Have Fun Digging. (aka The illusionary dollars of layoffs and new media)
Editorial Note: I was in the middle of writing my commentary on this week’s manga charts when I was sidetracked by a pack of rogue neurons who got together and downloaded this diatribe right into the middle of my train-of-thought on manga marketing. As has happened in the past, one of my good rants is often better than the article that prompts it, so even though I’m still working on the ur-commentary I’ll pull this chunk out of context and post it first. And while this is largely aimed at Tokyopop, I think there might be some splash damage for other comics publishers who are trying to push themselves as New Media Companies.
We now join our rant, already in progress…
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—I need to interrupt that thought: there is no replacement for the right person who possesses the right expertise working in an appropriate position. Your first, best, second best, and in the end the only asset that positively impacts your bottom line, are your employees.
Say you own a diamond mine: you likely think that your greatest asset is the mine.
Sure it is.
…Have fun digging.
It’s cheaper to keep ‘em on the payroll. You want to pay consultant rates for stuff an expert just knows? Some of these folks genuinely love their work; heck, they’ve either been doing it for years or spend 40 hours a week outside of the job reading comics and reading about comics (or both) and likely have the equivalent of a clippings file (or a batch of web bookmarks) that enables them to answer your stupid questions in scant minutes when they don’t know something off the top of their head.
People charge money for this kind of thing; I know because I want that information, too, and no one is willing to part with it for less than 2 bills. It’s as true for publishing (or ‘media’) as for any business: It’s far easier and more cost-effective to keep expertise in house no matter what you’re doing. The ‘savings’ accrued from using freelancers instead of salaried staff is an illusionary dollar, in my opinion. You want people working for you and with you, not just working.
When you start laying off employees… Well, there is this biology term that I’ve misappropriated and tend overuse in this application: autolysis. Death of the organism from the inside out.
And I’ve ranted about this before but I’ll dig this horse up and beat it again.
Say you want to transition from comics to ‘media’ (whatever that is) just because Marvel got lucky with a couple of their lottery tickets and suddenly you’re thinking, “oh, that’s where the money is”. I don’t know if you were paying attention but Marvel made arrangements to borrow up to half a billion dollars to cover that bet, and if fickle movie audiences or egoist directors or the all-important casting director or mercurial actors had made any of a hundred different decisions badly (or at least, not in the way that they did) then we’d be blogging about which creditors now own which parts of the Marvel catalog, who’s interested in buying and at what discount.
(Oh, and Iron Man? That’s a win. But the second Hulk I can only give half credit for. Marvel got Robert Downey Jr. and got lucky, and that’s the story that leads but the jury is decidedly still out on whether the Marvel Movie Gamble ends up being hailed as a genius business decision or, like Spider-man on TV, just another blip in the long Marvel history.)
There are no guaranteed profits to be found here. Sure, roll the dice — If you have money to spare. Personally, I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
The point? The money wasn’t made by the movie. No, wait, I’ll explain:
It was earned for the company by people, folks who like and respect the concept, the character, and the audience. They made a story that would sell. That story was wrapped up in a package that just happened to look like a movie. Don’t become so enamored of the packaging that you forget the product we all sell are Stories.
And stories-in-books are cheaper to produce.
Oh, I know,
“it’s so hard to make books… I want in on that easy Hollywood money.”
Newsflash: Hollywood is even harder and costs a lot more money. It’s just that you’re not doing the work.
What do you call a hundred-million-dollar enterprise that employs hundreds of people (thousands?) over the course of year or two, with the associated planning, logistics, accounting, insurance, marketing, and a finished product distributed world-wide to thousands of outlets?
That’s a company.
Each and every movie production is a self contained company that works to make a single product.
I can’t be 100% certain but I think most folks with a ‘new media’ press release already have a company, they’re just tired of working.
Go ahead, admit it: You want someone to hand you a check and maybe an Associate Producer credit and then you want to go to cocktail parties and say, oh, so-and-so is attached to direct and start referring to big name actors by the first names or initials and then you hang around like a frickin’ groupie on set, always in the way, even the gaffers are sick of working around you and then red carpet premiers in LA, New York, London, and Tokyo where no one will even know who you are but you get to wear a tux or a gown and get the limo and get to feel like a all-imporant movie exec when in actuality you’re nothing but a self-important ass.
And if it isn’t even your property to begin with, then to belabor my metaphor: not only are you looking for free money, you’re not even buying your own lottery tickets — you are instead ripping them from the hands of the deserving creators; you know, the fine people who actually work for a living. That’s even worse: You don’t want to work, you want a multi-million-dollar handout, and you’re willing to steal for it.
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SO, my point: 10 things to think before starting your New Media Company
1. You sell stories. I love good stories; we all do. That’s why we give you money.
This is your business. Y’all should already know this but I’m prepared to have it engraved on an axe handle and beat you over the head with it until you remember.
2. Don’t lose sight of the story because of how it’s packaged: a movie is just another way to tell a story. Selling Books is a boring business but they are still the cheapest, most cost-effective way to get stories into the marketplace. (well… there is this internet thing but it is damnably hard to get people to pay for internet content)
3. You want to ‘get into movies’. Fine. Guess what: You’re not making the movie. Once you know the right people, the movie makes itself.
4. If you’re telling great stories, the right people come to you.
5. Do you really need to set up a whole new company to sell ideas? Concentrate on the ideas and then hire an agent. (op. cit. “there is no replacement for the right person who possesses the right expertise working in an appropriate position”)
6. No, really: WTF. The best press release would have been something like “MangaRevolution, the leader in repackaging Tokyo pop culture, has selected leading Hollywood agency DeMille-Bunuel-Lumiere-Lang to represent their properties to the major domestic and international studios”
The actual Tokyopop announcement was more like: “We’re thinking of planning to maybe look into this Hollywood thing. But it’s Manga, so it’s Cool“ (…that kind of thinking is so 2004. get with the new program )
If you want a movie, hire an agent. They’re the professionals, after all. Anything else is a half-assed amateur effort.
7. If you really want a movie, hell, get out there and raise $100M and hire the right talent and run a company that makes movies. (That’s the Marvel Model, actually. They discovered licensing doesn’t pay as well, so they cowboyed-up and put their ass on the line for the real deal.)
8. You notice how I said, “hire the right talent”? You don’t know how to make a movie, obviously, since you think the industry is just a ready source of free money.
9. Related, and for the nth time: Business is about money, sure, but it’s not the widgets or the movie or the comics that earn money for your company: It’s the people.
10. Respect people. Payroll is *not* an expense, it is an investment. In the end, employees are your only asset.
