SubmitHub

These 59 Music Blogs Will Listen to Your Song, Guaranteed

UPDATE: I wrote this in March of 2016, and it quickly became my most popular post. Four years later SubmitHub has over 1100 curators including radio stations, YouTube and Twitch channels, Spotify playlisters, and Instagram influencers. Read about my latest experience, including tips and tricks from SubmitHub’s founder, here.

I hate submitting my music to blogs. Hate hate hate. The process goes something like this:

  1. Scour Hype Machine for blogs in my genre.
  2. Comment on said blogs regularly to “develop a personal relationship.”
  3. Gather relevant email addresses.
  4. Assemble a compelling pitch for my latest and greatest song.
  5. New email, copy/paste, send, rinse, repeat.
  6. Wait in vain for a response.

Hey, I understand. Music bloggers can receive hundreds of submissions per day. There’s no way they can check out that many songs, much less provide feedback. It’s not like they’re getting paid!

But what if they did get paid? Not for exposure. We’re not talking payola here. Just a token amount to compensate them for their time. Say… $0.50? That just might work.

SubmitHub, created by Jason Grishkoff of Indie Shuffle, centralizes the submission process and rewards bloggers for focused listening and timely responses.

You can submit your song to dozens of blogs (currently 59) for a buck a pop – less if you buy credits in bulk. Bloggers receive $0.50 per submission for their time and consideration.

They have 48 hours to listen to at least 20 seconds of your song, decide whether or not to feature it on their blog, and provide at least 10 words of feedback if they decline. If that criteria isn’t met, your credit is refunded.

Premium vs. Standard Credits

I’ve described the premium submission process, which is what I recommend. But there is another option. If you’ve got more time than money, you can submit to two blogs every four hours for free.

submission credits

I tried standard credits for my first submission. It was rather unpleasant. Within two hours, both blogs declined, no explanation provided.

Playing Favorites submission

If you want to give the free route a shot, you can maximize your odds of success by choosing wisely. Go to their stats page, click to sort by “Response rate (Standard),” and submit to blogs most likely to respond or approve.

Nobody is getting rich listening to songs for $0.50 each. Out of respect for everybody’s time, premium is the way to go.

How to submit your music to blogs

The submission process couldn’t be easier! Choose Premium or Standard credits, then narrow down the candidates by selecting the appropriate filters:

SubmitHub filters

You’re presented with a sortable list of blogs:

SubmitHub blogs

Select the ones you want to submit to, provide a little info on your release, and you’re off to the races!

Here’s what it looks like from the blogger’s end, courtesy of Aaron Vehling of Vehlinggo (who recently conducted a great interview with me).

SubmitHub submissions

My SubmitHub results, round one

I paid $40 for 50 credits, then promptly submitted to 27 blogs with a high response rate. I included a short bio and noted that the song is from my upcoming album.

A Work in Progress submission

The declines started rolling in immediately. This time though, the emails included explanations, ranging from helpful to contradictory to nonsensical. For the most part, the comments from music bloggers were indistinguishable from those from Audiokite listeners. Here’s a representative selection:

Kinda slick piano and singing – reminds me a bit of Ben Folds. But I’m not sure I can dig the vocals enough to blog. Also seems a touch of auto-tune shows up here and there.

Autotune on vocals isn’t sounding strong enough for us. Needs work.

The vocals are cool but I did not enjoy the music and the lyrics.

Vocals have a weird melody with the piano. It clashes at weird places.

The production is amazing, but the vocals on here are definitely for me.

I like where your heads at but the vocals sound waaay to loud/dry/wide all at once hah. Keep on working but consider outsourcing the mixing aspect. It’s hard to focus otherwise.

The production is nice but the melody is very linear.

Interesting melodies here! I like the progression of your piano chords; you are definitely a talented piano player! The trance-like bass is also an interesting addition. Consider altering the lyrics a bit so they don’t follow a clear path along the beat. Right now they don’t really stray from the piano which I think hinders your success in hooking us in via your vocals.

Some thoughtful feedback for sure, but taken as a whole, it doesn’t tell me how to make the song better – other than perhaps revisiting the pitch correction on the vocals.

Out of the 27 blogs that I submitted to, 24 responded. I was refunded 3 credits.

Not bad at all! The response rate, that is. My results, on the other hand, were disheartening.

Only one blogger approved the track for a blog post/review, “ideally within the next week.” He asked for the press release, artwork, and social media links, which I promptly supplied. Nine days later, I’m not seeing the song on his blog.

My SubmitHub results, round two

Undeterred, I invested another $40 in 50 more credits and refined my strategy.

For starters, I read about each blog, rather than just submitting blindly. It isn’t immediately obvious, but you can click on a blog name from the home page to reveal a description, stats, and accepted genres.

This time I didn’t avoid blogs with a low response rate. Why bother? Worst case, you get your credit back.

Initially I planned to pass on the blogs that clearly aren’t a good fit, based on their comments from the last song. Unfortunately for my wallet, my pride got the best of me. I thought I could win them over (I didn’t).

Finally, I tweaked my pitch. Instead of just a short bio, I started off with an offer they couldn’t refuse, or so I thought:

80’s synthpop + EDM + classical piano. All features will be promoted multiple times to my 2.1M Twitter followers.

Followed by a Dropbox link to hi-res photos, the same short bio, and links to social media.

Everything they needed for a feature was at their fingertips!

Slot Machine submission

Out of the 37 blogs that I submitted to, only 24 responded with feedback within 48 hours. I was refunded 13 credits.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story! Two of them didn’t include feedback, and four more without feedback came in after the deadline.

When all was said and done, 30 of the 37 blogs checked out the track, leaving me with 52 credits for future submissions.

This time I received three approvals. Just like last time, one said they were going to post in the next week, but it hasn’t happened yet. One shared my track with their 1,000 Twitter followers, and another reposted it on SoundCloud to 419 followers.

SoundCloud repost

Should you try SubmitHub?

My experience with SubmitHub has been both humbling and enlightening. Clearly my music is not relevant to the vast majority of music blogs in my genre. 😭

For $38.40, I received 44 mini-critiques, two potential blog posts, a tweet, and a repost.

That’s far less than I hoped for or expected, but it reaffirms my focus on pleasing the fans I already have. I’m confident many (most?) of you will have better luck!

If you’re going to submit your music to blogs, SubmitHub is the way to go. It’s cheap, transparent, painless, and fair to both parties.

Give it a shot and share your thoughts and strategies in the comments!

Update: Jason at SubmitHub was kind enough to share this article with the bloggers on the platform. Shortly thereafter, Salacious Sound came through with the promised post on my first song. Would it have happened anyway? Probably!

Don’t forget to read about my latest experience with SubmitHub!

198 Comments

  1. Ask yourself two things here:

    1. Is the artist who is submitting music to these blogs (Color Theory) something you would be interested in listening to? Perhaps his music just isn’t really something that would show up on a music blog in the first place. Maybe his music is geared more towards a mainstream crowd.

    2. How much money does this artist actually have in promotion expenses? Are all of these followers he has on Twitter actually engaging with his music/who are they? Are they true followers of his work or are they followers based on advertising and random clicks?

    All in all, great article. Very informative to find out how to submit to all of these blogs. The results are also somewhat surprising, but again consider all sides to it before taking the writer’s stance.

    1. Glad you enjoyed the article Jane!

      I’m not sure if your second set of questions is rhetorical, or relevant to the article, but I can answer them if you’d like.

      Last I checked in January, Twitter Audit said 98% of my followers are real.

    2. “1. Is the artist who is submitting music to these blogs (Color Theory) something you would be interested in listening to? Perhaps his music just isn’t really something that would show up on a music blog in the first place. Maybe his music is geared more towards a mainstream crowd.”

      Woah, I hadn’t thought that a thing. Weird. I make my music for more of a “mainstream crowd” I suppose, however some details probably deter in the end. I didn’t think that would go against all music blogs (posting technically independent music, not indie genre). Weird. Something to wrap my head around, perhaps.

