OT packaging in the age of the Internet

it used to be you got a star to sign on to a project, you went to the distributor and got a contract and that was like money in the bank and you made a movie

now everything is changed: letters of intent from talent are difficult

distributors don't give out contracts

banks don't lend money on the basis of a contract, unless it's a major

but Internet networking is opening up some interesting possibilities

there is a huge demand for content from the Internet and for us Final Cut Pro editors and filmmakers there are a lot of opportunities for making movies

so how should we package a movie now? I'm interested in sharing ideas and knowledge that will benefit us all

Vic

I sell my (some of my) movies non-exclusive on Amazon.com, through their On Demand fullfillment partner www.CustomFlix.com

If you sign up as a Producer Studio (which is totally free), please give me referral credit Producer 93602 .

The most it would ever cost you out of pocket to put a Title into the Amazon.com catalog through this method is $50.

They have zero listing fee promotions from time to time. I posted here about their service and then current zero listing fee promotion last November 2006.

It is a 'get paid as you go service'... they take the orders from Amazon.com, DVD-R duplicate, print the sleeve, assemble the case and sleeve, ship, and pay me monthly.

You get paid a bit more per unit sold if you Replicate and ship the inventory to them, but Replication is out of pocket capital front end expense, and one never knows how much inventory to create.

Beats working! Actually, it gives me back 99% of my time to focus on shooting and editing.

You can put trailers on YouTube.com and MySpace.com to drive traffic to your sales portal.

Thank you, Nick, I appreciate it.

I was tempted to join a few months ago, but I hadn't heard of them and I wasn't sure about their deal with Amazon and if they really pay -- well, there's pay and there's pay, you know what I mean?

But if you're happy with them, I'm going to give it a shot ... with one of my titles and if they pay anywhere decent, like around $100 a month or more, I'll give them more films. Of course, it depends on the title :-)

I think they're non-exclusive also, aren't they? So I can sell my movies in other markets as well.

I've been with www.CustomFlix.com for 2 years and 5 months. The first year was slow, until Amazon bought them. Now the monthly sales has become significant and substantial.

I listed about 15 titles at the going rate of $50 per title over the first year and a half. Then they had the zero listing fee promo last Nov-Jan, and I listed another 30-35 titles.

Amazon.com is a user driven community, so when someone buys your title, or even simply looks at the merchandise page for the title, or puts one on their wish list, recommendations and placement ranking seem to go up - thus bringing your title to the view of more Amazon customers.

They pay 30 days out (revenues earned April 1-30 will hit my Bank account via direct deposit by or before the last day of May). They send weekly and monthly sales summaries via e-mail, both of which you can paste into Excel and track, plus the webpage for your account is real-time for unit sales info as well as cost accounting.

I heard once that they tried to get something going with Ebay, but E had a fit about the DVD-R thing and ditched the bride at the altar. I think DVD-R nowadays is fairly rock solid.

Hey Nick, where did you see this on their website? You said...
"You get paid a bit more per unit sold if you Replicate and ship the inventory to them, but Replication is out of pocket capital front end expense, and one never knows how much inventory to create."
I've got an inventory of DVD's that I want to start selling, they are already replicated.
Thanks

Matt Murray
Lineside Productions
[www.edgesportfishing.com]
Fishing videos, DVD Production, Websites and more.

Hey, Matt, call them. Their number is on the website. They will allow you to send them your DVDs.

Hi Matt -

heh... of course now I do not find the link to customer provided DVDs, either! it was there 2 1/2 years ago!

It is possible that CustomFlix modified that after becoming an Amazon company, since Amazon.com does provide a marketplace for merchants to sell directly... so if you only want to sell your DVD inventory, there might be other Amazon.com options.

I just do the CustomFlix.om DVD-R on demand, and let them do all the work, because I'm too poor to front $1500 - $2000 at a time to Replicate 1000 DVDs, plus shipping on the 1000, then more for packaging and shipping to fulfill individual orders.


They do answer the phone and they are responsive to Sales inquiry e-mails.