Release Ready Checklist: 20 Checks Before You Announce a Date, Free

Most release dates get announced before anyone checks what is missing. Then the week before release turns into a rush for a cover, a bio and a link that works.

We made a free tool for that moment: the Release Ready Checklist. Twenty checks across five areas. You tick what is truly done, and it gives you a score plus the exact list of what is still missing.

It runs in the browser, on your phone too. Nothing to download.

Open the Release Ready Checklist.

What it checks

1. Music. Final mix and master approved, credits written down, title and spelling locked, lyrics ready.
2. Visuals. Cover art in the final size, 3 to 5 press photos, raw clips to cut from, a profile that matches this release.
3. Story. One sentence about the release, an updated bio, an EPK with the new song, a press release draft.
4. Content. Three or four content themes, the first two weeks of posts planned, a first teaser, a plan for release day.
5. Links and delivery. The song at your distributor with a date, a smart link that works on your phone, your link in bio ready to swap, and today’s numbers written down.

Tick only what is done. “Almost” counts as missing.

How to use it

Go through it once before you choose a date, not after. When you are done, copy your list of gaps. That list is your work for the next few weeks, already in order.

Some gaps take ten minutes. Others, like the cover or the press photos, take longer, and those decide the date. Pick the date after you know which ones you have.

Three more free tools sit next to it: the Bio Builder, the Press Release Builder and the Cover Tester.

And if your list comes back long, that is the part we build together with artists: the visuals, the story and the plan around a release.