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EPK Guide
How to make an EPK.
Gather your bio, music, photos, and press. Put them on one page. Send the link. About twenty minutes.
The short version
Making an EPK is a sorting problem, not a design problem. Pull together your bio, your two or three best tracks, a video, a few hi-res photos, your press quotes, your dates, and a working email. Drop them into a template. Publish to a link. The whole job is collecting the pieces; the layout takes minutes.
01 Before you start
What you need on hand.
You can't lay an EPK out faster than you can find the files for it, so spend the first five minutes gathering. Pull these into one folder or one browser window:
- A short bioTwo or three paragraphs. If you don't have one, the template a few sections down is a starting point.
- 2–3 hi-res photosOne press shot, one on-stage if you have it, one candid. Wide enough that a venue can crop them.
- Music linksSpotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, or YouTube. Whatever your strongest two or three tracks live on.
- One good videoA live clip, a session take, or one music video. Whichever one most makes the case that you can do it in a room.
- A couple of press quotesA line from a review, a radio spin, a notable support slot. Two short quotes are enough.
- Tour datesThree upcoming shows, or three you've recently played. Optional, but it signals momentum.
- A working emailNot a form. Booking agents reply to people, not forms. Your booking email if you have one, otherwise yours.
- Twenty minutesThe materials take the longest. Once you have them, the build is fast.
Want a worked example of each section with example copy from a real band? See the music press kit template.
02 The steps
The seven steps, in order.
Do them in this order and you won't get stuck. If you skip ahead and try to design first, you'll spend an hour picking colors and have nothing to send.
- Pick a template instead of a blank page. A blank page is where good EPKs die. Choose a layout that fits the feeling of your music: cinematic, editorial, high-contrast. The template gives you a structure to fill in. Three LiveEPK templates to start from.
- Write the bio first. Three paragraphs: what you sound like, who you are, what's happening right now. Write it before you touch anything visual. Steal the template in the next section if you're stuck.
- Embed your two or three best tracks. Not your latest. Your best. Paste the Spotify or Bandcamp link directly; a good EPK builder turns it into an inline player so a booking agent can hit play without leaving the page. Auto-embeds from Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, and YouTube.
- Pick one video that proves the live show. One. A live clip is usually stronger than a polished music video, because it answers the question a booking agent is actually asking: can you do this in a room?
- Add your best two press quotes and a couple of photos. Borrowed credibility (the quotes) and downloadable hi-res shots (the photos). Lead with the strongest quote. Make the photos easy to right-click.
- Drop in tour dates and contact. Three upcoming shows or three recent ones, and a working email. If you have a booking agent, their email. If you don't, yours. No forms.
- Publish it to a real link. Not a Google Doc, not a PDF in Drive. A real URL, ideally on your own subdomain so it looks like yours and is easy to remember. Publishes to yourname.liveepk.com on the $5/month plan.
03 The bio
The part that holds people up: the bio.
Most musicians get stuck here. The bio is what people read while the first track is loading, so it has to land in two seconds. Three short paragraphs is enough. One sentence each works:
artist name is a genre solo artist or band from city, making music that sounds like two reference points or a vivid image.
After a credit, a release, or a notable show, first name or band name is what you're doing right now: touring, recording, building a record.
Recent releases include single or EP and year, and artist or band has been written about by outlet and supported artist or tour.
That's the floor, not the ceiling. Once you have a serviceable bio, send it. You can rewrite it later. A bio that's live and 80% there beats a perfect one that's still in your Notes app.
04 Music and video
Picking what to lead with.
The biggest mistake is leading with the most recent thing instead of the best thing. A booking agent listens to the first ten seconds of the first track. If it doesn't land, the page closes. Lead with what makes the case.
For music
- Best, not newest. Your strongest released track, full stop. If your latest is also your strongest, great. If not, lead with the strongest.
- Two or three, not eight. Range is good (one up-tempo, one slower, one weird) but more than three is a Spotify profile, not an EPK.
- Embed, don't link. A track that plays inline gets heard. A track behind a "click to listen" link gets skipped.
For video
- Live beats polished. A clean live clip from a recent show usually outperforms a high-budget music video for booking, because it proves the show.