      But I can’t really yet be sure, personally. I’ve had comments about sounding experimental and like no one else, so I’m still not really well-defined yet. I’m too in the middle of my own stuff of course, and also a bit of a loner almost, haha – so I don’t know tons of people who are well-verse in related jargons, etc. because I don’t know many people PERIOD, and usually love it that way. That’s all fine and these things take time, and artists change too. Buzz is supposed to happen later, USUALLY. 🙂

      Anyway, still not totally sure you’re spot-on, right – but now it’s something I have in mind as possible, whereas before it so was not a thought for a second.

      Hey, “pop” is a whole genre on the site though, so I’d say that conflicts. Although “indie pop” sounds nothing like pop to me, so I know human quirks really mess up communication and beyond. Hah.

    3. Well, I want to clarify that I don’t really write/make music for/with any audience in mind, except myself and the similar. And I do love some very mainstream stuff, plus others. Plus if I had to say which lane as a GUESS, it’d be that side but with key tweaks/specifics. Just saying because of some hindsight thought about that one sentence I sent.

      1. I know what you mean about not writing with a particular audience in mind. It’s not like we say, “I’d like to write a dazzling indie pop song,” figure out where the center of the bullseye is, and go for it. It’s more like, what comes out comes out, and we’ll decide what to call it later!

    4. STOP!

      Just stop and think for a moment! Who is making the money here?
      Everybody, except you, the music maker!
      It is a scam.Never pay for exposure to get youre music out there.
      I find it insane that artists get so desperate for some exposure that they give money to frauds in the hope they get noticed.Don’t!
      There are enough radio stations out there accepting all kinds of music from every genre with submit pages online that will listen to youre track and play it!
      Submithub and all these so called promotion companies just feed of youre desperation to get noticed and they get rich and you get poor and frustrated.
      Secret: keep making music and spent some time on promoting youre music not money!Time!
      And by the way, blogs are dead!
      Get youre music on spotify or apple , and guess what , it can be done for free.
      In the end you can have a budget ofmillions to promote music but in the end a shitty song is still a shitty song …
      So, keep going music artitst today climate is awesome for music makers, youre music is art, dont sell it for cheep!

      With kind regards,

      Harry
      (indie artist from the Netherlands)

      1. Harry… you don’t know what you are talking about. Blogs are not dead. Just the opposite. They are so bombarded with submissions that they only pay attention to PR companies. Kiiara’s song Gold first appeared on Hype Machine blogs, and now has millions of plays and went to radio. This is wasaaaaawy less money than paying a PR company that would be submitting to these same blogs. It costs money to get your foot in the door no matter how good your music is.

        1. That could be true, BUT what is the incentive for the blogger? A few sentences a minute can make $2/hr, which is ?120/hr. It’s in the bloggers’s best interest to deny the bands as quickly as possible. That’s what I think. My band’s music isn’t bad, we get a good crowd in Austin, but this service will “put you in a black hole of self deprecation,” to quote one friend. My granny always says “follow the money” that’s how you know who’s benefits and enables you to make smarter decisions. This service isn’t designed in a band’s best interest, or even in the best interest of music in society in general. I definitely wouldn’t use this service again.

        2. Good article though, but I wonder why it didn’t mention this angle at all. Is there a monetary reason for that? Or was it just not thought about. If it’s the latter, maybe it’s worth thinking about! : )

        3. Wow, I’m dumb. But I did finally read the article, and I’m sorry that I wrote that not much thought was put into it. Next time, I will put more thought into what I do. : )

      2. How can you think that music promotion online is dead? When a good number of artistes in the Nigerian music scene have made it via online and offline promotion of their songs.

    5. Music critics are like clones of the ever so intelligent guest panelist on CNN. They have a need to feel that people care what they have to say in order to feel important….but most of the time they don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. Any “negative” critic of mine can suck one 🙂

      1. I can totally relate to that sentiment, but over the years I’ve realized that’s just my ego getting in the way of seeing things clearly. Music bloggers are, for the most part, just passionate music fans.

    6. So that’s basically paying morons to give them chance to tell what they think. When submitting there should be an option “bloggers who know music theory and not only basic”. These responses are ridiculous. Music industry is a disaster…

      1. Hey, I was one of those morons! 😉 Call them what you will, but they call the shots on their content. I agree that music theory knowledge is sorely lacking!

  2. Hey thanks for making this information available.. it sounds like a very transparent and cost effective service that can cut straight to chase.

    It was also interesting that you mentioned responses from the bloggers were consistent with responses you received from Audiokite listeners… this seems to add even more weight and credibility to the feedback for both parties as credible.

    Great post.. thx :~)

    1. Thanks Dino!

      You’re right that the consistency adds credibility. At the same time, it shows that even comments from music bloggers, who one would expect a higher level of insight from, are a mixed bag.

  3. Thanks for the post Brian. I was looking forward to this article. I tried the Standard Credit first and my music was declined with no comment every single time. I bought 10 credits and used one – the response I received was essentially, “not sure about this song plus it’s two years old on Soundcloud”. After that comment I decided to give this a proper shot when my new album is ready for promotion rather than use an older release. Even if no one knows your music the blogs still want new music.

    1. I think that’s a wise call Bob! My tracks were actually released previously on EPs as well, but they are also on my upcoming album. Perhaps some of the bloggers noticed the date of the SoundCloud upload on my second submission, and that worked against me.

  4. Good read Brian. I have a radio program on Pacifica Radio KPFT & podcast called “PATTIES RADIO”. We often music blog using our Tumblr & Facebook pages. Readers can submit to our show at pattiesradio[@]gmail.com.

    1. Just chiming in to say thank you Brian for documenting and sharing this extensive review!! Also, just wanted to shout out to KPFT — I *love* Pacifica Radio (KPFA in my area) and their willingness to showcase a wide variety of music genres and styles! Where is KPFT? I would love to listen to and submit to Patties 🙂

  5. Hey Brian!

    Thanks so much for this article, as a blogger on Submithub I feel like my ability to give valuable criticism is something that takes practice. I feel like I have improved a lot since I started but there are still areas where I would like to become better.

    What I love about this article is that it shows me the other side of things, including the good, bad and ugly feedback. I feel like I have learned a few lessons that would improve my future critiques, and I would love to see more of what artists want as far as feedback.

    1. Looking over my emails, your responses were some of the most helpful! I appreciated that you referred back to my first submission in your feedback on the second. It showed me that you were listening carefully and not just blowing through your queue.

      Thanks for the kind words Justin!

      1. Awesome Brian, I’m glad to hear that! One of these days I’ll have to press you for your secret to gaining so many twitter followers, your following is quite impressive! 🙂
        Cheers,
        – Justin

  6. Hi me again! I just thought I would come back and drop some helpful hints that could potentially help artists make the best of their premium submissions.

    1. Reading the blog bios sometimes yields some preferences (like no explicit lyrics, no autotune, etc.) I do get about one submission a day that is clearly disqualified by the rules set out in our bio. I don’t get mad at this but I feel bad because I know it can be disheartening to get a rejection (I’ve just got into dental school after years of rejection).

    2. I have been won over by second submissions, but it’s happened rarely, so perhaps use regular credits if you are going to resubmit.

    3. Only submit one song at a time unless you are specifically paying to get feedback on each song. Pick the song that best fits the blog’s aesthetic and then go with that one. Chances are if they like your stuff they are only going to pick one and if they don’t like your style then you’ve lost both premium credits. If the feedback they give you suggests they may like another song of yours, then submit that one, but submitting one at a time saves you from unnecessarily losing money.

    4. The bio of a song is only looked at if we like a song or are on the fence about it, so include things that might tip someone over the edge. Blogs like exclusive content (facts, premieres), social media coverage (I share you, you share me – also if you have a large following like Brian show that), etc. But be warned, if your music is already released publicly, it isn’t a premiere and saying it is could hurt your chances.

    I’m sure I speak for many passion projects when I say we want to be as helpful as we can with our limited time. And check out Indie Trendsetters next time you are on submithub!

    1. I’m an artist that submitted through submit hub last night, and today. I will say, Brian’s article was excellent, and your advice has been excellent as well. I’m pretty sure I made the classic mistake of not reading each separate blog to see what they are most interested in, and submitting songs over again.
      I’m glad I’ve learned for next time. Thanks guys for putting your advice out there!

