In case you didn’t know, we have at long last released our book Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul and had a launch party last week in New York City. Thanks to all who turned out to wish us well and buy a physical copy (even though they could have a free one digitally, who knew?).

There are only a few days left to get your free digital download for whatever reading device you have and mostly for anywhere in the world. The text only pdf will always be free so there will be NO excuse to not have the helpful information inside no matter where you live. Unfortunately, iTunes sales will only work in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, France and Germany.  Amazon sales will only work in the US, UK and Germany for now. We have a book distributor who is sorting out the printed edition for bookstores and he should be getting the book out in other countries IF iTunes allows digital books on those sites. Spain, for example, does not have digital books in the iTunes store much to the disappointment of my boys from The Cosmonaut

The .mobi and ePub files on our own site will work on these devices so you can manually download them from the site and upload to the device. These will be coming off of the site when the free period is over, so if you planned on getting a copy for free and from anywhere in the world, hurry up.

Here are a few quotes from filmmakers who have read the book:

“The book dispels misinformation that has been circulating with regards to actual income that can be derived by utilizing various types of deals involving and/or combining VOD, digital rights, theatrical releases and DVD sales and offers real life case studies that talk about the creative campaigns filmmakers have devised that are working.”-Scriptshark.com

“So far I’m up to page 52 and I can assure you that this is absolutely essential reading for independent filmmakers. Indie producers, myself included, are usually quite coy about the financial side of filmmaking…Well, this book bares it all! I am shocked and delighted by the transparency of the filmmakers involved.”-Playitsafemovie.com

“It’s a gold mine of information from a group of people that have gone out and done what someone like me, a person with a non-mainstream film, wants/needs to do.”-Jeff Barry Films

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We are discussing plans for a Los Angeles launch party to coincide with DIY Days at UCLA on October 28 so our LA friends can celebrate with us. Stay tuned for details. Also regarding DIY Days, that is a FREE event (we LOVE free right?) and should be packed with filmmakers, gamers, hackers and all kinds of transmedia peeps in the LA area. Major networking going on there so make your plan to skip work that day and spend it on the UCLA campus.

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I have been asked to participate in the International Women in Digital Media Summit (iWDMS) in Stratford, Ontario, Canada on October 25. The keynote speaker for the summit is Arianna Huffington which is awesome! Registration closes October 12. My panel is on  Distributing Digital Projects, Case Study: ‘Moderation Town’ and I will talk about connecting with audiences when distributing work digitally. If you are in Stratford, come say hi.

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My lovely friend Tiffany Shlain has a new documentary releasing now and for the next few months across the United States called Connected. I saw it at Sundance this year and it blew me away. I love the subject matter of course (love of technology and proclaiming our Interdependence!) and she has been making the rounds online and on traditional media outlets to talk about the concepts behind her film. Here’s the trailer:

Join the film’s Facebook page for updates on where the film is playing and go see it.

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Last update, the return of #filmin140 to Twitter. Yes, we took a hiatus for summer, but we plan to be back in October. Emails between Charles Judson, Mark Bell and I have been flying and we think our next session will be on using social media (believe me, the irony of using Twitter to discuss how to use social media with luddites did not escape us!) We have a few ideas for filmmakers who are doing this really well, but if you know someone or you ARE someone doing this, please send me a message @shericandler. No firm date in October yet, but it will be a Wednesday. Stay tuned for that.

Unfortunately, a great number of key digital platforms must be accessed through the use of an aggregator. Of course there are always exceptions, but the general rule is that to get your films onto Cable VOD, iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, Sony Playstation and other device oriented options and retailer digital platforms , you will have to go through an aggregator or a distributor. We either directly or via partners offer both a commission or a flat fee option (range depends on platforms).

However, you can get onto Amazon directly. Also, you can access DIY oriented ones such as Mubi, Fans of Film and other platforms like them. To the best of our knowledge, more money is made on the key high trafficked platforms, if one can get on them.

Once again we remind you, MARKETING, MARKETING, MARKETING is key to your film’s success no matter what distribution outlet you use.

