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How to make an EPK (Electronic Press Kit)

What is an EPK?

An electronic press kit is a single, shareable package that contains everything a music industry professional needs to evaluate your work: your bio, your music, your photos, your press coverage, your stats, and your contact information. It's the digital equivalent of the physical press kits that used to get mailed to journalists and venue bookers, but better in every way that matters: easier to share, easier to update, and impossible to lose in a pile on someone's desk.

The name "electronic press kit" has stuck since the mid-2000s even though the format has evolved considerably. Early EPKs were PDFs emailed as attachments. Modern EPKs are web-based: a page or a site that loads instantly, looks professional on mobile, and lets someone hear your music, see your photos, and read your bio without downloading anything.

If you're at the stage where you're releasing music, playing shows, or pitching to press, labels, managers, booking agents, or festivals, you need an EPK. It's the first thing most industry professionals ask for, and not having one signals that you're either very early in your career or not taking the business side seriously.

What goes in an EPK

There's no rigid format, but the elements below are what industry professionals expect to find. Missing any of them gives someone a reason to move on to the next artist in their inbox.

Artist bio

Two or three paragraphs written in the third person. Not your life story. Not every gig you've ever played. The bio should cover: who you are, what you sound like (in terms that someone who hasn't heard your music can picture), what you've achieved (notable shows, releases, press coverage, streaming milestones), and what's happening now (upcoming releases, tours, projects).

Write it as if a journalist might copy a sentence from it directly into their article, because they will. Keep the tone consistent with your brand. If you're a punk band, don't write like a press release. If you're a classical composer, don't write like a social media caption.

The most common mistake in artist bios is starting with childhood. Nobody booking a festival slot needs to know you started playing guitar at age seven. Start with what you sound like and what you've done recently.

Have two versions: a full bio (two to three paragraphs) and a short bio (two to three sentences) for situations where space is limited.

Music

Embed or link to your best two or three tracks. Not your entire discography. Pick the tracks that represent your current sound, not the ones you're most emotionally attached to. If someone can only listen to one song, which one should it be? Put that first.

Streaming links (Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp) work well because they're familiar and don't require any action from the listener. If you want to include downloadable files for radio or press use, make those available as clearly labelled downloads.

Music videos

If you have them, include your strongest one or two. Video content makes a much stronger impression than audio alone, particularly for booking agents and festival programmers who need to assess your stage presence and visual identity.

Photos

Three to five high-resolution press photos. These should be professional quality, well-lit, and consistent with your visual identity. Include at least one solo or group portrait and one live performance shot. Make them downloadable in high resolution (300 DPI, at least 2000px on the longest edge) because publications need print-quality images.

Photos are one of the most overlooked elements of an EPK. A great track paired with a blurry phone photo sends a mixed signal. If you can afford one professional investment in your EPK, make it the photos.

Press coverage and quotes

Any reviews, features, interviews, or notable mentions from publications, blogs, or radio. Include the publication name, a brief pull quote, and a link to the full piece. If you don't have press coverage yet, skip this section rather than padding it with obscure blog mentions that nobody recognises.

Stats and social proof

Streaming numbers, social media followers, monthly listeners, notable playlist placements, sold-out shows. Include the numbers that are impressive and leave out the ones that aren't. If your Instagram following is 200, don't include it. If your Spotify monthly listeners are 50,000, do.

Stats matter most to booking agents and labels who are evaluating commercial potential. For press, the music itself matters more.

Gig history and upcoming shows

A list of notable past performances (festivals, support slots, headline shows at recognised venues) and any upcoming dates. This helps bookers gauge your experience and your draw. If you're early in your career, include what you have and don't apologise for a short list.

Contact information

Make this impossible to miss. Who should people contact for booking, press, management, and general enquiries? Include names, email addresses, and phone numbers. If you have separate contacts for different purposes (a booking agent and a PR person), list them clearly.

This is the single most important element in the EPK because the entire point of the EPK is to prompt someone to get in touch. Burying contact information at the bottom of a long scroll, or worse, not including it at all, defeats the purpose.

Optional but useful

Tech rider and stage plot: for live acts, particularly when pitching to venues and festivals. Include it as a downloadable PDF rather than inline.

Album artwork: if you have strong visual assets, include them. They help press and playlist curators who need imagery alongside the music.

Lyrics: some press and sync licensing contacts want to see lyrics. Include them for your key tracks if relevant.

One-sheet: a single-page summary of the EPK, designed to be skimmable in thirty seconds. Useful for mass outreach where the full EPK might not get opened.