  7. Coincidentally, I ‘discovered’ SubmitHub a couple of weeks back, and tried the free submission service, using up the two credits. I received responses within 24-48hours. Both declined without further comment. Many a time, as is in my case, it’s difficult to know to whom to pitch your music, what genre blogger is the best fit, if one exists within the team. You can aim broad and get many disheartening rejections, you can be more picky but at the same time totally miss the mark just the same. In the final analysis, who and what are these individual bloggers, and what better understanding do they have in relation to one’s music creation, so why should one be actively seeking their approval, aside from perhaps gaining some reprintable positive comments. Is there value here, and will a good review really send more potential fans our way?

    1. I think it’s safe to say that most bloggers are passionate music fans – just regular people who know what they like. Their comments aren’t always musically literate, but they can be helpful nonetheless.

      As for the ultimate value, I haven’t had a blog feature yet that had a measurable impact. But it’s always flattering when people like what you’re doing enough to share it.

  8. Granted, I agree with you Brian, that most of these target bloggers are passionate music fans, but why should we place such importance on the opinion of essentially another ‘random’ music fan. It’s one person’s opinion. Isn’t that similar to approaching someone in a shopping mall who seems to spend all their time with earplugs on and asking them what they think of ‘your’ music…. “hey you seem to listen a lot to music and you wear a Band t-shirt I can appreciate, so I thought I ask you for your opinion”. Is it really that important as to what one or another random person thinks your or my music.

    As to some of the replies given to you, you can see the ineffective, sometimes comical affect of these assessments such as ‘your vocal is too dry’, well I’m sure you wanted that quantity of dryness, it was your judgement call; or one person saying ‘too much auto tune’ another saying ‘not enough’. Again, it was your judgement call and you wanted it that way. Etc. We all have different tastes, your taste, or my taste or a bloggers taste may be quite different, I don’t believe anyone is more correct than the next person. But as it is your music or my music, because of that specific reason, then our judgement call should be the one, by default, that trumps the others. I know your work and I know you do it well, it may not be to my taste but I cannot not criticize it in any manner whatsoever because it is of such a high standard, and we only differ on the issue of taste ie what we personally prefer to listen to and what music moves us the most. I don’t think taste has a value as such or at least I don’t believe one taste trumps another. Each of us has the right to enjoy whatever it is we enjoy.

    So, to hear some of those complaints about your submission, including the call to outsource your mixing, I find to be misplaced and even a trifle offensive and displaying a degree of ignorance. At best, it’s really a clash of tastes. I think it certainly is in your case anyhow, as the known quality of your work should not return the response you got.

    From what you let us read, no one actually makes reference as to whether they actually like your ‘song’. That should be the very first comment: do they like the song, rather than go into critiques of production. Most ordinary listeners will simply judge a song as to whether they like or don’t like it, sometimes they can’t articulate their reasoning but they just connect with a song as a whole. This is of paramount importance. The song. Did the reviewers enjoy it?

    In closing, there is very little to gain from pitting one person’s taste against anothers. You can’t argue with taste, we may never agree so that’s why I feel there is little value in these type of blogger reviews. Amen:)

    1. I’d argue that it’s better than approaching someone on the street and asking their opinion, even if they are wearing an agreeable band t-shirt! These are tastemakers in the genre that pride themselves on discovering the latest and greatest, and have audiences that value their opinions.

      People are cynical about movie reviews too, and many ignore them – but they have their place. Personally, I find myself roughly agreeing with most Rotten Tomatoes scores, for example.

      I know for myself that there’s plenty of music that’s good, but it’s just not for me. If asked to explain why I don’t like it, I’d be hard pressed to give a reasonable explanation. I think that’s what we’re seeing in many of the comments.

      Oh yeah – and don’t forget that they only have to listen to 20 seconds. It’s hard to say whether you like a song or not without hearing the whole thing. Much easier to point out something in the production or vocal and move on.

      1. Brian, I think your last paragraph really nails why I do not place much credence on these reviews.

        What is the value of having perhaps 20 seconds of your song listened to then critiqued ( and which 20 seconds – the intro?) I fail to appreciate the value of putting any confidence, money and hope in submitting works to these type of blogs. If, by your own admission, listening to 20 seconds is not enough to know whether you like a song or not (I agree), and this is what the majority of reviews will do (20 seconds), then why bother.

        And yes, it is therefore easier to comment rather on production, but again I consequently personally fail to see the value of such reviews, and spending money on them, one after the other, in the hope that one will come out a winner, like the analogous lottery ticket win, I cannot personally support. Other people may have better luck and experiences though. It would be interesting to hear from someone who has benefited and had their expectations, of the service, met or exceeded.

        1. Clearly some of the bloggers listened to more than 20 seconds, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were in the minority. Remember though, the point of submitting isn’t to get feedback – it’s to get your music featured on blogs. The feedback is a side benefit. At the very least, it proves they listened, which is better than we’re likely to get emailing bloggers directly.

        2. OK I do accept that, if you’re not motivated by blogger analyses but rather by exposure on the blog to its patrons, even if it may be time limited, then there is something to gain.

        3. Hi George

          While 20 seconds probably isn’t enough to know if you are going to fall in love with a song and put it on endless repeat for weeks at a time, it’s certainly enough to know if it’s not for you. As a listener, if the first 20 seconds are really exciting, you’ll have no problem getting to the next 20. But if it’s not grabbing you, well, life is short and there’s a lot of music to listen to.

          On the one hand, that seems unfair to the artiste who spent countless hours crafting a little gem of sonic goodness, on the other, the listener doesn’t reward the effort that goes into making the work, but rather the subjective aesthetic response it provokes.

          The job of a blogger of under the radar music is to curate a collection of music for his/her audience that tells a bigger narrative of his/her aesthetic and cultural worldview, not to promote the artistes who submit their wares. That the artistes get promotion is a happy side effect, but not the point, from the perspective of the value that the blogger brings to the cultural conversation.

          Chipping in a few duckets to move things along just adds an efficiency and layer of accountability.

          Cheers
          -JL

  9. Hey Brian, thanks for taking the time (and money) to do this. I tried the service for myself and I can tell you so far that the service is subpar. It’s really attractive at first glance, but after the first set of approvals (the few out there) you can’t really check if they are reviewing the song or not. Even more, one of the blogs approved and they reposted a DIFFERENT song on soundcloud. Not that I complain about the repost but I think it still needs a few more things to make it an attractive option or whatsoever.

    1. Good stuff Nico! That sounds like a solvable problem.

      Maybe the platform could flag approvals for follow up, and close them out after the blogger provides a link to their review or status update. If no such link is provided within the time frame the blogger specified, it would send them a reminder.

      Then on the musician end, a separate page in our dashboard could be devoted to blog features through SubmitHub, with clickable links, sorted by song. A virtual trophy case. Maybe it could even be visible to the public, like a Bandcamp collection.

  10. Brian, great post.

    Submithub has been a crucial new vehicle for pushing releases to blogs over at Heroic and it’s really streamlined the process. We’re using the paid credits and are seeing a definite return on investment, especially when filtering out which blogs are indexed on Hype Machine.

    1. Great to hear from you Budi!

      So you only submit to blogs indexed on Hype Machine? I figured I’d cast a wide net for testing purposes. If I were getting a higher percentage of approvals, I suppose I’d do that too.

  11. As a blogger on Submithub (and a couple of other similar services) I wanted to say this was a great to see from the perspective of a submitter and also share my 2 cents.

    The truth is for the past few years our submission email has been bloated, we regularly receive 100s of emails and even if we wanted to listen to everything we are sent it would be impossible. With submithub I’m able to race through several submissions thanks in part to how they are displayed. I can then decide whether I enjoy the submission or not. So the main advantage fr me is that I’m actually able to listen to the tracks artists are submitting.

    I often listen to tracks past the 20seconds mark (some warrant repeat listens) even for the non premium submissions. For the premium one I try to offer constructive criticism or an exact reason why I didn’t accept a track.

    I can honestly say I am torn every time I reject an artist but can also confirm I’ve accepted 100+ artists I wouldnt have probably seen otherwise since joining the service.

