Promo Policy
From HaloWiki
A central plank of Halo-17 policy is that we review everything that we are sent, so long as it complies with our rules. These rules are designed to make sure that only serious music is sent our way, while we believe that almost everything has some artistic merit, your 80-minute CD-R of ambience that you recorded while doing the dishes probably isn't really what we're looking for.
At a minimum
At a minimum, your release should:
- Have a label that we can credit it to. Your self-release label that only releases your bands is okay for this.
- Be pressed onto a medium that makes it acceptable for sale. Pressed CDs, manufactured cassettes, and pressed vinyl is okay, homemade tapes or CDRs are not.
- Be in the form of either a CD, cassette, or vinyl record. Your unique way of distributing music might be interesting, but if our reviewers can't play it, then it's no good. Please note that cassette/vinyl records may have a longer lead-time, as we have fewer reviewers available who can play those formats.
- As much as we love the Internet, no, we can't review your MP3 release that you distribute through MySpace. A possible exception might be a well-known, established artist who releases an MP3-only album, but those exceptions will be very few and far between.
- We sometimes review demos, but no guarantees.
- We're only interested in full releases, not in samplers, one-track promo singles, etc.
- Please, no singles. It's hard to do an in-depth review of a single, so at present we're only interested in EP length or longer.
- We are unable to guarantee that we'll be able to return your item, even if it doesn't meet our criteria.
Exceptions to the above rules can be made to the Chief Editor. If in doubt whether your release meets these rules, contact the chief editor, and state your case.
Getting your music to us
The best way to get your music to us is simply through the old-fashioned mail. Our address is:
Attn: Craig Franklin PO Box 1093 TOOMBUL Q 4012 Australia
Please note that if you are outside Australia, you should send your package through air mail/par avion, otherwise it may take up to six months to arrive.
It's a good idea to send us an email before you send us your promo. You never know, we might have already picked it up from a local distributor, or one of our reviewers might have even bought it and have reviewed it. It may be a good idea to read the Halo-17 Writer's Guide so that you know what to expect when your review is posted. We make no guarantees that we won't say nasty things about your album, if it's no good. We have to be honest with our readers, and while we don't like panning albums, we will still do it to items that don't meet our criteria. We will not remove any review from our website that you feel does not portray your music in a positive enough light (although we are willing to make minor modifications to reviews to fix any factual errors that may creep through the editing phase).
