My debut novel, Billy Bobble Makes A Magic Wand, is being
published by Elephant's Bookshelf Press.
It will be available as an e-book in December.
Why am telling this to a bunch of filmmakers who mainly
come here to see if they can glean some tidbit of information on how their
submission is doing during Dances With Films' selection process? One word:
Marketing.
In order for any independent work of art to earn its keep,
people who are not friends or family of the artist must buy (or in the case of
a painter or sculptor, hear about and want to buy) the artist's work. Let's think about that for a minute.
Right now on Facebook, I have 645 friends. If every single one of them buys my book, it
will be a failure. By that, I don't mean
it will be a bad book. This isn't about
measuring good or bad art by the number of people who buy it or how much they
pay for it. This about the artist
becoming self-sustainable on their art alone.
Filmmakers understand this more than most artists, since they have to
raise a ton of money to create their work.
Investors aren't likely to lose money more than once or twice, so making
art that turns a profit is as important to the artist as it is the
distributor.
Back to my book. How am
I going to reach beyond the 645 people I can easily bombard with Facebook? How
am I going to get complete strangers to shell out cash for my little story?
There's a 2-step answer: First, get good reviews. Second, get those reviews out beyond my 645
friends.
Luckily the literary world is full of people who love to
read and write. Being dyslexic, I have
never been one of those crazed readers, but I'm glad they exist. These voracious reader/writers often blog
about what they are reading, so independent publishers like Elephant's
Bookshelf Press find the most influential bloggers and beg borrow or steal
reviews. Hopefully, these reviews
written on widely read blogs will be seen by people who are not in my 645
friend-pool.
That's one way it works for books. How does it work for movies?
If you're reading this blog to find out how your film is
doing in the selection process, you already know one of the answers. Get your movie into film festivals. Those laurels go a long way into letting
strangers know that you made a real movie.
But, for many of you, Dances With Films has just sent a
letter asking you how you're going to promote your Los Angeles screening. "What do you mean?" asks the
inexperienced filmmaker. "I thought
that was the festival's job."
It is, and DWF does a fantastic job of promoting… the
festival. It's up to you to promote your
movie.
That job will be easier once you have reviews, but do you
really want your film to play to an empty house when the critics and
distributors are there? I don’t think
so.
There is no one right answer to how you're going to get
people off their couches and into the theatre for your movie. Truth be told, if the cast and crew all come
and bring a few friends, you'll do okay for your premiere. If you're satisfied with okay, then
great.
If you want a career, you're going to need a line around the
block. You're going to need us to add another
screening because you turned away a whole second audience. Even that won't guarantee that your movie has
a successful run, but it'll help. Every
little bit helps.
I've said it before on this blog and others, but I'll say it
again. Book publishing and movie
distribution have become so similar that it's hard to tell them apart. Both are transcoding files for iTunes,
Amazon, Nook, etc. Both are trying to
tweak their poster/cover art so the thumbnail image will catch the casual
shopper's eye. Both are trying get their
metadata just right to make sure browse engines find them. Both are trying to dial in the right download
price for the right time in the release.
Normally, in the off season for Dances With Films, I don't
blog at all. This summer, look for
entries about the independent publishing process, in the hopes that you'll gain
some insight into the independent film process.
Why am I doing this?
Duh! I want you to buy – and also enjoy – my book!
Thanks for reading.
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