Gearing up for a release has proven to be an incredibly involved process. It's great that I'm running everything through the first time with a "preliminary" single that's primarily being used to get the social media ball rolling (which - thankfully - I'm leaving to the promotions team, since I know nothing about it). Here's a breakdown of what's been going on:
Distribution: Just finished sending a link to download the 24-bit master for the iTunes channel. (Everyone else, like spotify, pandora, etc. requires a 16-bit master)...
Reporting: Sent the single info to both Mediabase and Luminate to register for sales/stream/radio tracking in North America. Need to consider doing the same for Official Charts overseas, although that may be overkill at this point...
Soundexchange: Started the registration process (for collecting digital sound recording performance revenue), but awaiting feedback with respect to registering "26th Street Records" as the recipient...
Promotions: Finished uploading the rest of the raw video footage from the orchestra recording and final overall mix session, which they'll use for social media and possibly other forms of promotion. I also answered several "interview" type questions they posed, which led me to think about a few things I hadn't previously considered. Still need to solicit some quotes from both Matt and Steve regarding the project...
Video: Need to figure out how to get the first video to youtube; I think the distributor needs to first send the track to them so that they can establish an artist profile. I also need to work out a youtube promotion campaign with Lee at Music Gateway...
Merchandising: Need to add my newly acquired office address to my CA seller's permit, and then remit a new resale cert to the supplier, so that my home address doesn't show up on invoices... also need to ask them to redigitize the II logo in a slightly simpler format for embroidery (as opposed to print) products...
Publishing: Waiting to hear back from Songtrust on a question regarding applying the right IPI to my publishing moniker...
Copyright: Need to start those registrations!