Self-releasing in 2025
A guide to releasing music in 2025, with full sales figures and insights. A help to anyone wanting to release your own music or start your own label
2025 was the second year of A State of Flo records, a year when I established more of a workflow for the label and built on the foundations laid in 2024. I defined the label as striving to ‘connect the natural world with the electronic music one’ and this mission statement helped provide a direction that covers all bases, with plenty of room to explore.
Times are tough out there, and the biggest changes in the music industry seem to be negative: vinyl sales are challenging, postage costs are up, streaming numbers are still not translating into sustainable income, touring is harder than ever, clubs and venues are closing, social media seems less impactful and more fragmented as a promotion tool, AI music has entered music synch and publishing in a big way and we are no further from establishing how the independent music industry can adjust the game to play by its own rules.
Regardless of these challenges, which one could argue aren’t anything really new, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the creative outlet and artistic freedom that running my own label gives me. Throughout the year I’ve had to remind myself about the article I wrote last year entitled Coping Strategies for Creatives - that the gauntlet of birthing creative projects into the world is always going to be subject to criticism, non-appreciation or worst still, being completely blanked - and the joy of being creative is the point.
In the face of big tech and AI, the artisanal and fundamentally human endeavour of running a small label is all too important - the question is can one attract a big enough niche audience to self-sustain ones endeavours?
As Kai Tempest eloquently put it in a recent interview: ‘To be creative is the point, it is medicine’. I’d then say that to break even is the next objective, a signifier that there is some value in your creative output judged by the market.
Making a living from purely releasing music? - I’m still none the wiser as to how that could be feasible, but a combination of releases, gigs, syncs and everything else might just get you there.
Here are some thoughts from this time last year:
Self-releasing in 2024
At the start of the year, I launched A State of Flo records with this Substack page and the promise to do the following:
As was the case last year, the following is a transparent insight into how the label has performed over the course of year. I’ve decided to put the financial figures behind a paywall, so if you’d like to see them - please subscribe. Doing so will grant you downloads of all releases on the label and early access to all the new music I’ve got lined up for next year.
A State Of Flo 2025
I put out six releases this year - digital club remixes of 2024’s Auntie Flo album In My Dreams (I’m a Bird and I’m Free) with a fourth repress of Green City, an album of ambient sea sounds form Scotland ‘Uisge Beatha’, ‘Black Beacon’, an album of recordings made in ex-military base Orford Ness and two Auntie Flo singles + album Bird’s Of Paradise, and a little Bandcamp-only charity release.
In amongst that, I launched Plants Can Dance (and Mushrooms ‘Sing’) event series promoting the connection between nature and music through biosonification, modular synthesis, deep listening and field recording.
I performed live at Auntie Flo - trying various iterations from a live AV show, solo live and full live band.
One of my highlights was taking 12 people on a soundwalk to Orford Ness, where the Black Beacon album was made. It was a glorious day and everyone bonded well as a group.
Gigs in 2024: ~18 (DJ/Live gigs, Plants Can Dance workshops, panel talks etc)
Gigs in 2025: ~51 (DJ/Live gigs, Plants Can Dance workshops, panel talks etc)
So things have massively increased on the gig front - hopefully a result of laying the ground work in 2024 and seeing the benefits in 2025. I have more capacity in 2026, and things are looking to at least match 2025 at this moment. However, there is still a glass ceiling which seems to stop me from being booked at the top tier festivals that were regularly booking me prior to COVID-19 (the likes of We Out Here, Love International, Lost Village remain interested but perhaps not quite ready - let’s see).
The challenge has been the classic one - being asked to promote gigs I’ve been booked for due to low pre-sales. I had one gig cancel this year due to this and selling tickets for some of my own shows was a struggle. The Jazz Cafe turned out to be a highlight of the year but it took a mammoth effort to bring in a very-close-to-sell-out audience of 400 people. I wrote about some of these challenges here
The Highs and Lows of Touring
In the continued ‘festivalisation’ of the DJ scene, everything becomes a ‘tour’ or a ‘show’ rather than a plain old simple ‘gig’. Call me old fashioned, but the trend of DJ’s posting their ‘tour dates’ on the 1st of the month when all they are doing is their job of playing in clubs at the weekends is a small thing that sort of rankles. Pedantic over sem…
Promotion
Running the record label on Substack was definitely the right move and the numbers of free subscribers have steadily risen over the course of the year (~1000 new subs in 12 months). I’m still working out the paid tier as using it to directly email paid subscribers hasn’t been a massive success. However, I appreciate anyone subscribing and it does help facilitate new releases and other activity - plus 10% goes to Earth Percent charity.
Press: I worked with Becca at Nightswim again for the PR campaign around Birds Of Paradise. I think she does a great job of getting it into print and online media, the challenge is that those outlets are declining and my sense is the reach they have is getting smaller. Birds Of Paradise was no 5 in the albums of the year on Disco Pogo’s list - but not really seen on other major lists. It shows that as ever, you are at the mercy of individual journalists, and their limited capacity to listen to an ever increasing amount of music that is released.
Just today, 100,000 tracks will be uploaded to Spotify - how do you cut through that noise?
Social Media: I’ve just hit 13k followers on Instagram but the reach and like count seems to be reduced from what it was. I’m trying to read into why this is - collaborative posts don’t seem to work and perhaps their lower reach make it more difficult for follow up solo posts to beat the algorithm. Any social media expert will say ‘consistency is the key’ and my output is far from it - so perhaps I need to try a new approach, simple videos that push the music/hardware side in a more conversational style and leave the promotional focus aside.
Facebook remains fairly consistent and I have to remind myself to post on there as I barely check it. Although for my demographic of older music heads, it is still alive and kicking.
I’ll put Spotify in social media/promotion, as it really should be viewed as a shop window rather than a sales channel.
These numbers are pretty much double what I did last year. Last year I complained that my numbers were only up 5% from the previous year - so this large increase shows that it take time for any impact to be measured.
Charity
My commitment with the label is to donate 10% of income to Brian Eno’s Earth Percent. I’m pleased to say I’ve been able to achieve that and have donated £1505.78 over the past year (with a final quarter to add just after the tax year completes). I’ve also donate over £400 to the Brains Trust in the aftermath of the passing of JD Twitch from Optimo.
Objectives going into 2026:
Can I press 500 copies of vinyl rather than 200/300 - this is where the profit is (but higher risk!)
Sell more direct via Bandcamp (and esp on Bandcamp days)
Continue to use Spotify and streaming platforms as a shop window but limit releases so they don’t get everything
Gig Gig Gig! IRL experiences are incredible as ever and despite the stress of selling tickets they are worth it. And you can sell a lot of merch in the process
Explore new formats and smaller events (such as SoundWalks) to get to know your audience personally. Watch out for our new label app coming in 2026 too
Remember to thing take time, the foundations I laid in 2024 started to show signs of making their mark one year on. Feedback is often a slow burn, not as instant as you’d like
Be relentless - obviously you need to strike a balance but releasing something every couple of months seems to be a good target rate
OK, here are the sales figures, if you’d like to know more please subscribe. If you can’t afford this, please email me on brian@astateofflo.com - I’d be happy to share the numbers and pass on any advice if you are looking into self-releasing yourself.
If not, thanks for reading and supporting A State Of Flo. Tons more releases and cool stuff are lined up for next year. I look forward to sharing it with you.
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