Business Musings: Content, Content, Content (Hollywood Part 2)

A few weeks ago, I got a survey from the Global Licensing Group, the people in charge of the Las Vegas Licensing Expo. They wanted to know my opinion (and probably hundreds of other people’s opinions) about content. Is it important? Why is it important? How should I/we/they handle it? Oh, and am I a content provider (licensor) or someone who licenses content (licensee)? I […]

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Business Musings: Over Capitalization and Hamster Wheels

Well, you see, I’ve still been noodling the question I asked last week about the writers trying to game Amazon’s algorithms and seem to have lost the heart of their writing. What motivates them?

I know a lot of real writers—and you probably do too—who are still trying to game those algorithms. Those are the people I’m trying to figure out.

And Chef’d and MoviePass helped explain them to me.

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The Business Rusch: More Distribution Changes

This morning, my iPad Los Angeles Times app informed me that the creators of the TV show Veronica Mars had started a Kickstarter project. They wanted two million dollars to jump-start a movie, using the original cast. I clicked the link to Kickstarter and donated. At the time, the movie hadn’t yet reached its goal. As of Wednesday evening, it had. I have my browser […]

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The Business Rusch: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

I have been down the rabbit hole, and it is labeled “Philip K. Dick.” I had a simple question: Who benefits directly from the Philip K. Dick estate? I found websites, wikipages, arguments, lawsuits over movies, and all kinds of other things, none of which directly answered my question. Until I located an interview conducted by the Library of America with Jonathan Lethem and Laura […]

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The Business Rusch: The All-Important Fan Base

I spent the holidays seeing movies. I expected to relax. I did not expect to find a blog topic, but I did. Two of the movies I saw, Jack Reacher, and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, came from books. Both films had a different approach to the book’s fan base.  In one case, it might pay off. In another, it didn’t. For months, I have […]

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The Business Rusch: The End of The World as We Know It

If you read mainstream publishing news, like I do, occasionally your head will explode. Or you’ll run around in a panic, turning into one of those long-haired barefoot New Yorker cartoon characters, carrying a sign saying that the world is about to end. For many in traditional publishing, the world is ending. Their clout is vanishing and their ability to understand what is going on […]

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