Self Published Writers and the Free Media

Last summer, my company made a 20 minute feature film pilot, BARBARIANS AT THE GATE, about the rise of fascism in the West Midlands. This exists both as a completed feature film script and as a novella.

My next step is to start a FACEBOOK and WEBSITE dedicated to helping self published writers get their books noticed - using methodology derived from the music and film industries.

In particular, I'm trying to get self published authors to use the "free media" on the Internet and embrace the "Radiohead ethos" that "free is the new black." I was further convinced as to the wisdom of this approach when I attended an important masterclass given by Martin Atkins (formerly the drummer with Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke) to promote his important book, TOUR SMART, at Kidderminster College, where I am head of HND Filmmaking. This was on the first Monday of December in 2009.

Basically, self published writers fail because nobody will review self published books in the broadsheet or style press. To be self-published on a site like lulu.com, Trafford or Blue Chrome is still to be secretly published, even if you buy an ISBN number that guarantees you a place on Amazon.com In the mid 1990s, the novelist Stewart Home applied a variation of the punk ethos in using a series of stunts to get his books noticed by the style press but this kind of strategy remained in its infancy before the proliferation on the Internet.

So how does one proceed in an enviroment where genuine literature (including generic literature) is being squeezed out by Celebrity Tat and other manifestations of the Consumerist Spectacle and where agents are only interested in writers who are already published. How does one break into the Magick circle?

Adapting the methodology of my soon to be published book on movie script writing (From Mumblecore to Mainstream: The Guerilla Filmmakers' Guide to Classical Narrative Construction) I advise the following:
1) Set up a GOOD web site specifically to sell your book.
2) Employ the services of a script editor (if you can afford it). This is not the same thing asa proof reader.
3) Publish your novel on line in serial form or in its entirity.
4) Find an internet community with common points of interest to your book, join the site, establish links and build a fan base.
5) Film webisodes of your novel and post on YOUTUBE with links both to your website and your cyber-community fan base.
6) Develop a feature film script based on your novel and film a pilot. Enter as a short film into as many festivals as possible.
7) Publish the short film on the Internet in YOU TUBE segments, as a torrent or both.
8) Sell merchandising related to the above project, thereby exploiting the space around your product. For example, anyone buying a copy of your book or a tee shirt for more than £200 gets a signed copy plus a production credit in the feature film - when it's eventually made. This is how a lot of Mumblecore filmmakers like Jim Swanberg finance their films in the US but also hown Nick Love raised the initial cash to make OUTLAW.

And this is EXACTLY the method that I'll be employing when I make my second feature film pilot, BARGAIN, in Yardley Wood, Birmingham, in January. The story of a Bosnian asylum seeker drawn into a vigilante conspiracy who unwittingly kills a police protected witness, this already exists BOTH as a feature film script and novella.

The plan for actionis as follows:
1) Film BARGAIN as a pilot and get it out on the festival circuit.
2) Design a decent website to promote the project.
3) Put the novella IN ITS ENTIRITY onto the website
4) Break down the short film into YOUTUBE hits and publish on the net
5) Establish a cyber-community around the film and novella to promote it.
6) Publish an anthology of short stories, JADED JERUSALEM, that includes BARGAIN.
7) Create merchandising. Anyone who buys an anthology, a copy of the 20 minute pilot or a teer shirt for more than £200 gets it signed and a production credit on the eventual feature film.

And so we have lift off!!