Studios such as WB and Lionsgate have leverage with the Cable MSOs and work to  get films marketed and New Video has marketing leverage with iTunes. New Video  works via social media outreach by disseminating a release with images & clips  to sites such as Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon and posts a release on PR distribution sites (ClickPress, i-Newswire, eCommWire, The Open Press) along with feed-based announcements on Google blog search, Technorati, Yahoo! News, Topix etc., tagged with keywords for easier discovery. They also claim to do online grassroots outreach, email marketing and trailer and clip tagging.

Gravitas notes that its PR firms and staff release information about new titles to key websites and bloggers and they utilize what they call “VOD Guide Optimization” where they utilize  relationships with operators to raise the profile of certain Gravitas titles.

Distribber makes it clear that the marketing is up to the filmmaker (and they are also referring our TFC Marketing Services), but all the revenue goes to the filmmakers with no backend percentages taken.

CRM cites the marketing it does and we’re not sure what it entails beyond the usual Facebook and Twitter announcements, but we’re looking into it.

Whichever aggregator you choose to work with, make sure you have either a very firm marketing plan in place and committed to and/or know that you need to deploy one yourself.

New Video-They are choosy about the films they represent and they charge 15% of all revenue generated.

IndieFlix- They go through New Video and charge a 30% Fee on all revenue generated (we think that’s inclusive of the New Video fee but are waiting to confirm).

Indie Rights- They go through New Video and charge a 20% fee in addition to the New Video fee.

IndieRights and IndieFlix also work with platforms other than iTunes as do we at TFC so that should be factored in when making distribution decisions.

Tunecore-Aggregates straight to iTunes. Distribber uses Tunecore to access iTunes. Distribber charges a flat fee of $1,295 for iTunes and all the revenue flows back to the filmmaker, no backend fees. TFC uses Tunecore and works with Distribber as a partner (we are working with them for no extra charge to filmmakers).

Gravitas- A VOD / digital aggregator (who often goes through Warner Bros), they will handle your iTunes submission, but that’s two fees (each at 15% as we understand it and they claim that Warner Bros and studios in general get better revenue even from Apple).

Warner Bros and Lionsgate- TFC works with Lionsgate and it seems that both have more marketing leverage (as does New Video)  to get best promotion possible on iTunes. This can make a big difference and should be factored in along with analysis of backend splits and fees.

TFC works with both the flat fee and commission models because of the fact that when cable VOD or even sometimes DVD is a valuable option, regular digital often goes with them.

Popular rental platforms include iTunes, YouTube, and Virgin Media. Caution: Rental in due time. New Video, for example, notes seeing a clear cannibalization of DTO when Rental is turned on too soon. The number of people who will buy, just have to have it, are stronger if a rental release is delayed. If released at the same time, those that would have bought will rent if they can.

To keep up with all of our latest updates and news relevant to the world of digital distribution, check our Facebook business page.

Download-To-Own (DTO) is a transactional platform. iTunes, Playstation, Xbox, Amazon VOD are all DTO sites.  iTunes and Xbox account for the majority of the non-cable revenue in the digital space, for now.

Several Hollywood studios have announced that they are doing deals with a new download-to-own store from DivX  and the site FreshFilm.com such that their movies will be playable on millions of DivX enabled devices.

To keep up with all of our latest updates and news relevant to the world of digital distribution, check our Facebook business page.

From a revenue-generating point of view, at present, those who deal in the space will tell you that iTunes is the #1 platform; Hulu is working well for some but not for all; and that Netflix’s “Watch Now” is starting to show promise but one’s film needs to be on DVD with them too and be somewhat in demand. Some platforms are subscription based, some are transactional, and some are ad-tagged revenue-based. And sometimes a hybrid of the two not is only a doable solution but actually an ideal one, especially for smaller special-interest films.

Much of this information can be found within our Digital Distribution Guide, available to our members. For this week, you can gain access to the full Guide by contributing $35 to our IndieGoGo campaign.