Introduction
The Metalabel Guide offers guidance and inspiration for how to best use Metalabel to release your creative work.
For more in-depth instructions and troubleshooting, please visit our Knowledge Base.
If you have any questions, issues, or suggestions, let us know at hello@metalabel.com.
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Metalabel
Content
Metalabel is the first release platform for creative work.
It’s a space for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, writers, and other creators to release their work, be discovered and supported, and support one another.
A release platform is a space for creative people to introduce and distribute their work.
In the old days people introduced new creative work with movie premieres, launch parties, tours, and opening nights. Picture searchlights waving in the night sky. Then we shaped social media and new parts of the internet, creating customized spaces for gathering around our work and collaboration. That's how we gained our audiences and the platforms built theirs.
These days we… post. From our phones and laptops. From our beds and kitchen counters. From the bathroom. We post to every channel we can and hope we’re positively noticed. These stray thoughts are powerful, especially when they interact with the thoughts of others.
But those same channels are dominated by influencers, advertisers, corporations striving for relevancy, and pressures to sell our personal image over centering our work, and attention-seekers. Our voices are being drowned out in the noise.
The answer isn’t to give up or retreat. It’s to make a space just for us. Where we still get the benefits of being part of something bigger together, but where we don’t have to compete against the noise and the algorithms to be heard.
That’s what Metalabel aims to be. A space where artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, performers, podcasters, and writers can release and build community around their work. Other platforms exist to support parts of these creative practices (crowdfunding, subscriptions, etc), but none exist to promote the release and sale of new creative work across mediums and categories.
On this release platform you’ll find people releasing new creative ideas, discovering new things they love, supporting each other, and sharing revenue and credit from their work.
We're building this space in real time with your input. If you have thoughts on the kind of digital space you'd like to see, email us at hello@metalabel.com.
Releasing is a way of honoring and putting out creative work. It is a richer and deeper expression of an idea. A release is not just the work, it’s anticipating the work. There’s an invitation to become part of it in some deeper way (buy it, sign up, attend). There’s a story and understanding about who made it and its context. A release is meant to endure.
When you release, you share the why and context behind it, offer something for supporters to collect and participate with, and honor the effort and inspiration that went into the piece. When our work lives largely on social media, it loses its context and is separated from the meaning and understanding that gives it value. This is why we all need spaces and context that we can own and control. Don’t just post your new work to social media. Release it in all its glory.
Metalabel helps artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, performers, writers, and other creative people release new work and celebrate the collectors who discover and support them. Here’s how it works:
A beautiful space to release your work
Each creator has a space (yourname.metalabel.com) with release pages for showcasing work across digital, physical, and IRL formats—Art, Design, Music, Podcasts, and more. The left side hosts a story wall for media uploads, while the right side invites public and collector engagement on your terms.
Collectors who support creators and scenes they care about
Metalabel is an ecosystem of collectors who support creative work and creators who share it on their own terms. As a collector, Metalabel is a space to discover new artists, limited editions, and to directly support artists and scenes you care about. Collectors get access to creative work, unique collector numbers, and verifiable bragging rights.
Editions to value your work
In a world of creative abundance, editions help your work stand out. Editions are creative works that you can offer to multiple collectors. Editions can also be bundles of multiple digital and physical works. Use limited editions to create scarcity and meaning around your work. Offer deluxe or Director’s Cut editions of work freely available elsewhere to generate new income and allow people to more fully appreciate and celebrate you.
Splits to share revenue
Splits lets you seamlessly distribute profits among collaborators, making your back-office work much easier. You can also build shared treasuries of funds to use for future releases.
The first release platform for creative work
We use a simple screening process to ensure our platform, homepage, and editorial spaces are filled with creative work and nothing else. The process is quick and we typically activate new profiles within 24 hours.
Metalabel is supported by a small, egalitarian team spread around the world. We include the founders of Kickstarter, Etsy, and The Creative Independent, as well as past work with the Berghain, Opening Ceremony, Powerhouse Arts, Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, The Kitchen, and more. We’re supported by a close network of friends, investors, and frequent collaborators.