How to write a good artist bio

The bio is where most EPKs fall apart, so it's worth spending extra time on it.

Start with what you sound like. Not genre labels alone (everyone says "indie" or "alternative"), but a description that gives someone an actual picture: the instruments, the influences, the energy, the mood. "Four-piece post-punk from Manchester with shoegaze guitars and spoken-word vocals" is more useful than "indie rock band."

Include your best credential early. If you've supported a well-known act, played a recognised festival, been featured in a notable publication, or passed a streaming milestone, mention it in the first paragraph.

Write about what's current. The bio should be mostly about what's happening now and what's coming next. Your history provides context, but the reader cares about what you're doing, not what you did three years ago.

Keep it tight. If your bio is more than 300 words, it's too long for most contexts. Industry professionals are reading dozens of these. Respect their time.

Update it regularly. An EPK with an outdated bio (referencing a release from two years ago as "upcoming") signals neglect. Update after every significant release, tour, or press milestone.

Where to host your EPK

The format matters. A PDF attached to an email is outdated and creates friction: it requires a download, doesn't display well on mobile, and can't embed playable audio or video. Web-based is the standard.

A few approaches:

Your own website. A dedicated /press or /epk page on your artist site. This gives you full control over design and content and keeps everything under your own domain. The downside is that it requires web skills or a website builder.

Dedicated EPK platforms. Services like Sonicbids, Bandzoogle, ReelCrafter, and EPKBuilder offer templates designed specifically for music EPKs. Quick to set up, professional-looking, often with built-in analytics so you can see who's viewing your kit.

A published folder. If your materials are already collected in a workspace, you can publish them as a shareable page. Fabric's publishing feature turns any folder into a clean, searchable, password-protectable webpage at a shareable URL. You add your bio, embed your tracks, upload your press photos, and share the link. When you update the folder, the published page updates automatically. You can also track who's accessing it with link analytics, which tells you whether the booker at the festival actually opened your EPK or just said they would.

The advantage of the published-folder approach is that your EPK lives alongside all your other project materials rather than in a separate platform. Your press photos, music files, design assets, and documents are all in one place, and publishing a subset of them as a public page is one click.

Getting your EPK opened

An EPK that nobody opens is worthless regardless of how good it is. A few things that increase the open rate:

Personalise the outreach. "Dear music editor" gets deleted. "Hi Sarah, I saw your piece on [specific topic] and thought our new single might be relevant because..." gets read. The EPK link goes in the body of a short, specific, personalised email.

Include your best track as a direct link. Don't make someone navigate to your EPK to hear your music. Put a streaming link to your strongest track in the email itself. The EPK link is for people who want to go deeper.

Keep the email short. Three to five sentences, a streaming link, and the EPK link. That's it. Anything longer reduces the chance of the EPK link being clicked.

Follow up once. If you don't hear back in a week, one polite follow-up is reasonable. More than that is counterproductive.

Make the EPK load fast. If your EPK takes ten seconds to load because of uncompressed photos and auto-playing video, people will close it before they see anything. Optimise your images and let audio/video be click-to-play rather than autoplay.

Frequently asked questions

When should I create an EPK? As soon as you have released music and are playing shows or planning to pitch to press, venues, labels, or managers. You don't need a huge back catalogue or thousands of followers. You need enough material to show that you're active, professional, and worth paying attention to.

How often should I update my EPK? After every significant milestone: a new release, a notable show, a press feature, a streaming milestone. At minimum, review it every few months to make sure nothing is outdated. An EPK that references last year's tour as "upcoming" does more harm than good.

Should I include all my music? No. Include your two or three strongest tracks that represent your current sound. The EPK is a highlight reel, not an archive. If someone wants to hear more, they'll find your streaming profiles.

Do I need professional photos? You don't strictly need a professional photographer, but the photos need to look professional. Well-lit, high-resolution, visually consistent with your brand. One good photo session gives you press photos that last a year or more. It's one of the best investments you can make in your visual presentation.

What if I don't have any press coverage yet? Skip the press section. Don't pad it with mentions from unknown blogs just to fill space. Focus on the music, bio, photos, and any live performance credentials you have. Press coverage will come, and you can add it to the EPK when it does.

Can I use my EPK for non-music purposes? The format works for any creative professional who needs to present their work to industry contacts: filmmakers, photographers, artists, speakers, authors. The specific contents change (a filmmaker includes their reel instead of tracks, an author includes their book list instead of a discography) but the structure is the same: bio, work samples, credentials, press, contact.