What is an EPK or Press Kit?
An EPK, which stands for ‘Electronic Press Kit’ or sometimes referred to as a ‘Press kit’, is essentially a piece of (digital) paper that you send out to promoters, venues, journalists, labels, pretty much everybody you’ve ever met in your musical career and will be meeting in the future.
Your EPK is your opportunity to show exactly who you/your band are as an artist. If you’re wondering whether you really need a press kit, the answer is yes. You can go on without one, but you really should have one if you want to be taken seriously as an artist or creative.
What should be included in your EPK
A short bio
It’s always good to kick off with a short paragraph about who you are, where you hail from, what type of music genre(s) you play and anything that makes you/your band unique that the reader should know about? Keep it to a paragraph, there’s a lot to get in this EPK!
Links to listen to your Music
Wherever your music is uploaded, Spotify, YouTube, Soundcloud, throw in some links, and ones where whoever you’re sending it to can listen to your music easily.
A promoter is going to want to hear what you sound like. A journalist will need to know your sound before they can describe it. If you have a new single, make sure you prioritise that and follow with your next popular songs.
Link to your Videos
If you’ve got any music videos of your best performances, or even a music video, throw a link in there too. Promoters will like to see what you play like live and a journalist will love a video to put in their articles.
Photos of you/your band
Make sure you’ve got some photos of you, ideally some sort of promo shots, included. Pick carefully, a picture tells a thousand words and you want to give the best impression, so pick a select few that are good quality and show you/your band clearly.
If you don’t have any photos, grab a friend with a good quality camera (like a DSLR, most new mobile phones have good quality cameras, so they’ll do just fine too) and experiment with pictures until you find something you’re happy with. Free editing software is available everywhere, even on mobile, so this step is much less intimidating than it seems.
Live photography is great too, just make sure these are professional quality pictures.
Links to your band website, music blog and social media
If you have an online presence, which you should, make sure that it’s all linked here. This can help to see if you’ve already built up an online following, which a promoter would love.
Journalists will love to see these links as it gives a chance to easily find out even more about you without you having to explicitly write it into your EPK.
Read more about successfully using social media as an artist.
Music press quotes/ past press features
If you have any previous coverage, now is the time to show it off. It’s almost like an Amazon review, a promoter will want to know that you’re good before you play. Take a short quote from each and throw in the link so that the reader can take in the full article if they wish.
Contact Details
Probably the most obvious part, make sure your e-mail is in there! Put in all the contacts you have, if you have a manager and a booking agent, put in both of their contacts.
If you’re a band looking for interviews, put in the ones to get to you directly- if you’re happy for that to happen.
TIP: Our musician profile makes a perfect EPK to send, and it’s free!
We based our musician profile on what an EPK should include so that you can use it as an EPK to send to your music contacts, plus you can easily keep it up-to-date! Get started on your own EPK.
Popular EPK Questions:
What format should my EPK be in?
Now this depends on who you’re sending it to and how you plan to send it. To be safe, try a have it in multiple formats or at least somewhere to find it quickly and easily.
If you want to attach it to an email, make it a PDF. But not an image file like .png or .jpeg!
If you want to send it as a link for others to download it, put it on Dropbox or Google Drive and make it easily downloadable.
If you want to send it as a link to view it online, one that can be easily updated by you, you could use your band website or a similar style music platform that can act as an EPK like this.
Does is cost to create an EPK or Press Kit?
No, you can create an EPK yourself for free, for example a PDF.
There might be a small cost for services such as Dropbox or Google Drive, though they usually have ‘freemium’ versions. Again, creating a music profile on The Music Site is completely free. We’d suggest doing all.
Does my EPK need to have all the above?
If you have all the above, then yes! If you don’t have, let’s say for example quotes from press or online music blogs, you’ll be fine to skip it. In the meantime, try and get some quotes to add to your press kit as soon as you can.
Best of luck with your EPK! Follow this simple formula and you should be on your way to having a successful EPK.