    B.

    1. In that case, I’ll just submit future tracks to you non-premium! 😉

      Thanks for sharing your perspective! Sounds like SubmitHub has made a huge difference in the way you run your blog, for the better.

      1. It’s changed my focus back to being someone who actually listens to submissions rather than someone who tries to find relevant emails in a sea of junk/bulk emalis.

        I can’t speak for other bloggers on there but I definitely listen to all the submissions (eventually!)

        Premium is useful Is useful if you are seeking a quick turn around, i.e. a single is dropping soon or you want to get a track to bloggers quickly and also if you are seeking some feedback about why your track was rejected.

        As was mentioned above, ultimately it’s really a matter of personal opinion but presumably you already know that when you decide to submit to a blog that posts subjective opinions about music.

        1. Thank you for thoughtful comments. By reading the bloggers’ responses in Brian’s post I got an impression that the bloggers treated the music submitted via SubmitHub differently from music submitted through regular channels (email, submit forms in the blog’s contact section). The responses felt more like advice to the newcomers willing to change their completed music or really do anything just to get featured. My idea is the bloggers are thinking: “If someone is willing to pay for the music being submitted then it’s probably not good enough to catch our attention being submitted by email”. And most of the responses are not even thoughtful or helpful (most sound random or copy/pasted)! I’ve had some luck with sending my music to blogs. About a dozen of them (mostly listed on Hype Machine) posted the song in question (https://soundcloud.com/shopengauers/the-shopengauers-start-again). It was also reposted on soundcloud 27 times and eventually got 13.8k plays, which is not bad, but not mind-blowing either. I spent about half an hour in the evening submitting music to blogs (including Cougar Microbes that hasn’t responded :)) for two months and wrote about 400 emails and soundcloud messages. Then I started getting responses that the song is good, but too old and we only post new music. Then I stopped the process. I’ll be releasing an EP of 5 songs this spring and I’m considering different options how to get heard by blogs. I’m still in doubt – is SubmitHub or regular channels the way to go? After reading the post by Brian I felt like SumbitHub is merely useless. But your reply left me in doubt. Maybe I could have had better luck with my previous single (including your blog) if my emails didn’t get lost? Another question – you mentioned being registered on other sites similar to SubmitHub as well? What are the sites and what are the pros and cons of using them?

        2. Interesting point Aidar!

          It makes sense that bloggers might tend to consider stuff coming in through SubmitHub amateur by default. I’m sure the vast majority is.

          If a blogger has posted your music in the past, and you’ve already established a relationship, maybe email is the way to go.

          Personally, I wouldn’t spend two months composing 400 messages for a review in Rolling Stone!

        3. Brian, the most time-consuming part is looking through each blog and finding out what the blogger likes and doesn’t like. You don’t write a hearty personalized email to everyone. On the contrary, such emails usually smell like fake, because bloggers perfectly understand that you’re probably addressing tens or hundreds of them. So the part from your post about leaving comments beforehand and building relationship with them is a stereotype. I’ve seen it on many “How to get your music to blogs” lists, but in reality it doesn’t work. I’ve been blogged without writing letters, I’ve built relationships and exchanged lots of emails with bloggers, but my music hasn’t been featured after months of promises. Of course, the letter should be personal – at least it should contain the name of the blog or the writer if you can get it, maybe something else if you really like the blog and want to mention something specific. But more or less they’re all the same and – the shorter the better.

  12. I think we reached the max depth of threaded comments Aidar!

    Thanks for the tips! Yeah, I confess I never really took the time to write personalized emails anyway, but I knew I was “supposed” to.

    Sounds like what it comes down to is finding bloggers who are a good fit for your music, one way or the other.

    Since you’ve had a decent amount of success getting blog features, I wonder if you feel that it did you any good?

  13. Hey Brian! Just wanted to pop on real quick and say hi, and let you know what a great article I think this is. Very informative and it comes from such a unique perspective, I believe you can really help both sides of the aisle here. Bravo, my friend! Anyway, gotta run – Oh, FYI “Adjustments Pt. 3” is kickass sauce, seriously. “OBE”?? Darin & I’s new favorite! Yaaaaaassss! Ok, bye, TTYL

    (PS: It’s Joe, JHSF, from 21st Century Express btw )

  14. This is an excellent article Brian! I was thinking of using Submit Hub as my response from blog submissions is almost zero.You just reaffirmed my belief of building a relationship with the media outlets as opposed to blindly submitting. I still don’t know what I’m doing wrong as I follow every submission method they (bloggers) recommend. So now, I’m more concerned with building my organic fan base the old-fashioned way. It may take longer but, I’m more concerned with pleasing my fans first before anyone else! Thank You for posting this!!!

    1. Glad you found it useful, but I wasn’t really suggesting you build relationships first. That’s the “traditional” way to do it, but one I haven’t found fruitful. If you’re going to submit to blogs, I think SubmitHub is the way to go!

  15. Brian, I recently recorded two instrumental albums, so I feel like my audience is pretty limited. Do you know if any of the blogs available on Submithub are geared toward instrumental music or is that just too niche?

  16. Yes Brian, thanks for taking the time and money your spent to review submithub.com. As a music producer (https://soundcloud.com/oddyear) and running a blog (https://www.audiodrums.com/) that is tied into submithub.com I see it being a wonderful tool in my arsenal.

    From the production side, it’s really cool to just drop a buck and get a response in 24 hours. Albeit, depending on your type of music you might not land on as many blogs as you would like. However, at least it’s getting played.

    From the blog side of things, this makes me listen to tracks that would otherwise get lost in the shuffle. I’ve had a music blog since 2007 and every year I get more and more emails. Last year alone, just for submissions, i got over 40,000 emails. I was able to get through 20k of them, but there is no way I can listen to them all. I’m sure I’ve missed some gems in there but my time is limited. And at the end of each year i just purge the emails. Also, some emails are so poorly laid out I can’t even find the link to the stream of music, in which case I just hit delete.

    Now on submithub, I listen to every track and try to get give each track a full listen even the non-paid ones. It’s way easy for me to just hit play and let submithub go through the playlist. I also try to help the artist and point them in the right direction in regards to production. There are tracks that are superbly produced, but just don’t strike a chord within me. Chalk it up to musical preference.

    As Brian points out, you might want to review some of the blog details on the site. For example, if you have a track older than 6 months old most won’t post it. As for me, I don’t believe music has an expiration date. As long as the music is good, i don’t care how long ago it was made.

  17. Thanks for your useful information! I’m looking for the best way to submit my music on blogs and it’s great to read your article. Will try your tips and wait the result!

  18. Sorry Brian. I’ve read your reply, but forgot to answer when it was initially posted. It didn’t change anything dramatically, it was just one song. However, it was useful. First, thing, I got about 30 new soundcloud followers, and the number of Facebook followers also jumped from 3 to 30. So thousands of plays don’t always convert to followers. Second thing, it’s a good way to learn a thing or two about your audience and your music. I’ve had singles on Soundcloud before and I also sent them to blogs with little to no success. My first singles were ignored. I analyzed that and worked on developing a sound that’s both my own and trendy in a way. My next single was picked by a couple blogs, but ignored by about 300 others (https://soundcloud.com/shopengauers/be-your-fool). I personally think it’s a much better song than Start Again which story I mentioned in previous comments. But it wasn’t posted on blogs and reposted on Soundcloud, because it’s not instantly catchy. It’s a more complex song that tends to grow on you. An album track – yes, a single to be sent out to blogs – no. It also lacks professional mastering, just like Start Again when I first started sending it out to blogs. I listened to Start Again in playlists with other songs when it started getting posted and I realized I need to go to a professional mastering engineer. Then I replaced the song on soundcloud with a version mastered by David Donnelly and continued writing emails. I instantly started getting a lot more responses. Have you used Submithub for getting Adjustments to bloggers?

    1. This is great info! Thanks Aidar!

      As a mastering engineer, I’m of course biased, but it seems to me that professional mastering is an absolute necessity. I guess you discovered that for yourself!

      I haven’t bothered using SubmitHub for my new album because the tracks are all from previous EPs. I’ll give it another shot when I’ve got new material.

