Independent Film Book Distribution

by Gary Gerald Smith

In 2006, I produced and distributed my first motorcycle adventure documentary movie on DVD "Burro Has Three Wheels" motorcycle touring Latin America and the Pan American Highway.

I contacted some great motorcycle accessories distributors such as Aerostich Catalog, Whitehorse Press and others to offer my motorcycle sidecar travel tour DVDs.  For me however I determined long term success could also be realized by simply becoming an independent film producer distributor.

To date I have produced and distributed 7 successful indie film episodes, all receiving terrific reviews.  Mexico, Central America, Colombia & Ecuador, Peru Chile Argentina, Alaska Prudhoe Bay Highway, Alaska to Labrador Highway, Newfoundland to Florida Highway.

Independent authors and producers have asked me for guidance in distributing their product.  What follows are some of the basic issues you will need to consider.

Production Cost vs. Retail Price   

Independent film producers and independent book publishers like ours do not have a Hollywood or New York style distribution system everything cost more to produce. 

Actual expenses for filming, legal, music and other rights have to be factored into the production and will be different for every production.  This is the largest expense you will have.  Your customer is supporting this cost indirectly.  The cost of this portion of the production is variable.

If you are publishing a book these cost will be variable as well and depend upon who does the printing for you.

DVD movies can be produced various ways but the most economical for small numbers of items is usually in house but requires your time and the purchase of equipment besides just the normal one burner drive on your computer. 

Only DVD-R will work for a small producers production because the older DVD players cannot play the newer +R versions.

Now add the cost of a website.  If you create your own webpage and operate it you have better control but you may encounter a learning curve creating applicable meta tags (keywords) applicable to your product.  I have spent nearly 2 years refining these tags.  Currently these domain names and meta tags have produced over 31000 hits.

I use Network Solutions for a web server.  Through the years I have found they are the most dependable and charge more than most other providers.  I spend about $1700.00 per year.  It is hard to equate this to your particular sales but it is a cost only you can factor after seeing your revenue.

Here are some more costs to calculate

Ebay, Paypal, Amazon-charges a monthly fee of around $45.00 and requires a UPC which can be purchased through the internet for about $300.00. Various banks provide credit card acceptance services.  I have an account with Quickbooks to accept credit cards over the phone.

If you consider the cost of having a web server and the various advertising venues and financial charges it is evident that cost related to your production requires reasonable retail value.  Again only you can determine what your product is worth.

Finally make a movie or book trailer and post it on U Tube.

                  

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