What Is an Artist One-Sheet / EPK

What's the difference between a one sheet and an EPK?

An EPK is your electronic press kit: a digital portfolio that holds everything someone in the industry needs to size you up, hosted online and shared with a single link. It’s the modern version of the physical press kit people used to mail out. Cheaper to make, easier to update, and you send it as a link instead of a package.

A one sheet is the compressed version of that. One page, built to be skimmed fast off an intro email. It usually carries the short version of your bio, one or two stats or achievements, a photo or two, and your contact info. Nothing more. It’s the leave-behind, the attachment, the thing that earns you the click into the full EPK.

Here’s the part people get wrong: they treat the two as the same file. They’re not. The one sheet exists to get you the first look. The EPK is where someone goes once you have their attention, and it needs the depth to back up whatever the one sheet promised. Build both, and know which one you’re sending and why.

What actually goes on an artist one sheet and EPK?

Start with the bio. Write it in third person, and keep at least two versions: a short one for the one sheet and intros, and a long one for the full EPK. Apple Music for Artists asks for both. Lead with your most impressive recent thing, not a chronological life story. The person reading is deciding fast whether to keep going, so the first line has to do real work.

Then the music. Embed one to five of your strongest tracks with one-click playback, a Spotify, SoundCloud, or YouTube embed. Don’t dump your whole catalog on them. Pick the songs that fit whatever you’re pitching for, and swap them out depending on the opportunity. Same goes for photos: provide print-ready and web-ready images (more on sizes below), and a logo PNG if you have one, since venues often need it for flyers.

Video carries weight, especially live performance footage, because a booker is trying to figure out whether you can hold a stage. Music videos and visualizers work too. Quality matters here. A shaky phone clip does the opposite of what you want. After that comes press: pull your best quotes, name the publication, link the full piece. No press yet? A quote from a venue owner, promoter, or someone you’ve worked with still counts.

Round it out with concrete highlights, total streaming numbers, radio play with station names, notable venues or festivals, support slots, sync placements, awards. Then links to every profile you have (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, your site) and clear contact info: you, your manager, booking, and PR as applicable. An EPK with no obvious way to reach you fails at the one job it has. Add a technical rider if you’re pitching venues, and a tour schedule if you have dates worth showing.

build a clean one sheet with the free artist one-sheet generator →

What size should the photos actually be?

This trips people up because the numbers floating around online are mostly wrong. Here’s what the platforms actually ask for. For digital use, meet the DSP minimums: Spotify requires at least 750 by 750 pixels for an artist avatar, and Apple Music for Artists wants at least 800 by 800 pixels at 72 DPI. For anything that gets printed, a flyer, a poster, supply a 300 DPI version, which is standard print practice.

Providing both a landscape and a portrait crop is practical advice that shows up across industry sources, not a rule any platform enforces, but it’s worth doing. A designer building a flyer or a feature needs options, and giving them both saves a back-and-forth you don’t want to be in.

When do you actually need an EPK?

When you’re pitching someone whose job is to evaluate you. That’s press coverage, interviews, and blog features. Festival and venue bookers. Managers, labels, and publishers. And music supervisors for sync placements. If you’re reaching out to any of them, the EPK is what turns a cold email into something they can act on.

The thing to know is that those audiences read for different things. A booker cares about live video and a tech rider. A sync supervisor cares about the music and clean licensing contact. A journalist cares about the story and the press quotes. So the best-practice move is to build tailored versions, not one EPK you blast to everyone. That part is industry guidance, not a hard rule, but it’s the difference between a kit that lands and one that gets half-read.

Where to put it: the best option is a dedicated page on your own website, because you control it and you’re not tied to a platform sticking around. If you don’t have a site, builders like ReverbNation, Bandzoogle, MusicGlue, or Adobe Express do the job. One thing to skip is a Dropbox link for your audio. One-click playback inside the kit converts better than making someone download a file first.

start your one sheet now with the free generator →

The one sheet and EPK sit at the front of your release marketing, the thing you hand a booker or a journalist. For the rest of the plan, the pre-save and release marketing guide covers the full picture, and the music release budget guide shows where photos, video, and the assets your EPK needs fit into what you spend.