  19. So, I’ve been debating this since I came across your article and I think I’m going to give it a shot.

    Is it bad etiquette to submit multiple songs to the same blog at the same time? Or would it make more sense to submit one a week.

    I don’t see many blogs there that accept my kind of music, so it’s more limiting for me. I guess I’ll buy 10 credits and report back here if I have any success.

    Great article.

    1. IMHO it would make more sense to submit one a week. You’ll almost certainly be able to eliminate a few from your list the second time.

      Keep us posted!

  20. This is the worst pay-to-play scam I’ve ever heard of.

    Unless this is going to net you many thousands of extra streams on Spotify, iTunes, et al, what a rip-off.

    Pathetic.

  21. Hey Brian,

    Great article!!

    The article was very informative to find out how to submit to all of these blogs. And also a hug thanks to Justin Stanford for those helpful hints that potentially helped me a lot to make the best of the premium submissions.

    Cheers 🙂

  22. When they don’t get back to you within 48 hours and have to refund you credits is it your responsibility to track what they owe you or does SubmitHub take care of that?

      1. I will. I submitted our best track to about 2 dozen bloggers. Half said they liked the music but didn’t like the vocals. The other half said they liked the vocals but not the music. What does that tell you? I can sum it it up in one words: BOTS. There’s no actual person listening., the responses are all nearly identical and canned. DON’T submit to bloggers, only to record labels. I actually made contact with one indie label that led to further conversation off-site. Submithub is not run by someone in the music industry, it’s run by a web page developer. What does that tell you?

  23. i just went “rage” aholic on the site. I am a old school artist as in been there.round the block,passive play 2 be heard is familiar,did my homework. I did NOT pay to hear some sper* donar college drop out..being paid for his critique. what has he done? I worked with STARS..published,blah blah..he is a NOTHING …been on the planet 2 mins….lol…..and has ears of a vapid dead rabbit.
    i can take a decent real review..even trashy..if its REAL,and honest…this was a joke. and i want my money refunded too. btw..i have AWARDS for writing music

  24. Definitely a great read. I like to keep up to date with these types of services for indie artists since I started working on the side as a music publicist specializing in indie/local talent. I think the advice I’d say here for any artist is know your audience. The more you know about a blog/media outlet, the higher your chance of success. The other option (for those who don’t mind) would be to work with someone just building their career. I know a few students straight out of college that want to break into the music industry as a publicist. They look for indie musicians because it’s a great work relationship. They get to test out their skills while the band or person gets publicity services. Either way, research is your best friend. Your music won’t go too far if you don’t get it in front of the right people.

    1. Great advice Robert!

      I’m sure there are more musicians looking for budding publicists than the other way around. I know I’ve never heard from any!

      Hmm… but if they can’t even get the word out about their budding career as a publicist, how good can they be? 😉

      1. Ha, fair enough but a lot of fresh graduates have that fear of approaching musicians especially if their city isn’t a music hub like Los Angeles, Chicago, Nashville, or New York City. It’s a trait they obviously need to get over in order to be successful. I take interns on who are interested in building their freelance career and try to help them foster their first client afterwards to get them going for success.

        Also (shameless promotion), but people are welcome to contact me if they have any interest in just chatting for what to look for when seeking out newbie publicists. My website should be linked in my name but in case it isn’t – domseventh.com

  25. Great read! As a blogger on SubmitHub (whose sanity has been mostly restored because of how easy this platform is to use), there are two things I reiterate to artists when I talk about the site.

    First, that a lot of bloggers, myself included, are not technically trained in music. We know bits and pieces from being fans, reading PR daily that describes elements of the song, and by having friends who make music, but if you’re looking for solid and consistent technical feedback, this is probably not the place to go. Regularly I find myself saying, “this is a lovely track, but to be honest with you I just don’t like it.” I have no words of wisdom on how to make me like it or how to make it better – because I myself couldn’t even get that far producing on a song. And in terms of no feedback for standard submissions, I would rather tell you yes or no when I have a few minutes to click through tracks than make you wait a few days to give you feedback when it is a no.

    Second, the time frame for posting. Unless it is something I am absolutely head over heels for and need to post immediately because life cannot go on without it, my ‘week’ is usually 7-10 days (this is why I like the wording ‘*ideally* within the next week’). Which I’ve started using the third category – when I have time – for. I’ve had people after four days ask where their post is, and people completely patient after 11 days. I get it, you want your music shared ASAP, and yes, I feel incredibly guilty when I have a queue of music waiting for me to post and I just haven’t had time. These probably sound like excuses, but I wish I had all the time in the world to write, but I don’t, so it may take a few extra days.

    Anyhow. Keep on keeping on and you will find the blog lovin’.

    1. Thanks for sharing your perspective as a blogger Gigi!

      On the subject of feedback, I agree completely. If you’re looking for feedback, AudioKite is a better route. Even then, we can’t expect musically literate feedback. And that’s okay! I’m more interested in the listener’s emotional response anyway.

  26. “We know bits and pieces from being fans, reading PR daily that describes elements of the song, and by having friends who make music, but if you?re looking for solid and consistent technical feedback, this is probably not the place to go.”

    I just tried SubmitHub and this comment captures the main complaint I have. There are (roughly two things I want from a site like SubmitHub. First, to get people to my music brought to the attention of more people. Second, useful feedback on why someone might not want to provide the first goal.

    I bought US $10 credits and submitted to whatever number of blogs. So far, four rejections. Useful feedback: Mixed.

    I used a YouTube link (amazed there is no Bandcamp option). This was a mistake.

    One site said the music was good but would not review the track because they thought I could have done more with the video.

    If I keep using the site I won’t be submitting any video links because at least some of blogs will focus more on the video than the music.

    The other rejections were of mixed value. One said that the music was good, but since it was an instrumental it needed to be twice as good.

    I already know that most people will not care for my music. It tends to be minimalist; not a wildly popular style. Another rejection said that the music was good but didn’t develop enough. Yeah, I know, I hear that from people who have different expectations.

    On the bright side nobody said the track was crappy. Mostly, the rejections were polite variations on, “This is a lovely track, but to be honest with you I just don’t like it.”

    What’s needed are comments on the quality of production; where else to submit tracks to find a likely audience for the given style of music; how the track compares to other music of similar styles (i.e. too derivative, too long, too short).

    I appreciate the honesty from Gigi about what to expect.

    For me, SubmitHub seems more of a crap-shoot. If your music connects with a blogger, then great. If not, you are unlikely to gain much useful information.

    1. If you’re looking for comments on production quality, AudioKite is your best bet (see my review & shootout articles). I haven’t checked in for awhile, but I think they launched a production-focused survey.

      I see SubmitHub as an easy way to get your music to blogs. The feedback is a bonus. I see it as a way to prove they actually listened, but with vague comments like “not my thing” you never know.

      Huge thanks for the tip on YouTube submission! I’ll be sure to stick to SoundCloud.

  27. Hey Brian,

    I’m one of your Twitter followers (for your articles and insight), and wanted to thank you for this article. Unlike this post and my usual ramblings, it is very well written and on point. The comments were like icing on good cake. It’s very cool to hear form the other side.

    I never considered submitting to music blogs for various reasons and might re-think it. I’m saddened to hear that some of these folks only want to look at “New” Music, that’s kinda lame. It’s new to them and new to their readers, especially if you’re following your own road. But I suppose if you are doing “on trend” music then nobody wants to hear your Big Room Dance anthem that sounds suspiciously like “Animals”; another good reason to check out the blogs than blindly submit.

    Anyways, lots of food for thought, thanks!

    *Though that could lead to people to “game the system” by reposting the song with new date and buy a bunch of likes so it looks like people are interested. Of course how much is the blog exposure “really worth” if you are spending that kind of money? I honestly don’t know. I wouldn’t do it – it just popped into my head before I hit “Post Comment” but some people will throw good money after bad on the craziest things.

    1. I dunno – that big room dance anthem might just work! Compared to some of the other commenters, who are doing classical guitar etc.

