Think Outside the Box Office…Think Harder? (The Sequel?)

For those who haven’t yet read Jon Reiss‘ DIY distribution “primer-plus” Think Outside the Box Office (TOTBO), I’ll spare you the usual shill-y spiel which goes along the lines of “get yours today, because it’s so [fill in favorite superlative]!”

Truth be told — if you’re anything into the DIY, DIWO (Do It With Others), or DIFY (Do It For Yourself) movements — you’re very late out of the starting gates.

Given the shelf-life of online-only information contained within real (not e-) books these days, Jon has announced he’ll be getting into the habit of issuing what he refers to as updated “bonus chapters,” or addenda, that aim to map the latest relevant changes, industry moves, and vertical shakes for specific sections of his book.

Reiss’ latest issuance is a revamped chapter on “fulfillment.”

What’s fulfillment, you ask? Well, indie sports fans, indie mavens who can’t be bothered with this sort of thing…have I got some dreadful news for you! It’s time to bone up and pronto! The days of attending Sundance with The Chase brothers (Vinny and Johnny Drama) with E and Turtle in tow, hoping and praying to the Film Gods that Ari — the scallywag — will somehow finagle one of the mini majors to scoop up your picture in a negative pickup aren’t necessarily dead and gone — but the odds are stacked heavily against you. If you’re game to take a running start at a brick wall, like the old adage says: have at it, Hoss! I hope you’ve got good medical.

If you sell product — and if you’re an indie filmmaker interested in extending your brand and delving into transmedia campaigns for your film (I can just hear it now: what’s transmedia?) — you should definitely consider outsourcing to a fulfillment company. And the reason is simple: seeing as you don’t have the clout (yet!) to be stocking thousands of units of your DVD in your basement or walk-up apartment, you need a company to handle this task for you: from picking the stock off a shelf, packing it in a box, adding other your accessories and documents, and shipping the product by USPS (if you’re in the US) or via expedited courier (if you’re somewhere internationally).

These companies, with names like The 4th Way, Neoflix, The Connextion, and — of course — Amazon, provide this service to you, aspiring filmmaker, for a grab-bag of hefty fees and commissions, so it’s best to bone up if you’re planning on making moving pictures into your chosen career.

The additional chapter is a precise breakdown of a hypothetical fulfillment scenario for Bomb It!, Jon and Tracy Wares‘ kickass whirlwind documentary about street art, graffiti, tagging, and art in the public domain. In it, Jon asks a series of typical what-if questions — if I sell 2,500 units of my movie’s DVD in Year One, but suffer from slow sales in Year 2 only having sold 200 units, what happens? How much have I earned in total, and how much am I out-of-pocket? He provides answers, showing you via spreadsheets and a step-by-step companion guide how this very scenario would function in reality.

But there’s a catch to all of this…you can’t get your mitts on the addenda unless you purchase the original bound or PDF title from TOTBO’s online store. And if you think that’s too expensive at under twenty bucks, then I suspect you’re not serious enough about getting a heap of advice from a DIY specialist celebrated by indie giants the likes of Filmmaker Magazine‘s Scott Macaulay and Lance Weiler, with the testimonials to prove it. Full disclosure: I like Jon Reiss. I respect Jon Reiss. However, I am not an employee of Jon Reiss’; ergo, I make the above affirmations of my own volition without any prodding from Jon’s fulfillment company. ;-)

For those of you who have read TOTBO before, I’d love to know some of your opinions about it in the comments below.