Louis CK and the future of distribution
2December 14, 2011 by Dan
By now, most people who know who he is have bought Louis CK’s special. I’m going to buy and watch it this weekend. What’s most interesting about it is how he did it – made a video, put it online, priced it fairly (less than a movie! a bit more than a couple of episodes of TV on iTunes), but in a way that basically says “hey, fans, you know me. I trust you. Go ahead and buy my special and do what you will.”
It’s very heartening for those of us who do produce content of any kind. It’s less heartening for those of us who don’t have a rabid fan base. Louis can do this because he’s got that base. It’s a base that he’s worked and bled for, and now he’s basically totally in control of his own destiny. As long as he keeps being funny, people will buy his stuff, watch his show on FX that he has total control over, and go to see him at the clubs.
No pressure on that, BTW. I’d never sleep.
But for those of us trying to break out…how does this new world of distribution work? Louis is almost the reverse of the ideal – he had to go through the standard system to build his base, getting a terrible sitcom, appearing on unfunny late-night shows, all of that. In a system where the creators are their own distributors and promoters, how do you break out? Being a brilliant writer/funnyman/musician doesn’t mean anything if nobody hears.
And…no sour grapes here; if I had the time and energy to really promote the book, I’d have done a better job promoting it. As it is, I got married this year, got laid off and found a new job, and managed to keep my life together. That’s pretty good. And I’ll get a decent tax writeoff on all of the book stuff for the business side of my life. So I’m OK.
But man, I’d love to sell 100,000 copies of the book at $3 apiece. It’s not that much money, really. So how to do it?
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As a writer it’s hard to whore yourself because people have to read. Even an illiterate can listen to a comedian. Even a reader can listen to a comedian as they read. So you should consider audio books and merchandise, too. Create the book and the shirt for an illiterate can wear a shirt.
Then you begin by writing to this blog more often, joining Facebook, getting a Twitter account, a Reddit account and whoring with more than one of them EVERY SINGLE DAY. You write more books/short stories/poems/thoughts and whore them to big publishers if nothing else than advertisement when you sell the books for a dollar on Amazon, iTunes and Barnes and Noble while selling html, pdf, audio and text forms on this website with links to paypal to pay you one dollar.
And while you’re writing the books you create a fictional story with blogs with google ads to keep the small fiction fan base happy with constant new fiction and to make a few pennies. Then if you’re really good and do it long enough then maybe you sell ad space that will actually make you money.
And while you read, write, edit and publish your fiction every day, in some form, while whoring yourself through Facebook, Twitter…Blah, blah, blah…you create and write the processes to edit and publish electric books then write the non-fiction book, and it is non-fiction manual/how-to/reference books that you are more likely to make the real writing money either through a big house publishing house or yourself or as job as technical writer. The money is less likely to be millions or hundreds of thousands and more likely to be thousands.
Then after twenty years you will likely have a reading fan base to begin something. Then after twenty years if your wife is not understanding then you get divorced. And if your job is gone then you write more and try every day to get another job and write the how-to book on getting a job or surviving without a job. If you are getting married then WRITE notes and an outline about the emotions and chaos that was preventing you from writing, so you can later have some pure words to write a romantic comedy book or script or play (for an illiterate will pay for a performance).
Kalab,
Tells you how often I check my own website – you’re making a really good point here. I think we’re both in software for a reason, right?