      Yes, you could always just post the song fresh on SoundCloud and bloggers likely wouldn’t know the difference. But that’s no way to build a relationship! And you’d either have two versions of the track on your profile, or lose all your plays and comments.

      Not that it didn’t cross my mind!

      Btw, you mentioned in another comment that you couldn’t edit your post, so I deleted that comment and fixed your typos for ya!

  28. my music is not something that is going to be loved by the masses but i’ve found going through a blog list to be beneficial out of 100 emails i have 6 blogs willing to either review or premiere the album 2 blogs with over 12,000 followers, 2 with 3,000 and 2 with 500+ and each are more personal than going through an alternate party. i think it is about building relationships more so than just getting the music heard. there has to be a sense of community i believe.

    1. Thanks for the comment Craig!

      So you’re suggesting that emailing bloggers directly is superior to SubmitHub? A 6% response rate seems pretty good to me!

      While I agree that building relationships is key, I’d think that SubmitHub would be a better way to kick off a relationship than a cold email.

  29. Super informative post. I’ve used the free credits a few times (ok, several times, all declined) and have started to think that they just automatically get declined, over paid credits. Your experience is good advice for all of us trying to flog our music in an increasingly fractured industry. We’re all looking for the magical formula, and it seems like you are really going about this strategically and passing on the information you gather to fellow musicians is definitely gold! Keep up the good work!

    1. Thanks for the kind words James!

      I’m sure they don’t automatically get declined. That would be rather nefarious! Certainly bloggers are able to decline without listening, but they might as well just say premium credits only.

  30. Hi there this is Happy Tree Records,

    We are a new record label specializing in EDM, House, Progressive House, Electro-House and Trance in founded by Dj Pretty Boy, and we are now accepting demos for worldwide releases on Itunes, Spotify, Juno and Beatport

    send demos to [email protected]

    If possible could you please mention us on your Website/Blog so that we can release some great music for up and coming musicians and producers.

    Also don’t forget to tune into our fortnightly podcast with all the latest releases on the label, hosted by our founder Dj Pretty Boy @ soundcloud.com/happytreerecords

    Thank you

    Happy Tree Records
    facebook.com/happytreerecords
    instagram.com/recordshappytree
    soundcloud.com/happytreerecords

    1. Dear Happy Tree.

      You do not have your own domain? You conduct business via an outlook.com email address? I would need to deal with Facebook in order to check you out?

      All of this gives me the impression of a very amateurish operation. I might be wrong, but I have no desire to use Facebook to find out.

      Suggestion: Go register happytreerecords.com before someone else does.

      Your current approach suggests you have no more resources than I do for promotion, marketing, A&R, and so on.

      Final point: This whole discussion was about finding sites to review one’s music, not finding a record label. So you kind of come off as a spammer, too.

  31. STOP!

    Just stop and think for a moment! Who is making the money here?
    Everybody except you, the music maker!
    It is a scam.Never pay for exposure to get youre music out there.
    I find it insane that artists get so desperate for some exposure that they give money to frauds in the hope they get noticed.Don’t!
    There are enough radio stations out there accepting all kinds of music from every genre with submit pages online that will listen to youre track and play it!
    Submithub and all these so called promotion companies just feed of youre desperation to get noticed and they get rich and you get poor and frustrated.
    Secret: keep making music and spent some time on promoting youre music not money!Time!
    And by the way, blogs are dead!
    Get youre music on spotify or apple , and guess what , it can be done for free.
    In the end you can have a budget ofmillions to promote music but in the end a shitty song is still a shitty song …
    So, keep going music artitst today climate is awesome for music makers, youre music is art, dont sell it for cheep!

    With kind regards,

    Some indie artist from the Netherlands

    1. I don’t think you understand how SubmitHub works Harry. These bloggers aren’t getting rich off $0.50 per track, and they certainly aren’t frauds.

      That said, you are certainly more than welcome to do all the legwork yourself and promote to the same blogs, or others, manually. SubmitHub is meant to save time for all parties, and my time is worth more than the minimal cost.

  32. I was passing by and almost left without a comment. But it would hunt me if I did not put my 2 cents. So, I on the other hand – I am looking for paid blogs, sites, pay for advertisement that have something to offer to benefit me (free opportunities as well). Why you ask? Some Artists and Producers are under the impression that it should be given free to them, wether it is a some sort of promo, write up, play etc.. but what are you giving in return aside from your song? This way it becomes a 2 way street, you paid for their service and you got a boost with your song and on top, you build a relationship with these services. Once you are known they will write about you free of charge with a smile. Also with your next release you will be looked as a contender for review, promo vs someone just in a pile. Oh and if you think that they will write, review, play or promote because you offer to pay, think again, they have a reputation as well.

    Anything that saves time is time you have to create your music.

    Music is a business and if you did not start your “music career” as a business, than it will turn into one when you become successful, guaranteed.

    Great Article Brian

  33. hi there we have open a youtube music channel dedicated only to music mixes, there are a varaety of music mixes from, dubstep,trap,house,bass boosted,electro house,chillstep i will leave the links here for you guys if you want to check it out
    UNIDARK https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfWf2OMngJ6meuBKKCLaRPw
    and secondary channel
    IMMORTAL MIX https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTt1zgVVDId3OJC6r7sqOwQ
    new awesome uploads every week please dont forget to subscribe and share our content ;]]
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  34. Good Afternoon,

    We are opening our blog to public submissions and would like to be added to your list of active blogs. You can find our blog here: https://screamingmatchproductions.com/#news-blog.

    Any artists we feature, we also share to our socials. You can find our socials here:

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/_ScreamingMatch

    Twitter 2: https://twitter.com/ReditusMusic

    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/screamingmatchproductions/

    Facebook 2: https://www.facebook.com/ReditusPersonaEP/

    Feel free to submit directly to [email protected]

  35. SoundCloud confirmed that the label(Universal Music Group) has made an official decision to block its artists and subsidiary labels from using the platform….that’s announced a year ago…
    Submithub is a scam , dont give youre money to these bunch of losers.
    These guys are making alot of money of musicians being stupid.And i mean alot of money.This scam is pulling in at least 20.000$ a month or more!!!!
    Brian Hazard is either part of there network promoteam or just a naive bloke……it can happen to us all.
    But please stop throwing youre money away to these thieves.

    1. The bloggers make $0.50 per premium submission, and you can tell from their comments that they’ve actually listened to the song. To get from there to a $20K/month “scam” is quite a leap. Do you have any evidence to support your conspiracy theory?

      Here’s what SubmitHub says in their FAQ about the SoundCloud API issue:

      8. When I paste my SoundCloud link, it says there’s an “API error”?

      There are two possible explanations: 1) your settings for the upload on SoundCloud have “app streaming” disabled; 2) a major label or distributor has blocked SubmitHub from streaming your song. If it’s the latter, your options are to use a different source (eg, YouTube), or email SoundCloud to get them to “whitelist” the track.

      Here’s some more context on that second possibility: SoundCloud recently introduced something called “SoundCloud Go!” This launch was driven in large part by major labels looking to monetize their content on their platform (which is a logical step, and totally fair).

      Sometimes, in an effort to monetize this content, these labels (particularly Universal Music Group) have blocked 3rd party websites such as SubmitHub from using SoundCloud’s API. More often than not, and for the sake of making their lives easy, they opt to block the entire account, and not just specific songs. So, even though your new song may have no affiliation with a major label, if an older track on your account did, it may mean *everything* is blocked.

      In order to unblock your song, you’ll need to ask the right’s holder to email SoundCloud ([email protected]) and ask them to “whitelist” SubmitHub for your account. Otherwise, feel free to upload using YouTube. (If you’re unsure who your rights holder is, you can ask at that email address).

      1. Dude are you that stupid?And yes they have 1 $ premium credit for preview within 24 hours lol.
        Look 0.50 or even 1 cent per review, the fact that you dont see thrue this ponzie scheme is stunning.
        But please dont advise other people so they to get ripped off by these criminals.Yes, thats what they are.
        The fact still is …if its youre time the money and attention will come 2 you.No service gonna help you with that.Get youre head out of youre ass!

