One Sheets: What They Are, How to Use Them

UPDATE: This post was revised with fresh links and information on August 7, 2012.
I recently received an email from a reader asking for some direction on creating one sheets. After doing a little investigative digging to back up what I already knew, I was able to dish out the following advice and resources:

The tradition one sheet is created for the benefit of music distributors and retailers. On a single page it lets a potential buyer know about an artist, CD title, radio airplay, media exposure, marketing plans, the CD's UPC code, price, street date and more.

Check out this article on music distributors by Chris Knab. Scroll down to the section "What a Distributor Wants to Know About a Label's Release" and then the heading "The Distributor One Sheet" below that. This gives a great overview of distributors' needs and the purpose of a tradition one sheet.

There's another type of one sheet worth noting, and it's an idea that I'm a big fan of. Full-blown press kits can often be overkill. Sometimes a simple one-page overview of your act is all that's needed to grab someone's attention.

This kind of one sheet can be used for many purposes: getting media exposure, airplay, gigs, etc. Kevin from CD Baby does a good job explaining what it is in this video:


Along the same lines is "Writing Better One Sheets," an article by Jett Black.

Grassrootsy published this good Creating a One Sheet post. Here are PDF samples of one sheets from artists Jessica Owen and Kate Gaffney.

Then there is a cool website called OneSheet.com.

Got anything to add? Click the Comment link below and post your thoughts.

-Bob

P.S. Want to link to this article on Twitter, Facebook, etc? Feel free to copy and paste this text:

One Sheets: What They Are, How to Use Them http://goo.gl/I2oPM via @MrBuzzFactor