- One is enough. Two if one is live and one is a music video that's really doing work. Three is too many.
- Under five minutes. Nobody is watching a full set at a desk.
A booking agent is asking one question: can this band do it in a room for forty-five minutes? Pick the clip that answers yes.
Skip the assembly. Drop your links in.
Free editor. No credit card. Three templates. Your bio, your music, your photos. Twenty minutes from now you'll have a link.
Start building free05 Timing
How long it actually takes.
If you have the materials, an EPK takes about twenty minutes to lay out. If you're writing the bio and gathering photos at the same time, plan for an hour or two. Here's a realistic breakdown for a working musician with everything ready:
| Step | What you're doing | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Materials | Pulling your bio, photos, and music links into one place. | 5 min |
| Template | Picking a layout, dropping in your name and tagline. | 2 min |
| Bio | Pasting or writing the three-paragraph version. | 3 min |
| Music | Pasting Spotify or Bandcamp links so they auto-embed. | 2 min |
| Video | Adding one live clip from YouTube. | 1 min |
| Photos & press | Uploading two hi-res shots and pasting two press quotes. | 3 min |
| Dates & contact | Three dates, one email. Done. | 2 min |
| Publish | Pick your subdomain, hit publish, copy the link. | 2 min |
If it's taking longer than this, you're either rewriting the bio from scratch or you don't have the photos you thought you had. Both fine. Don't try to do them inside the EPK builder; do them in a separate tab and come back.
06 Mistakes
The five mistakes that kill an EPK.
The reason most EPKs don't get a reply isn't the music. It's a handful of small things that make the page feel like work to open.
- Leading with the wrong track. Lead with the strongest, not the newest. A booking agent makes up their mind in the first ten seconds.
- A bio that opens with "Born in 1994 in…" Nobody is reading a chronological bio. Open with the sound and the now, then earn the right to the backstory.
- A PDF or a Google Drive folder. PDFs go stale and Drive folders need permissions. You're sending a link to a working web page or you're losing the click.
- A contact form instead of an email. Booking agents reply to people. A form makes them feel like they're filing a ticket.
- Eight photos, six tracks, three videos. An EPK is the highlight reel, not the archive. If it takes more than two minutes to read, it's too long.
07 Where LiveEPK fits
The shortcut, if you want one.
LiveEPK is an EPK builder for working musicians: solo artists, bands, DJs, rappers, anyone whose next email needs to look like they mean it. (Sometimes called an EPK maker or EPK creator. Same idea.) You build the whole kit for free, pick from three templates, and your music auto-embeds from Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, and YouTube.
Publishing is $5/month on one plan that includes everything: a custom subdomain at yourname.liveepk.com, an email composer that drafts your booking pitches with your assets pulled into the message, and a shared asset library so you're not re-uploading the same photo for the fortieth time. See full pricing for the details.
If you'd rather know what you're building before you start, the long version is on what is an EPK.
08 Quick answers
Common questions.
- How long does it take to make an EPK?
- About twenty minutes if you have your bio, photos, and a couple of music and video links handy. An hour or two if you're writing the bio from scratch and gathering photos at the same time. The work is in collecting the pieces, not in laying them out.
- What do I need to make an EPK?
- A short bio, two or three hi-res photos, links to your best music on Spotify or Bandcamp, one video, two press quotes if you have them, your live dates if any, and a working email address. That's the whole list.
- Can I make an EPK for free?
- Yes. You can build and preview the full EPK in the LiveEPK editor for free, with no credit card. You only pay when you want to publish it to a live link, at $5/month (or $50/year).
- How long should my EPK be?
- One page. An EPK is a scannable web page, not a brochure: long enough to cover bio, music, video, photos, press, and contact, but short enough to read in two minutes on a phone in the back of a venue.
- Do I need to be signed or touring to make one?
- No. If you've ever pasted a streaming link, a Drive folder, and a couple of quotes into the same email, you already need one. You can build an EPK before you've ever played a paid show.
- Can I update my EPK after I send it?
- That's the point of a web EPK. You edit the page, the link stays the same, and everyone who's ever opened it sees the current version. No re-exporting, no re-sending.
Ready to start?
Open the free editor and see what you've got in twenty minutes.
Start building free