There’s maybe something to be gleaned from this Novelr piece on indie writers making money off self-publishing digitally and selling through the Kindle store. The thing is, will there always be a line in the sand that differentiates books published in an eBook only format from books printed on paper? Probably for a while, sure. But I’ll bet you not nearly for as long as you might think.

Consider the rapidity with which blogging transitioned from private journal space to blog personalities to blogging as a legitimate news format. The prestige factor of being a “print” journalist or film critic or whatever has been on the wane for a while now. I’ve worked in the internet in one capacity or another for as long as its been widely available, and seen how the digital mindset is changing the landscape of how information, including books and movies and music, is distributed and consumed. This is not news to you. You’re all smart people.

I was working at Kodak in Internet Marketing, which was then responsible for this entity that became the Kodak website, when digital cameras were first coming out. I project managed some of the first Kodak PhotoGreetings websites — the trial balloons sent up by Kodak’s digital division to, essentially, test consumer readiness to adapt to using digital.

It seems almost ridiculous to think of it now, but I remember meetings at which “old Kodak” consumer (i.e., traditional film) execs actually argued vociferously that consumers would never widely accept the use of digital cameras by non-professionals. There was an overt but not irrelevant sexism to many of the arguments: a sizable chunk of Kodak’s brand loyal film consumers were women — particularly middle-aged women who were no longer tied up all the time with caring for young children. They’d taken a lot of pictures of their offspring during their growing up years, bless their dear little womanly hearts, and now their kidlets were teenagers and they were bored sitting around the house in their pearl necklaces and heels waiting for hubby to come home.

So they made themselves responsible for being the Keepers of Family Memories in the form of photo albums (raise your hand if your mother or grandmother has a whole chest or bookshelf or closet filled with photo albums charting your family’s history). And they wanted to now, and would always and forever, want to do this by buying little yellow boxes of Kodak film and taking 12 or 24 or 36 shots, and then dropping little canisters off at drugstores in little envelopes and then coming back to pick their prints — all 12 or 24 or 36 of them — later.

The Old Kodakers just couldn’t grasp that these women — or really, any of their demographic groups outside of early adopters — would fully make the transition to digital as quickly as they did. That people would actually prefer the convenience of being able to take as many shots as they want without worrying about wasting film. That digital photography would become a completely separate hobbyist group. That digital scrap-booking would come along to stand side-by-side with physical scrap-booking. That things like books — real books, and photographs shot on film and physically manipulated in the development process, and movies shot on film would, very quickly, start to feel a bit archaic. Luxuries.

You go to film fests these days, and some first-time indie wunderkind has a gorgeous film that was actually shot on FILM and everyone’s in awe. Wow, shot on film. How old school-cool. The digital revolution has already come to the indie film world, the RED camera makes it all the more appealing and affordable, and the equally rapid transition the consumer mind-space is making toward changing the definition of what it means to “see a movie” is going to change things even more. Faster than you think.

There’s something to consider in terms of how indie films can be digitally distributed in the eBook model profiled in that article. Why couldn’t indie filmmakers self-distribute films in a similar way without needing to get a distribution deal at all? A Kindle store of sorts with all kinds of obscure indie films, films from the film fest circuit, obscure foreign films, easily accessible, that filmmakers could upload and sell for $3 or $5, keeping 70% of the per-sale profit for themselves? (And by-the-bye, ditto for indie musicians … why give 70% of your profit to a label if you could self-distribute and keep most of it for yourself?)

I love this bit from the article:

… no traditional publisher in the world right now that can offer Amanda Hocking terms that are better than what she’s currently getting, right now on the Kindle store, all on her own.)

Amanda Hocking is 26. She sells over 100,000 ebooks a month for $3 a pop and she keeps 70% of that with minimal overhead. Do the math. If you could sell indie films through a Kindle store for three or four or five dollars, you might make back the cost of making your little indie and actually be able to make another one, assuming you could sell at the levels some of these authors are selling their books.

Is it likely that great numbers of indie filmmakers are going to get rich off selling indie films online-only (eFilms?). Probably not rich, in the Hollywood sense of the word, at least not anytime soon. But could digital distribution completely change the landscape of the way indie filmmakers are delivering their films to their audience, and building and growing their brands? Not only could it, it almost certainly will.

I would love a service that allowed me to easily find and digitally purchase films out of, say, the new wave of Ugandan female directors, or to be able to sign up to be notified by a service when a film made by a director out of the North Carolina School of the Arts is uploaded and available. I’d love, when I stumble across an excellent third or fourth feature by some up-and-coming indie director, to be able to easily and immediately download all their earlier works to catch up on their body of work. I love to follow how my favorite filmmakers grow and change. I would pay $3-5 a film without batting an eye for that level of accessibility.

Basically, what I want is Scarecrow Video times infinity, all deliverable immediately (because I want things NOW NOW NOW) to me over the internet. I already use iTunes and Amazon almost exclusively for buying music now. I still buy physical books and love trips to Powells, but honestly, books are more and more becoming luxury items to me. I can get a lot of movies online, but I want more, and I want them more sortable based on what my particular quirky interests are, and I want it to point me to films I might otherwise not have thought of checking out. No one is quite all the way there yet. But they will be.

So how can indie filmmakers take advantage of this to become Very Rich Indie Filmmakers? Or at least, indie filmmakers who aren’t starving.

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