        1. You need to Google “ponzi scheme”. It doesn’t mean what you think it means.

          If you have any evidence or at least a persuasive argument, let’s hear it. If all you’ve got is ad hominem (Google that too), please keep it to yourself.

  36. Please AVOID this service like the plague … it is a money whole. So much so its best to start your own blog and charge starving artist for exposure like these assholes. Just submit your label or blog and watch the money start flowing in. Seriously

  37. Everything about SubmitHub seems great except a couple things:

    1 – 20 seconds. TWENTY SECONDS. That could be just a short intro and bar, never mind the chorus! To REALLY make this fair, this should be 60 secs. They should be required to get to the chorus if I’m paying.

    2 – There could be a way bigger pool of blogs to submit to. Major room for growth here.

    The site is top notch and super smooth UE, and everything is put together well. I hope this becomes the defacto way to connect with blogs.

    Question is, are there any other streamlined sites that connect artist songs to blogs, playlists, radio??

    1. MusicSubmit is similar, which I reviewed not too long ago. It leans more towards internet radio, and doesn’t have many high profile blogs.

      While 20 seconds is definitely on the short side, I’d wager most listen through at least the first chorus based on the comments I receive (like mentioning harmonies that aren’t introduced until the chorus).

      As for selection, I have trouble sorting through the whole list!

  38. I don’t know what to say…. Everything I had planned to say has already been said. All I can say is that after years of being on both sides of this equation–the reviewer (I ran a music zine back in the 90s, before the internet) and the submitter (I have been in a band looking for exposure)–and this DOES seem like it solves two problems with a win-win for each. Of course, it’s not a perfect system, but neither was doing things the old way (on either side).

    I can’t wait to sign up!

  39. Hi Brain, thank you so much for your helpful post which makes my search a lot easier! As a music lover, I always want to share my music with others and I believe I will submit my music on some of the above mentioned blogs successfuly with your tips.

    1. Good luck! Just remember not to take the comments too personally. Some will be insightful, but others will be pure nonsense. I just remind myself that sometimes it’s hard to explain why you don’t like something.

  40. This is awesome and i learned alot of adivces, thanks alot ! I will definitly create an app for a french site and submit to some of these.I’m wondering if they accept foreign languages or just english.

    1. I don’t see why they would limit it to English! I think it’s up to the bloggers to decide, but I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning language as a factor.

  41. Hi Brian thanks for the post. my experience is similar to yours. i appreciate you posting your experience so i will post mine. I purchased $30 USD premium credits, submitted 2 songs to about 20 blogs between the 2 , after careful inspection of the preferred genre/requirements. I got 1 approval and have not seen it posted after a week. The feedback ranged from vague to very helpful ( technically) , to contradictory and strangest of all , some were loving it but then said they weren’t going to post it because of some random reason. ( too many EDM submissions that week?) i was refunded 7 credits. I felt in some cases they listened to the *first* 20 seconds which , in a 5 min track is usually not the most amazing part of the song. One or two people listened twice. No change in my social media, and still waiting for the first blog to post. Overall it developed a thicker skin for a growing producer like me, and some of the feedback was great to hear from a stranger , as in hard to hear, but i will learn from it. Will use it again to test out some of my tracks. i figure $20-$30 is worth it for some of the feedback I got. I am always learning. As for exposure on their blogs? On closer inspection some of these blogs are soooooo lame/cheesy/bad layout/all over the place/obviously receiving some kind of incentive to post random music that its embarrassing. I would really only post to the ones you would feel great promoting, that you would actually follow yourself, or that actually have a large following in your specific genre of music. …

    1. Sounds like our experiences are quite similar! I’ve gotten the same sort of reason — “too much like this style lately” — which I find quite surprising as I typically feel like a lone wolf.

      I’m sure they do listen from the beginning, and that if you don’t grab them right away, they may not get to the “good part.” But that’s no different than regular listeners so I guess we need to suck it up and write catchy intros.

      And yes, some of the blogs are beyond amateur, so it pays to do a little legwork beforehand. One could also argue that it’s easier to just pay a buck and risk a cheesy blog post than it is to research each pitch.

      Thanks for the update! Hopefully you’ll at least see that approval come through.

    2. For 30$ a hooker would give you a (good) blow job and even do it while listening youre track on repeat.

      But oke you decided its better to give it to some ukranian blogger maffia gang.

      Now to earn 30$ back in the real world, youre music needs to be streamed around 9000 times!

      Goodluck with that.

      The whole idea of paying somebody you have never seen before for feedback is insane man.

      Let youre friends listen to it….believe me they can give you great feedback, better then some idiot eating pizza and picking his nose while listening to youre track fro maybe a second or 2.

      The whole thing is a hoax.You did all the hard work and know you pay a so called blogger who has experience in what actually…….. nothing.

      Oh yeah in taking youre money…..thats what they are good at.

      1. And yes the hooker will propably give you a more honest and better feedback then the average couch potato blogger youre sponsering with youre 30$….
        And do the math if there are 1000 submitters just like you submitting for 30$…thats a wopping 30.000$ hardcore dollars for doing ….well nothing….
        Actually it’s brilliant idea.Keep submitting!

        1. Got it — I should hire prostitutes to give me feedback on my music. Maybe you can create a service to do just that. Then I can write about it, and someone else can point out that your service is actually a hoax.

    1. Thanks Amy!

      I just checked it out. In my two minutes, it looks like it’s basically a front end for music on YouTube. The top 50 correlates well with Spotify.

      Any ideas how one would use it to promote?

  42. Hey Brian, I tried Submit Hub this week and had pretty good results. I read this afterwards and found it a great read. Right now I’m mainly trying to build my catalog and not too focused on promoting but after seeing many artist friends release albums that generally aren’t heard, I want to avoid that when I do get something out.

    I submitted to 8 Blogs using premium credits, received 5 rejections, one accept and two credits back. My motivation was mainly to learn how it works, as I am seeing the industry move towards curators and influencers.

    I work mainly by myself so I found the feedback to be very direct and somewhat helpful. Two said they didn’t like my vocal and one said they liked my vocal and found it unique. As a result I will go back and review my vocal mixing and may try some new mics. One Blogger put my music up within 72 hours and started of his new year with one of my songs. That made my day.

    However, as you have said the feedback can be tough if you aren’t ready for it.

    I really liked the entire discussion above including especially the blogger perspective. I know some feel differently but they clearly work hard and are passionate about their music and I have no issue with them being selective, and appreciate the feedback

    On a side note, I have found Radio Airplay to be helpful in seeing how good or bad my songs/production are and love the artist correlations on the Fan Overlap reports and the demographic reports. My latest song correlates most to the Lumineers.

    Thanks for all you do for the indie artist community and good luck in 2018!

  43. A musician or a band can alway search for indie music blogs on twitter or Facebook. There are a lot of different music blogs out there with a large following, and some of them are willing to listen and review music if you contact them. I suggest a band or a musician have their music on: bandcamp, SoundCloud, YouTube, and etc.

    1. That’s true! If you’re willing to put in the legwork, you can always contact bloggers directly. But the ones on SubmitHub tend to want you to submit through them, if only so they have everything in one place.

  44. I submitted our best track to about 2 dozen bloggers. Half said they liked the music but didn’t like the vocals. The other half said they liked the vocals but not the music. What does that tell you? I can sum it it up in one words: BOTS. There’s no actual person listening., the responses are all nearly identical and canned. DON’T submit to bloggers, only to record labels. I actually made contact with one indie label that led to further conversation off-site. Submithub is not run by someone in the music industry, it’s run by a web page developer. What does that tell you?

    1. SubmitHub is run by music blogger Jason Grishkoff of Indie Shuffle. I’ve been using it on and off since I wrote this article, and there isn’t the slightest doubt in my mind that the responses come from real people.

      I get the exact same feedback in regard to my voice, the production, the lyrics. Some like it, some don’t. That’s the nature of the beast.

  45. Hey Brian… I just wanted to say thanks for putting together the informative article + an extra thanks for wading through the comments section and adding all the thoughtful replies. As a music blogger, I can especially appreciate you being a musician that is openly on the side of “hey… music bloggers are just people too” 🙂

    I was going to leave a comment about SubmitHub from a blog’s perspective (I’ve been using it for a month now), but that ended up going long and morphing into its own blog post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    If you’re interested, here’s the link: https://hi54.blog/content/submithub-review-from-a-bloggers-perspective

    Cheers!

