged by genre, with the real submission email or form and a last-verified date behind the membership. A live sample:

You can save contacts across blogs, curators, and radio and log your outreach in one place, so the tracking system from step five is built in rather than a separate spreadsheet.

The honest limits versus hiring a pro

Be clear-eyed about what DIY PR cannot do. You do not have a publicist's years-deep relationships, so the biggest, most competitive outlets will be harder to reach and slower to respond. You are also spending your own hours, which is real cost even when no money changes hands. What DIY PR does exceptionally well is the early and mid tier: genre blogs, independent curators, community and college radio, and the relationships you build directly and keep forever. For most independent artists, that tier is where the meaningful early wins live, and doing it yourself teaches you what resonates before you ever pay a firm. When you eventually have a genuinely newsworthy release, lead time, and budget, hiring a pro to reach the top tier makes sense, and the groundwork you did yourself makes that firm far more effective.

Get started

Pick your ten best-fit outlets, write one genuinely personal pitch, start four to six weeks out, follow up once, and track it all. Do that for a release or two and you will have both early coverage and a warm list you own. A Heard membership is $19 a year for the verified blogs, curators, and radio contacts to run this playbook, which is a small fraction of what a single PR campaign costs and a good place to start doing your own PR properly.