Pro edition
Release Plan.
Sent in week one, before anything has been booked. Every delay in this business is somebody finding out about a deadline after it passed, so all 11 of them are on one page with the cost of missing each written next to it.
Due from you
| By | What | What it costs if it slips |
|---|---|---|
| Day 0 | Final masters, one file per side | Everything moves with it, day for day. |
| Day 3 | Sequence and side split | Blocks the lacquer cut. A side longer than 22 minutes has to be quieter, and that is a mastering decision, not a plating one. |
| Day 4 | Format and pressing quantity | Blocks the plant booking, and the plant booking is the whole calendar. One day late here is a month late at the end. |
| Day 20 | Front cover, low-res, for press | Nothing yet. Long-lead press needs it by day 100 and asking early is how it arrives on time. |
| Day 40 | Test pressing verdict | A week of the queue for every week of silence. The plant holds your slot for ten days and then it does not. |
| Day 60 | Full artwork, print-ready | Free until day 110, expensive after. Sleeves print inside the pressing window and that window has an end. |
| Day 70 | Credits, publishing splits, ISRCs | Blocks distribution metadata, which blocks the cutoff. The most boring item on this list and the one that most often moves a release date. |
| Day 90 | Bio and two press photos | Long-lead press writes without them or does not write. |
| Day 150 | Single choice and its date | A single needs six weeks of its own. Choosing late means releasing the single into the album campaign, which wastes both. |
| Day 200 | Everything for the distributor | Eight days of margin before the cutoff on day 208, and that margin exists because it always gets used. |
| Day 240 | Live dates confirmed | Not a blocker. It is the difference between a release week and a Friday. |
What a slip actually costs
Five real ones. The pattern is that the frightening delays are cheap and the boring ones are not.
| If this happens | Cost | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Artwork late by two weeks | Free | Inside the pressing window. This is the one everybody panics about and it is almost never the problem. |
| Test pressing rejected | 11 weeks | Back into the queue at the end, not where you left it. Still the right call when it is the right call. |
| Metadata late by three days | 1 month | If those three days cross the distribution cutoff. There is no partial credit and no phone call. |
| Title changed after day 70 | 2–6 weeks | Lacquer, sleeve, distributor and barcode. Four things in three companies, none of which are waiting for you. |
| Plant slot booked one month late | 3 months | Queues are not linear. A slot missed in March does not become a slot in April; it becomes whatever is left after everyone who booked in April. |
Four decisions, before the slot is booked
All four are made on day four, which is before anybody has heard a test pressing. That is the uncomfortable part of this business and it is not going to change.
How many do we press?
Decided on day four, before anyone has heard a test pressing, because the plant needs it to book. Five hundred is the normal answer for a first record here and three hundred is not cheaper per copy in any way that matters. A repress is four months away, which is the real argument for the larger number.
One LP or two 12-inches?
Runtime decides it, not ambition. Over about 44 minutes a single LP starts costing level, and a quiet record that should have been loud is a decision made by a stopwatch rather than by anybody in the room.
Is there a single, and when?
A single needs its own six weeks in front of it and it competes with the album campaign if it lands inside eight weeks of release. Two singles is a campaign; one single three weeks out is a press release.
What is the record actually called?
It sounds absurd on a list of deadlines and it is the item that has moved release dates twice. The title goes on the lacquer, the sleeve, the metadata and the barcode, and changing it after day 70 means changing four things in three companies.