Squad: Yancey Strickler, Ilya Yudanov, Lauren Dorman, Brandon Valosek, Gina Pham, Erin Rimmer, Clayton Kenney, Thaniya Keerepart, and Rob Kalin (Board)
Cofounders and squad emeritus: Austin Robey and Anna Bulbrook. <3
A label is our term for the publisher of a release. This can be just a person (if you’re a solo artist), a person curating releases by others, or a group of people working together.
Metalabel expands the idea of the label beyond music or fashion to all forms of creative expression. There can be writing labels, YouTuber labels, photographer labels, artist labels, culture labels, metaverse labels, whatever forms of creativity people wish.
Labels allow creative people and scenes to share resources, audiences, money, and build collective credibility and awareness around their ideas. A label can be an existing collective or an ephemeral standalone project. A label can also be for solo/individual releases and just be an artist’s name.
No. You don’t have to be a label at all.
Think of your label as the public profile or business entity that represents your work.
By creating a “label” that represents you, it allows you to more easily collaborate with other people, build shared context around your work, and operate more like a business without having to be one.
Yes. You can start as many labels as you like once your account is activated. For support around building your label page, visit our Knowledge Base.
Yes, this is the advantage of the label system. You can invite people to collaborate on the label and/or the individual release, with admin and contributor levels for both.
Every label has some core point of view that brings the group together: a specific style, a similar background, a shared creative or cultural worldview.
Labels release work that reflects their point of view in the wider world. Some of this work will be by members of the label, and others will be from other creators who they discover or raise their hand to collaborate. We recommend your first task as a group be to determine how you want to communicate and make decisions together.
Labels tend to have standard agreements with the artists and creators they work with. A standard agreement might have a label get 30% of the revenue from a release based on their commitment to help publish, promote, and fulfill the work, as well as to be paid back for certain fixed costs. Another may be that a label sets aside a portion of revenue to support the release of new work, and the rest is split evenly amongst those involved in the release.
This partnership between a label and creator allows them to share in the responsibilities and success of releasing work.
Releases on Metalabel
Most discussions of labels these days don’t go much beyond how much they suck. Labels are seen as a cultural horse and buggy — an old model nobody wants back (see this tweet-thread from Steve Albini as an example of why).
But that sentiment is really about the major labels (in every industry) who dominated the 20th century, and continue to reign today. Many of those institutions have proven themselves to be hostile and dishonest to the needs of both artists and fans.
Indie labels are more grassroots projects where groups of people who come from the same place or a similar style come together to spark new scenes that grow and spread. Indie labels are the David to the major label’s Goliath.
Metalabel makes it so anybody can start an indie label in any creative medium. The platform helps you sign and put out work, build an audience and identity, and earn and split money with the artists you work with.
It’s good to set a few base-level agreements about how you’re going to work together from the beginning.
What kind of work are you going to put out?
How will money work?
How do you make decisions?
We made a simple tool that can help you walk through this experience in the style of 8-bit tarot cards, because why not? Explore your values as a label.
Metalabel supports 100% of creative work and 0% of anything else. That includes supporting releases in the worlds of Art, Design, Games, Music, Performance, Podcasts, Publishing, and Video and Film.
Our platform supports physical work, digital work, tickets, experiences, tokens of appreciation, free collectibles to celebrate moments, bundles of any or all of the above, and anything else to reflect and amplify a creative effort.
Our primary focus is creating a vibrant space for creative work. Releases that are not focused on releasing a creative output to collectors will be declined and encouraged to release their work elsewhere.
Releases do not need to be exclusive to Metalabel. A work can be on Metalabel and available on another platform, or be previously released elsewhere.
If you’re an artist or creative person making work, absolutely. We exist to help you release and express your creative visions.
We’re not a space for general business operations, raising money for personal causes, influencers or commodity products, and other non-artistic pursuits.
To support this space, we require people to tell us about their plans before releasing with us. For artists and creative people, this is a simple, no-stress step. Most people are welcomed in within less than a day of reaching out to us.
