I talk to sooo many artists that are hellbent on releasing an EP but they really haven’t thought about why they are releasing it and what their expectations are. In today's single driven streaming dominated era, every single counts. You will find you don’t need an EP as much as you need an audience that will listen to your music.
What is an EP?
Extended Play - more tracks than a single but not an album.
In vinyl days, singles had different versions:
Instrumental
Accapella
Radio version
Extended version
Ordinarily, an EP might have anything from 3 - 8 tracks. So what are they used for?
As a promotional tool in prep for an album
To showcase a body of work and show off your skills
A promotional tool when shopping for a deal with a label
You might have other reasons for wanting to create an EP - what is yours? Connect with me on instagram or twitter and let me know!
When should you release one?
To answer this you gotta decide what you want from your EP! Is your reason one of these?
For people to listen to it and grow fanbase and streams
Just to have an EP cos it sounds cool
To shop for a deal with a label (more a demo than an EP)
To shop around for gigs (probably not a great time for that right now)
So if you want people to listen to it and for it to move your metrics - you need to make sure you have an audience that cares enough to stream or buy it. How big is your audience? If your streams are less than 100k per released song, your audience probably isn’t big enough yet. If engagement with your music is low, why is that? Could you be doing more to boost your audience? Probably!
If you want it because having an EP sounds cool - that’s okay! If that’s what you want then go for it… but for the time and money you will invest into creating your EP, for it to sit and gather dust on streaming platforms, is it worth it??
To shop for a deal - okay - so is a demo better? Would it be more useful to have say 4 or 5 songs that are unreleased and shop them as a demo? Reality is, you’ll still need to prove your worth and if you can’t do that yet, a demo can be pointless. Maybe a collection of released songs with all the engagement and activity on them, would be a better demo. Same with live gigs (remember those?) - you will need to prove your worth and having a pack that you can send to promoters that has all the insights for your tracks, is a much bigger bet.
Now you’ve identified your why, your when will be easy! Be honest with your when.. you're only cheating yourself if you're not.
What should you use your EP for if determined to release one
If you are still determined to release your EP and you’re in the A category, then I would strongly advise you do the following:
Use the tracks from the EP to build your audience before you release it - if your EP is 6 tracks long, release 4 tracks as singles, then release the 6 track EP. That way you get to build up your audience across 4 consistent releases. You get to create content for 4 different tracks. You get to submit 4 different tracks to Spotify for playlisting, you get to consistently build your Spotify engagement. The key to Spotify is releases - keep releasing and promoting your music properly and you will grow your audience and fanbase on Spotify. You cannot do that if you are just releasing EP’s - they will just gather dust and your tracks will be -1000 streams.
Use the individual tracks to gage your audience! Get some feedback on tracks - experiment with some different marketing techniques and do some out of the box promo. Monitor the results - what is the feedback like? Convert anyone who engages with your music into a fan. Build up an email list, create a bandcamp - that way when you do release the EP, you can let your fans know directly and get them involved in the roll out.
I said this already but experiment with marketing. Make a list of all the different creative things you can do with each track. Weave a story together out of the tracks if you can, turn it into a journey that people can follow and engage with. Don’t be scared to step out of your comfort zone - I see so many people trying to get different results from doing the same things or little to nothing. Don’t be that person - you’re a creative - get creative! Have a brainstorming party on zoom or hold a meeting and crush some ideas.
Check out our ebook titled Are You Release Ready for less than a coffee. It will help you decide where you are in your journey and also prepare you!
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