Well as we’re talking about engaging potential marketing partners from the earliest stages of Production, it inevitably raises the question: What if the film is already completed?
I’ve been following several self-distribution DVD launches over the last year or so and I can tell you this – the best ways to make a splash with your DVD and to sell a REAL amount of units (1000 or more), is done one of two ways:
1. Either by doing a heavy amount of internet marketing including using some of those partner relationships you developed early on, or
2. By taking your film on the road for an extensive screening tour
If you’re going the internet route, prepare to spend 3-4 months in prep before you pull the trigger with the launch. And if you prepare to go the screening route, it can take anywhere from 4-12 months on the road to gain enough traction to sell enough DVD’s to make a real difference to your bottom line. Then you need to have the back-end infrastructure online to actually sell the DVD’s, so you’ll need prep time for that. But from what I’m hearing so far, the results using this higher cost approach can be well worth the effort….
And what about money? I recommend having some kind of budget in place to launch your DVD online. Some people include enough in the budget to hire help both with coordinating the launch and executing it. If you are doing screenings, you might want to consider hiring a company to book the theaters for you….and then there is the marketing. So your budget can be anywhere from nothing to a couple hundred thousand dollars depending on what you intend to hire out, and what you can do yourself.
I have a couple of resources on Film Specific that talk about budgeting for Self-Distribution. You can find them here:
http://www.filmspecific.com/members/925.cfm
http://www.filmspecific.com/members/808.cfm
I’m in the process of putting together extensive case studies on filmmakers using both of these approaches so stay tuned for those. But in the mean time, I’d love to hear from you – anyone out there have experience successfully launching their DVD and selling units directly to consumers from their website? Which approach worked best – internet only, or screenings, or both?
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...founder of 
At http://www.thecontentbay.com aspires to be the major site independent film producers turn to for digital distribution. The service has beneficial revenue sharing and required no start-up fees. The movies will be sold and marketed at both thecontentbay.com and the major site Ameibo.com.
The idea of Ameibo started in the spring of 2007 when four of the founders of successful digital marketing company Tradedoubler, came up with a unique concept. The vision was to combine the BitTorrent sharing technology and vast content of the illegal movie sites with an easy-to-use legal option. A user that buys a movie will earn money by sharing it to other Ameibo users. A concept that no other movie site in the world has, and a slap in the face of the illegal movie community.
Today, Ameibo has more than 20 000 customers in 150 countries with a rapidly increasing catalogue of more than 5000 movies. The Content Bay is in direct connection with Ameibo but has it´s focus on Independent movies and minor studios.
Go to a distributor, thats easy. Road trip is maybe not easy because right know many films dont get sold at all