Metalabel has been used by artists as esteemed and varied as the musicians Brian Eno and YACHT; visual artists Jeremy Deller, Shantell Martin, Josh Citerella, and Molly Soda; writers Venkatesh Rao, New Models, and Yancey Strickler; and other types of creative people.
A few specific releases to highlight:
The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet — A book by 11 authors exploring how we live online today. Released on Metalabel as a physical edition, digital edition, and roundtable invitation in one bundle. First edition run of 777 copies sold out in days, with funds splitting between the authors and their treasury.
YACHT, “New Release” — Indie dance-pop stars YACHT debuted their new album on Metalabel, selling out 100 vinyl copies in 90 minutes and a cassette version in just hours. Collectors also received a special ZIP file of bonus material, including an audio commentary, to reward collectors.
Hard Art, Introducing Hard Art — A collective of artists from the UK headlined by Brian Eno, Es Devlin, Jeremy Deller, and dozens more notable and inspiring figures, this release introduced the group’s mission and principles in a simple, free release. Collectors get to subscribe to future releases and Hard Art gets to grow their audience.
Rebecca Clark, Book of the Anthropocene — A digital artist book collecting writing, poetry, and beautiful sketches of animals and natural scenes. Made available as a free release, and collected by more than 100 new followers of her work.
Yancey Strickler, “The Post Individual” — A limited-edition zip file release of a new essay, which combined a PDF, audio and video recordings, and research notes into a collectible package for $5, or pay what you want. All 250 limited editions sold out, netting more than $1,000 for the author.
Train Songz, train_songz zine: summer ‘24, #4 — A free limited-edition zine release of 20 pages of writing, art, data, stickers, and puzzles about Billy Strings, bluegrass music history, and up-and-coming acts in the bluegrass scene. The zine brought a digital audience together around a collectable item, obtained by over 1,500 people and counting, many of whom chose to pay even though it was not required.
Metalabel charges a 10% commission on sales. Stripe charges 3-4% in credit card transaction fees. We suggest adding 15% to your price to cover these costs. There are no ongoing monthly costs for hosting your work, maintaining your release pages, or collecting on Metalabel.
You can use Metalabel to release digital work, physical work, and IRL events on their own or in bundles with each other. As you structure your release it’s important to think about how you want your work to circulate. You may, for example, want to hold back a few zines or records to send to journalists or curators for promotion, or to have some inventory to explore stocking in a physical shop. For a more in-depth guide on how to structure a release, visit our Knowledge Base.
Editions are a way to make your release more flexible and tell a deeper story. A few ways to use them:
Multiple levels of support
Editions let you offer, for example, a digital version for free or $5, and charge more for a physical edition, all on the same page. A release can have a max of five editions.
New runs of sold out releases
Sometimes a limited edition release does better than expected and sells out quickly. Use editions to create, for example, a second edition of the release on the same page that lets you honor your existing collectors while allowing your audience to continue to grow.
Sizes
Metalabel does not currently have sizing built into our product, however you could use editions to offer a garment in distinct sizes.
International shipping
Metalabel does not yet have variable shipping rates, but you can approximate them with editions. Make a domestic only edition with a lower shipping rate using the build tool, then offer an international edition with a higher shipping rate.
One of ones
If you're an artist releasing multiple individual pieces in a series, editions would allow you to offer each piece on its own within a wider collection.
Multiple editions in one release
A release can also have multiple editions at once or sequentially. For example you could:
- Offer an edition of just a digital copy at one price point and a signed physical edition at another.
- Add a new edition to a release if the first one sells out. People like your new drop more than expected and it sells out fast? Amazing! Add a second edition to preserve the spot of your early supporters while welcoming new collectors to experience your work.
- A release can have a max of five editions.
Absolutely. Some advice on how to successfully release:
Tell people who care about you
You don’t get to skip this step. In a crowded cultural environment, it’s critical that we share our work especially with the people who care about us the most. The first step after publishing any release is to email the people who care the most about you. This could be sending direct emails and texts to people you love, or using channels like Substack if there’s where you’ve built your homepage.
