Guide · Playbooks

Prep a release rollout

Last updated 13 June 2026

A release is more than a drop date. It's a project with a tracklist, a paper trail of who wrote what, and a timeline of things that have to happen in order. Get the boring parts in early and the fun parts — and the royalties — take care of themselves later. Here's the order we'd run it.

1. Create the release

Start a new release in Releases and pick the type: single, EP, or album. This becomes the home for everything tied to the project, from writing through to released.

2. Build the tracklist from your Song catalog

Add songs to the release from your Song catalog. If a song doesn't exist yet, create it — you'll reuse the same song record everywhere it appears, including setlists.

3. Fill in Writers & splits and ISWC early

This is the step everyone skips and regrets. On each song's detail page, open Writers & splits and fill in:

• The ISWC work code
• Each writer (composer / lyricist) with their split %
• Their PRO affiliation (STIM, PRS, BMI, and so on) and IPI number

Do this while the song is fresh and the writers are easy to reach. Splits sorted out at writing time are facts; splits sorted out a year later are an argument. Accurate data here is what makes your royalty export trustworthy down the line.

4. Map the rollout timeline

Each release has a rollout timeline built from milestones: announce, pre-save, release, and music-video. Set the dates so you can see the whole campaign at a glance — and so it lands on your unified Calendar alongside shows and tasks.

5. Play the songs live, then export for your PRO

Once songs from the release start showing up in your performed setlists, ArtistHQ can generate a royalty CSV (on Plus and Pro). It produces one row per performance per writer — date, venue, work, ISWC, writer, split, and PRO — which is exactly the shape most performing rights organizations want.

That export is only as good as the splits you entered back in step 3. Front-load the data, and filing live-performance royalties becomes a download instead of a research project.

For the full walkthrough of songs, splits, and the royalty export, see Releases and royalties.

Stuck on a split or an ISWC you can't track down? Email us at hello@artisthq.app — we'll point you the right way.