BUT……….while I do agree with 95% of what he said, I do have a few things that need to be covered to really make this what I would consider “fair and balanced”. So here are my two issues that may stop your transmedia empire:
’s book: Rich Dad Poor Dad
, Cashflow Quadrent
and Rich Dad’s Success Stories
.TRAFFIC AND CONNECTIONS: People have to know about you. And not a few people, A LOT OF PEOPLE! CWF+RTB=$$$ (Connection With Fans plus Reason To Buy equals Business Model) is the basis of the argument of doing transmedia and making a lot of money. This formula sounds great as long as you use a well known artist LIKE Trent Reznor and show what here did. See the video here:
But here is the problem for all you starting from zero or in some cases less than zero: No one knows of you. No one. So first you have to build fans and how long will that take? Who knows. Even worst, you might do everything right and still get NO FANS. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is great Trent Reznor did so well with this, but if his was Trent Reznor of Jacksonhole, Wyoming playing music in his garage with no major record label contracts would he have done so well and made so much money? I going to say no. The formula really should be CWF/APF+RTB-POCWFI=$$$ (Connection With Fans divided by Amount of Potential Fans plus Reason To Buy minus the Popularity of Other Connection With Fans Items equals Business Model). Sometimes one plus one doesn’t equal two.
Now after all this is said, if you are ever confused about Transmedia and what you company should “look like” when you are successful and done, just look at George Lucas and his Star War franchise. Now that is REAL transmedia. Talk to you later…
Money: Yes, absolutely -- which is why I'm aiming this at existing RPG publishers, who should have an operational budget. Otherwise, why the fuck are they in business?
ReplyDeleteSecond point -- I strongly disagree. Kevin Kelly pointed out the "1000 True Fans" model (blog article here: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php ). A creative only needs 1000 True Fans -- a true fan is, for the sake of this model, somebody who is willing to spend 100 bucks per year on your stuff. Find 1000 of those, and that's 100K per year -- a comfortable living.
That's not Reznor-numbers, but nice.... and fairly easily doable. I mean hell, based on the sales data I get from RPGNow, Adamant's currently got somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 or so customers at that level, whose email addresses I see time and time again. And that wasn't with me particularly trying hard to expand our audience, using social media, etc. We just stumbled into it.
You don't need Reznor numbers.
"Fans tend to assume a level of ownership of the
ReplyDeleteobject of their fandom — they view it as theirs."
I am still reading through these and the big one that hits me as something we do with Patronage Projects, is we target those 1000 fans, and we give them a greater ownership of the product (they are even in the credits.).
I was already looking into this with the idea of an iphone/ipad app for interactive storytelling and a kindle/ipad anthology novel, so I found this to be really cool.
Steve Russell
Rite Publishing
@Gareth-Michael Skarka - $100K=$66K after taxes(in NY), and that is NOT a comfortable living + money to keep making things to sell to those 1000 "true" fans.
ReplyDeleteAnd $100 worth of stuff per year is a TON of stuff, if you are dependent on the same people. I don't think that is viable in the long run.