Put it on social media
In other spaces, posting is the destination. For us, posting is a tool. It's a way of communicating our universe and what it means to be part of it. When we release something we’re trying to enter it into the public consciousness and letting it soak through the fabric of society. There are both direct and creative ways to do this. For inspiration, we look to YACHT or the anti-posting style that Metalabel uses.
Use limited and free editions
Making the work more limited is a way of increasing the interestingness of something. We’ve seen people have the most success when they release a first edition with a very low quantity number that quickly sells out, which creates an amazing halo effect for both the creators and the collectors who got in. A creator can then choose to add an additional edition if they wish, honoring their existing collectors while allowing new people to continue to discover them.
Same goes for limited time (coming soon). A ticking clock is a strong motivator to get people to act.
We’ve also seen people have a lot of success releasing new or existing work for free. What’s the point in offering our art for free? Why would anyone do that? Free can open doors. Free helps people discover something new. Finding our voice and developing resonance with our audience allows us, in the long view, to have a healthy art practice. This approach means more experimentation and less cut-and-dry commerce. The artist Ruby Bailey had a curator reach out after collecting a free edition of their video art on Metalabel. Train Songz started their 1,000+ zine audience by sending free copies to their followers. On Metalabel people consciously choose to collect work, share their email, and establish a direct relationship with the artist and their practice. It’s not a passive exchange. It’s an intentional one.
Release windowing
For most projects, the right goal isn’t to make the biggest splash, it’s to stay in the cultural eye for as long as possible. The longer your work is cycling through social media, culture, and in people’s minds, the greater your chances of growing your audience.
The classic strategy for this is Release Windowing, or designing an elongated campaign around your release that will give people a reason to keep paying attention to your work. Think of the way movies have a pre-release hype, then their big release day, and then later they pop up again when they appear on streaming services or other formats. That’s a strategy developed by the film industry to maintain mindshare for their projects.
If you wish to care about these things—you are not wrong if you do and not at all wrong if you don’t!—the same concept applies with releases on the internet.
Think about your release as not just the day the release comes out, but the preceding ten days and the ten days following, which are ripe periods of time to build anticipation and a deeper story about your release. You can do this by holding back on releasing certain information or media until the right moment, or scheduling specific events to happen in the days before or after your release. The goal is to use this space to establish the context of your work and build anticipation and understanding of it in your public’s eyes.
Thank people who support you
You can’t underestimate the impact of reaching out and saying thank you to people who have taken the time to support you and your work.
Go deeper: Promotional Principles for Creative People
We collaborated with our community of artists and creators to build this open “Promotional Principles for Creative People” that you can explore to go even deeper.
Yes. It makes a huge difference when all contributors are committed to the plan for promoting the release. Much of the power of a model like Metalabel is that it encourages multiple voices to come together in support of ideas they share. This is especially important when it comes to releases they make together.
We recommend building a common understanding among the group of timelines, when people are meant to start promoting, what you’re going to say, and even planning things that you’ll do together physically or online to celebrate and bring attention to the drop.
This isn’t easy! To do this well, you may’re going to need a central group coordinator who has the energy and drive to get people to pay attention and follow through. Everyone is going to have their own things going on, so make sure to plan ahead and use the communication channels that are most natural and effective for your group.
One more tip: direct messages, texts, or emails work much better than group messages when it comes to getting commitments and making decisions. Use group threads to share high-level information, but to get anything done, be prepared to go direct.
Every project is different and setting prices and quantities are part art and part science. We have a worksheet you can use to scope out basic costs (view that here — be sure to ‘Make a copy’ to use for your specific release) and calculate what you can net out from your release.
Yes. One of the things that makes Metalabel unique is our split payments architecture.
A Split is an agreement that sets how earnings from each release will be distributed.
The Release Admin sets the Split that will result from each sale. Only creators who have accepted an invitation to join a release can join the Split.
As money accrues from sales of a drop, those funds will be pushed to everyone’s individual Metalabel balances once the release ends.
Splits are a great way to offer collaborators upside in your release.
