Release Day Countdown Skill

Most independent releases happen twice: the day the song goes live to 40 streams, and the month later when the artist learns what they should have done eight weeks early. The machinery has real deadlines — distributors need lead time, editorial playlist pitching closes before release day, content is impossible to batch once the week arrives — and none of it is complicated; it's just sequenced. This skill runs the sequence backwards from the date (or forwards to pick a date honestly), with every platform-specific number flagged as check-current, because lead times and pitch windows change and a plan built on stale specifics is a plan built on sand.

What This Skill Produces

• The 8-week countdown, week by week: distribution upload, metadata and credits, pitch windows, content batching, outreach waves — each with its why and its check-current flag where platforms set the rule
• An asset checklist: audio master, artwork at spec, canvas/visualizer, lyric assets, press photo, the bio paragraph — with the "before upload" vs "before release" split
• The pitching plan: editorial (via the distributor/platform tools, submitted early), independent curators (researched, personalized, no-pay-for-play flagged as the scam it usually is), and the local/press angle from [[press-kit-epk]]
• A release-week runbook: day-by-day, including the two moves that outperform everything (thanking early sharers personally, and the day-3 content drop when the algorithm decides)
• The honest-expectations line: what a first release's numbers typically look like, so week two isn't despair

Required Inputs

Ask for (if not already provided):

• The release: single/EP/album, genre, done-ness of the master and artwork, the date (or "help me pick one")
• The artist's current reach, honestly: platforms, follower counts, the mailing list if any, past release numbers
• Team of one, or help? Budget: zero, small, or real?
• The goal, honestly ranked: streams? local gigs? label attention? the mailing list? (The plan weights differently)

Framework

1. Pick the date like a logistics decision. Fridays are conventional (chart weeks) but a small artist's Tuesday can dodge the big-release flood — decide by goal. Then anchor the two hard deadlines backwards: distributor upload (lead times vary — check yours, typically weeks not days) and editorial pitch close (before release; check the platform's current window). Everything else hangs between.
2. Weeks 8–6: finish and upload. Master finalized · artwork at spec · metadata and credits complete (wrong credits are forever) · upload early — early upload is what makes editorial pitching possible at all.
3. Weeks 5–3: batch the content while calm. The pitch text (one paragraph: what it is, what it's like, one true story) · 10–15 content pieces from the one song (teasers, the story behind it, the lyric moment, the bad-first-demo comparison people love) · the pre-save decision made honestly: pre-saves help algorithmic day-one but annoy small audiences if over-flogged — one ask, two reminders, done.
4. Weeks 2–1: outreach in person-sized batches. Independent curators researched (right genre, real playlists with real listeners), personalized two-line pitches · local press/radio with the EPK · the mailing list gets the real story, not the marketing copy — the list is the only channel the artist owns, treat it best.
5. Release week: the runbook, not vibes. Day 0: everything live, links verified, the personal-thanks discipline starts (every share answered by name — it's the highest-ROI hour in music marketing). Day 3: the held-back content drop. Day 7: numbers reviewed against honest expectations, thank-you post, and the next release sketched — because catalogs compound and one-offs don't.

Output Format

## The countdown — [release] on [date]
| Week | Must ship | Platform deadlines (check-current) | Content batch |

## Asset checklist
[Before-upload set · before-release set · specs flagged check-current]

## Pitching plan
[Editorial route · curator shortlist criteria + the 2-line pitch ·
press/local via EPK · the no-pay-for-play warning]

## Release week runbook
[Day by day · the personal-thanks discipline · the day-3 drop]

## Honest expectations + next
[What week one typically looks like at your reach · the catalog note]

Quality Checks

• Every platform-specific number (lead times, pitch windows, artwork specs) carries a check-current flag — zero asserted as timeless fact
• The countdown fits the real date; if the date makes editorial pitching impossible, the plan says so and offers the honest choice (move the date or skip that channel)
• Content is batched before week 2 in the plan — nothing creative is scheduled for release week itself
• The pay-for-playlist warning appears in the pitching plan
• Expectations are calibrated to the artist's actual current reach

Anti-Patterns

• Do not build the plan around going viral — the plan works at 40 streams and scales if lightning hits, not the reverse
• Do not recommend paid playlist placement or stream-farming — flagged as harmful (platforms penalize it), not just tacky
• Do not schedule daily begging posts — the ask-budget is finite; story content spends it better than reminders
• Do not skip credits/metadata rigor — it's the least fun item and the most permanent
• Do not let release day end the plan; the day-7 review and next- release sketch are in the runbook

Related

[[press-kit-epk]] for the outreach attachment; [[band-agreement]] before the money arrives; [[clip-factory]] turns the one song into the fifteen pieces; [[content-calendar]] for the ongoing rhythm after.