  46. I have submitted a single from my latest EP to about 10 blogs just to see what’s what. And guess what? All declined but what makes it sooo confusing that I got a really good feedback from practically all of them. So you read all those great insights about your music and then you see it’s been declined and no reason for that. I can only assume I am not the sound of the future or groundbreaking enough. Frustrating.

  47. Nice article, i’ve spent a lot on promoting through submithub, I like the feedback sometimes you get some nuggets of info, sometimes you get canned info. On occasion you get really rude feedback (I have those on my blacklist). Where I get real value is a couple of things – the chat boards are filled with similar new artists trying to promote, I’ve actually met some cool people there and this has lead to some excellent collabs (I no longer use vocalizr to find vocals, I use submithub! lol). The other thing is that submithub actually give you the website links for the blogs and labels so if you want you can go direct to contact them – so when I did that I got some approvals, it seems that they get so many submissions in submithub that sending them directly via their website, twitter, facebook or email could also get you a result.
    Actually there is another thing, and I know submithub provide a lot of info about the blogs and labels, but two of the blogs I got accepted to had less fans than me (seriously) and one of the labels I submitted a song to, provided zero promotion, zero fans and zero plays on spotify which means that they just sign people hoping that one of the songs does well without any promotion or work. If you are going to sign to a label, think carefully about what can they offer, because if the answer is nothing you can just put the song out yourself independently. So that is the only real negative about submithub, quality. I would say after having a real good look at the blogs and labels, you only really have about 10-15 blogs/labels worth connecting with (and of course these are the guys with the most submissions).

    1. Great advice! I haven’t spent much time in the chat. I’ll need to check that out!

      I’ve been spending way too much money on SubmitHub lately. They recently added a Synthwave category, and the interface makes it super easy to see your submission history with a particular curator.

      Of course I always think even though they didn’t like my last three songs, they’re going to LOVE this one!

  48. Submit hub is full of a bunch of nerds who don’t make music themselves. In my opinion its just a way to take your money. I even got one of my songs featured on a big playlist but i still think its a bunch of BS. Even the creator is a lame ass.

    1. A few that I know do, in fact, make music themselves. But clearly most don’t have the vocabulary to provide helpful feedback, so I can relate to your sentiment. Jason has been really cool in every exchange I’ve read or been part of, fwiw.

  49. Yeah, I give this a solid “Fuck you” and fuck every single one of you for even considering to support these cocksuckers. The misleading title should have given it away that these guys are a bunch of money grubbing scam fucks.

    Music isn’t dead. Fuck these guys.

    1. Huh? What did I miss? Who said music is dead? You mean the title of my post is misleading? The number of blogs has obviously gone up substantially since I wrote the post, but beyond that, I don’t see a problem.

  50. Hi Brian, I hope you are well.Thanks for taking the time to write your article. Some interesting points regarding your post. Have you ever considered using Tunecore for Feedback? They have an Artist Service called FAN REVIEW which is in 3 packages. I went for the cheapest at £9.99 for 40 members of public to review a track targeted through age / sex / genre – I found it really useful and it’s gives you all their comments and an overall score through a PDF. Obviously, it’s not a PR service compared to being featured on music Bloggs but it seems better than the short, one line, responses. Thank you.

    1. My understanding is that TuneCore Fan Reviews is just SoundOut, which I’ve reviewed in the past. ReverbNation Crowd Review is far better! But yes, both are better than SubmitHub if your goal is simply to get honest feedback.

  51. Nice job here, Brian. It’s good service for relatively cheap in a massively super saturated market. It takes at least a little bit of exposure (and usually more than that!) to get the ball rolling and something terrible happens if you don’t advertise… nothing!

  52. Interesting article Brian, thanks for sharing your story! Sad to see such an ignorance in some cases. 🙁 I have a small independent music chart + blog focusing on remix tracks on various genres, and we are going through each and every submission, without ripping people off. We can’t provide feedback though on every single one of them, probably that’s a trade off in this case. I hope it’s useful for the talented producers out there: https://remixmonsta.com/tracksubmissions/

  53. This is a topic that is near to my heart… Many thanks!
    I hope you are well.Thanks for taking the time to write your article. Some interesting points regarding your post. Have you ever considered using Tunecore for Feedback? They have an Artist Service called FAN REVIEW which is in 3 packages. I went for the cheapest at £9.99 for 40 members of public to review a track targeted through age / sex / genre – I found it really useful and it’s gives you all their comments and an overall score through a PDF. Obviously, it’s not a PR service compared to being featured on music Bloggs but it seems better than the short, one line, responses. Thank you for sharing that

  54. Premier Music Blog & PMB Online Magazine is blog run by two music heads open to all genres of great music. We’re searching for amazing music to put on our blog and are on the hunt to curate the best destination for undiscovered music! We are all about authenticity, if we like your track we’ll let you know! If we don’t like it, don’t take it personally, and don’t feel nervous about sending us more of your music(or even updates to previously sent tracks)!

    https://soundcloud.com/premiermusicblog

    As of now, please only send music submissions through Soundcloud Direct Message. Make sure to follow us as well. Since our Soundcloud page is relatively new, we will only be taking submissions from followers. We will have our submission form up and running on our blog website within the week! Our blog is linked to our Soundcloud channel!

    If we like your track we will do any of the following:
    -Repost
    -Blog post/review (link up soon!)
    -Playlist consideration

    Depending how much we love your track, we will do all three!

    Best of luck!
    – Premier Music Blog team

  55. I really found this article useful and helpful in validating my thought about submitting. I’d love people to hear my music. However, I write it for me to enjoy at the moment. I really enjoyed Slot Machine by the way!
    – Ben Canzoni (soundcloud)

  56. SubmitHub seems like it benefits the bloggers and SubmitHub over the artists. First these bloggers get 50 cents for listening to your song and rejecting. And they deliberately keep their acceptance rate low while breezing through tracks. I think Hypeddit’s Promotion Exchange is more cost effective as you can create your own gates and collect emails. So for $5 you can get 5 credits and position your download gate to get a social follow and an email. So it doesn’t really make sense to pay the middleman gatekeeper to reject you when you can pay for the opportunity for the fans to select you.

    1. Apples and oranges. Hypeddit’s Promotion Exchange is a great way to promote EDM to DJs and other producers, but you’re not likely to get blog coverage, radio play, or playlist adds out of it.

      Believe me, the curators aren’t in it for the 50 cents. I curated on Playlist Push for almost $2 a pop and it just wasn’t worth my time. If they breeze through the tracks, SubmitHub will report that (“listens an average of 13 seconds” for example) and nobody will submit to them.

  57. Hello Brian,

    Amazing article!

    The article was extremely enlightening to see how to submit to these online journals. Furthermore huge gratitude to Justin Stanford for those accommodating clues that possibly helped me a great deal to make the best of the superior entries.

    1. Thanks Fran! I wouldn’t know offhand but SubmitHub is the first place I’d look. I know there’s a language selector for lyrics. Maybe they have a filter for Spanish speaking? It’s been a while since I’ve submitted anything.

  58. Hi Brian,

    Any suggestions for new artists with creative, experimental music and pitching to blogs? Or going about finding who will like your music when it doesn’t nicely fit in one genre?

    1. Sure, they’re still relevant! If they write nice things, you can share it on your socials and everyone wins. If you’re lucky enough to get written about by a bigger outlet, you can include a quote in your press release.

  59. Hello!

    The world is completely different for a musician like me. If a musician like me finds someone to listen to my songs, what could be more beautiful than that?

    It was very useful for me.
    Thanks for this informative blog!

  60. Thank you for sharing such useful information with us! It’s always so helpful to have more knowledge at our fingertips, and I’m sure that others will find this article particularly informative. Keep up the great work!

  61. Hey, thanks for sharing that useful information! I really appreciate the tips and advice. It’s always helpful to hear different perspectives on things, so I’ll definitely be taking your advice into account. Thanks again!

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