Imagine someone has the choice between two offers: a flat rate for $500 or $300 plus 25% of the proceeds from the release. Which would you choose?
Splits let us create that kind of structure around any release. Portion out future revenue however you like.
Splits can also make your work sustainable. For example in the Dark Forest Collective, the group makes it so that 70% of all income from a release goes to the artist(s) behind it, and 30% returns to the Dark Forest Collective's treasury where it can be used for future releases. Having standard structures for each release removes the emotional charge of discussing money and establishes precedent for the future.
If your release offers a physical item for sale, the Release Admins will have access to the mailing addresses of your collectors as they come in. Those appear in the Release Order CSV, which can be downloaded and imported into external shipping and fulfillment partners. In the near future we’ll have ways to integrate directly into a shipping label system.
When setting up your release, you can select the countries where you will ship your physical piece to, and how much collectors will pay for shipping and handling. This shipping and handling charge is a flat rate that will apply to all territories and shipments. We do not currently have per-country shipping costs.
When your funds are collected, Metalabel’s system automatically puts the shipping and handling charges from collectors into a separate account balance set aside to pay out shipping costs as they incur.
Yes we can share resources for fulfillment services you can reach out to. However, if it’s a small limited edition run, we recommend taking care of fulfillment internally among the collaborators since working with a third party fulfillment provider will cut into your release income.
Every release includes an “Estimated Ship Date” field that lets you set expectations with collectors. We recommend padding in time for production of physical items, shipping of those items as well as any delays and contingencies that may arise.
As the date for shipping nears, we recommend reaching out to collectors to let them know. You can do this by downloading your CSV list that includes emails for all collectors and contacting them using your email provider.
You can collect a work on any release page. Releases can be free, pay what you want, or have a set price.
When you collect a work on Metalabel, you’re taken through a Stripe checkout process where you input your credit card and mailing address.
When you complete checkout, you’ll receive an edition of the work in your Collection with your unique collector number. (If you choose Guest Checkout, rather than creating an account, this will be available via your email.
When you’re logged in, you can view everything you’ve acquired in your Collection from the left-hand navigation menu.
It varies. For digital work, downloads are available immediately after purchase. For physical works, the estimated delivery date added by the creators set expectations for when the work will be shipped.
Our community of collectors continues to grow through people who visit Metalabel to discover new creative work and existing audiences creators have built up over time who choose to support their releases on Metalabel. We’re currently developing a number of new ways for creators and collectors alike to fire and explore new work.
Collectors are looking to support creators they love, creative work they care about, and releases that give them the opportunity to feel special or seen. Limited edition releases, time-bound releases, and other forms of intentionally scarce output is one way to develop loyalty among your collectors. A release that offers a unique combination of both physical and digital media may also create a unique collector experience.
A few strategies to consider:
- Collaborations between creators with different audiences is a great way for two people to mutually benefit one another
- Releasing work on a consistent cadence builds understanding and awareness
- Experiment with release windows and limited edition strategies to make your release pop (see below)
Play the infinite game. Don’t try to “win,” enjoy the experience of playing. Orient your work not around its commercial performance, but the performance of making and sharing it with others. This will lead to the greatest fulfillment.
R&D (Release and discover). You’re constantly going to be unsure about what to do. Don’t let it slow you down. Doing is the most powerful form of thinking. Embrace a philosophy of R&D: release work and discover all you can about your audience, strategies for releasing, and the work itself.
Humility. Doing something great will always be harder than you think. Approach every task with humility, and make sure you do them correctly. Take no shortcuts.
Fearlessness. At the same time, don’t be afraid of things not going well. Failure is never as bad as we think, and fear will block us from accessing our deepest truths. Challenge yourself to be fearless. It’s where your best, truest self lies.
Do it for yourselves. It’s very easy to be captured by our audiences or to be discouraged when things don’t turn out the way we hoped. This is why it’s important to make your work because you want it. Do it for yourself(ves), not for the approval of others. This is the spirit that gives birth to wonderful things.
Releasing on Metalabel is by application. We welcome creators and groups releasing work across creative mediums and styles.