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Artwork / Entry №219 / Social Media SOCIAL MEDIA IMAGE SIZES FOR MUSICIANS: THE CHEAT SHEET №219 Posted 02·10·26 Logged by Josh McKenzie Read time: 7 min Filed under: Artwork, Social Media, Spotify Every platform crops your artwork differently, and most of them will do it without asking you first. This is the one-page cheat

Career / Entry №215 / Spotify HOW TO USE SPOTIFY FOR ARTISTS: A PRACTICAL 2026 GUIDE №215 Posted 26·09·26 Logged by Josh McKenzie Read time: 7 min Filed under: Spotify, Streaming, Promotion Most artists claim their dashboard, admire the monthly listeners number for a week, and never open it again. Which is a waste, because

Career / Entry №214 / Spotify HOW TO GET ON SPOTIFY ALGORITHMIC PLAYLISTS IN 2026 №214 Posted 25·09·26 Logged by Josh McKenzie Read time: 8 min Filed under: Spotify, Playlists, Streaming Editorial playlists get all the attention, but they aren’t where most independent artists actually grow. The bigger share of discovery comes from the automated

Career / Entry №216 / Charts HOW ARE THE OFFICIAL UK CHARTS CALCULATED? DO CDS COUNT? №216 Posted 25·09·26 Logged by Josh McKenzie Read time: 9 min Filed under: Charts, CD Sales, Releasing Music Every few months a band emails me the same question in slightly different words. “If we sell 300 CDs in release

Career / Entry №213 / Release Strategy WATERFALL RELEASE STRATEGY: HOW TO STACK YOUR SINGLES №213 Posted 24·09·26 Logged by Josh McKenzie Read time: 8 min Filed under: Release Strategy, Distribution, Artwork You’ve got ten finished songs and a choice to make. Put them all out on one Friday and hope, or feed them out

Career / Entry №212 / Music Promotion HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR MUSIC AFTER RELEASE: A 6-WEEK PLAN №212 Posted 16·09·26 Logged by Josh McKenzie Read time: 8 min Filed under: Music Promotion, Release Strategy, Marketing Almost every artist I talk to plans the eight weeks leading up to a release in forensic detail, then plans

Career / Entry №211 / Bandcamp HOW TO SELL MUSIC ON BANDCAMP: A UK ARTIST’S GUIDE №211 Posted 15·09·26 Logged by Josh McKenzie Read time: 8 min Filed under: Bandcamp, Selling Music, Direct-to-Fan You finished the record, you pressed a run, and now there’s a box of it in your hallway. Your last streaming payment

Career / Entry №210 / Money HOW TO BUDGET YOUR FIRST ALBUM: REAL UK NUMBERS FOR 2026 №210 Posted 11·09·26 Logged by Josh McKenzie Read time: 10 min Filed under: Money, Recording, Releasing Most debut records do not fail in the studio. They fail on a spreadsheet nobody wrote, six weeks before release, when the

Production / Entry №209 / Metadata HOW TO GET CD TRACK NAMES TO APPEAR ON PLAYERS №209 Posted 10·09·26 Logged by Josh McKenzie Read time: 6 min Filed under: Metadata, Production, Physical Releases You put your finished album into a car stereo and the screen says Track 01. Then Track 02. Nothing about your band,

Production / Entry №208 / Manufacturing CD REPLICATION VS DUPLICATION FOR A NEW ALBUM №208 Posted 09·09·26 Logged by Josh McKenzie Read time: 6 min Filed under: Manufacturing, Physical Releases, Production Two words get used interchangeably by nearly everyone, including people who should know better, and they mean genuinely different things. If you’re about to