Started a similar thread a while back but that was more about self promotion
Anyone worked with anyone professional to promote their releases that they’d recommend?
(For me personally I’m interested in anyone who specialises in electronic / ambient stuff but if you have other recommendations that other people would find useful then this is the place! Hopefully)
Got something nearly finished and not sure I’ve got the energy for endlessly emailing out into the void 
agh, I’m investigating in this space at the moment. I haven’t had any luck yet - most of the reputable PR firms (who stand more chance of their emails being read than mine do) have come back to me saying - “really like the music, but you need more social media presence/followers before PR will be helpful”… so, yeah 
Eurgh, been so long since I had anything to do with this stuff I’d forgotten how much people focus on followers. That’s annoying
Someone Great PR should be worth a look at.
I haven’t worked with them on my own releases, but I’ve worked with Ellie before, and Erin followed Ellie in the same role, and I know from experience that they’re both really fucking good at what they do.
It’s super frustrating, particularly because I’m a dinosaur that worked in music PR on the 06-08 era, in which PR was the first foothold, because social media just didn’t exist/have the unnecessary power it now has.
+1 on this. I know Katie quite well and she is brilliant.
Can also +1 on this. Don’t know anyone there directly but they have done PR for a bunch of dance music people I know (Midland, Kornel Kovacs, Matt Karmil etc)
it’s one of those tricky chicken or egg things where they’ll want you to have some coverage and some reach first to show that people are going to write about you before they take your stuff on. it’s really helpful to get a few choice quotes from blogs etc first so it pays to smash the emails yourself early on. make yourself an EPK, get some decent promo shots and obviously don’t make stuff up but definitely put your best foot forward and big yourself up as best you can. music videos help too. find a way to differentiate yourself from others and find some talking points. there’s a lot of people making music and just being like hi i’m a guy from x and i make x type of music isn’t likely to attract much interest.
obv also important to find someone who knows your style of music and has a bit of a pipeline to sites that would cover you, but it’s also not a magic bullet and a guarantee of coverage, PR can only work with what you give them. have def known people drop a bunch of cash on PR and get almost fuck all out of it.
In my experience this is the standard attitude of the majority of reputable music PR agencies.
They will often only agree to work with you if you have a substantial existing following, have some press interest already or have other industry support in place like a booking agent or record label with a good track record.
As other people have alluded to, it’s best to think carefully about what you’re trying to achieve from engaging the services of a PR firm. Dropping a load of money on PR in isolation without having other things planned like a tour to coincide, can often just be throwing money away.
Yeah this all makes sense. As does @anon20476779 's post above.
One of the PR folks I spoke to has put me in touch with an industry bod who does 1:1 charged by the hour at reasonable rates and I think I’m going to use that as an opportunity to refine my PR plan and get a really good strategy in place - but ultimately have to do the legwork myself with this release. And I should be able to flipping well do it because I used to do music journo & PR stuff and I was a god damn Comms and marketing professional for a long time - it’s just really hard to apply that cold hard logic to my actual self. Trying to get thicker skin.
It’s also put me in the headspace of thinking right I need to actually put on an album launch show for this (albeit at a tiny venue) and try and genuinely generate some buzz in the classic old school way and try and twist the arms of everyone I know into coming. Which sounds terrifying but also, it being terrifying means it’s probably the road I have to take. Gah.
Maybe it’s different now but I used to send to all BBC shows that played upcoming bands. Sent to blogs and music pubs and stuck my physical release in piccadilly records (their mailing list was the best publicity I had)
Then people start to want you and not vice versa if it goes well.
Annoying they want you to do all the work so they can just do the last bit
Any lovely lovely people willing to take a quick look at a press release and artist bio before i send it out into the big wide world?
of course