Anyone on Amazon Prime?

How do you get on Amazon Prime? I'm already with Amazon Video Direct. I can't remember if I opted out of Amazon Prime or if it was even an option.

A friend of mine got their low budget indie movie up on Amazon Video Direct as well as for rent on Amazon. 99% of his sales were Amazon Prime! He reports earning $1,000 in the first quarter. Which leads to my next question... Do you get a big bump when your movie is a new release and then revenue drops off big time? Or can you expect the same consistent revenue quarter after quarter?
 
We have several films available on Amazon Prime, (such as "Burial Island"). If your film is already on Amazon Video Direct, log into your account, go to "your videos", click on your title, and go to the "availability" tab. It will give you options on how your film will be sold, including prime. Currently, "Prime" accounts for about a third of our total sales. The "Free with ads" (AVOD) option only gives us a few cents a month. NOTE: When you add "Prime", you will have to republish your film. It will still be on Video Direct, but will not be changed to "Prime" for a few days. Your revenue on Prime should be steady through time, as new people always find your title.
 
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log into your account, go to "your videos", click on your title...
Perfect! I was able to add my title to Prime.
What's the movie, & what did they do to promote it?
I don't want to disclose the title since I revealed confidential revenue info, but it was a very ultra-low budget horror (15K) handled by Distribber. No promotion other than a YouTube trailer. It appears as though the movie just sells itself simply by being on Prime, being in the horror genre and having an appealing premise.
 
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For Prime, Amazon only pays pennies per view. You can expect to make about $5.00 to $10.00 a month from Prime. It's not a big money-maker, but people will click into your film who would not normally watch it if they had to pay. Our top seller on Prime this month is "We Bought A Haunted House", and so far it has made $12.60 We promote it on youtube, metacafe, and daily motion.
 
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It's about 15 cents per view if the viewer continues to watch the film. If the viewer bails out of the show, it is less...a penny in some cases. It's all about how long they watch it. Since Prime is "free", they will flip channels so to speak.
 
No promotion other than a YouTube trailer. It appears as though the movie just sells itself simply by being on Prime.
How do you think the movie was able to get momentum?
A really good trailer? A really good movie? A lot of Amazon reviews?

It's about 15 cents per view if the viewer continues to watch the film. If the viewer bails out of the show, it is less...a penny in some cases.
What have you found to be the most successful way to promote your films?
This is kinda interesting, how a guy in England got some pretty good Amazon views.
http://www.chrisjonesblog.com/2017/...on-amazon-prime-and-how-much-i-have-made.html
 
We all make different films. Some are financially successful, most are not. I don't worry about that part of it. Personally, I just make films because it's fun. It's never been about making money, and in fact NONE of our films has ever made back it's production cost. We normally spend about $2000-$2500 on a film. We only use our own money and never ask for donations. That takes virtually ALL of the anxiety out of it. I will be starting a new film in March, and I'm sure it won't make any money either. Doesn't matter. We plan on having a great time. Here's one of our films if you'd like to take a look. (click here).
 
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How do you think the movie was able to get momentum?
A really good trailer? A really good movie? A lot of Amazon reviews?
Trailer was well put together. Lots of 1 star negative reviews actually. The movie starts off professional looking but later in the movie they cut corners with regard to the set and that really hurt the movie. But I just think it's the genre and overall initial impression. I suppose it's possible that once a movie gains momentum it shows up in Amazon's search results more often.

I get the feeling that $1,000 a quarter is really really good?
 
Personally, I just make films because it's fun. It's never been about making money, and in fact NONE of our films has ever made back it's production cost... I will be starting a new film in March, and I'm sure it won't make any money either. Doesn't matter. We plan on having a great time.
That's a nice way to live/work, congrats :)
How many films a year do you usually make?
And what's the biggest expense in your budget?
Do you get a big bump when your movie is a new release and then revenue drops off big time? Or can you expect the same consistent revenue quarter after quarter?...
I get the feeling that $1,000 a quarter is really really good?
I'm guessing it depends on the film. Amazon wants views, so I think a film will keep showing up as recommended as long as it gets views. That could partly explain the momentum & subsequent drop off. Word of mouth & good reviews can probably keep it going for a while.
$333/mo, divided by 15 cents is about 2,200 views a month.
You'd have to compare that to similar budget films in its genre.
And we don't know how long it's going to be making money.
 
For the last ten years we have averaged one feature length film a year. I also cut down each film to a 10-15 minute short version for film festivals, as festivals generally will not run long films. I write our scripts with the "write only what you have" rule. That is, I build sets out of old (free) scrap lumber, use furniture that others have discarded, and shoot in and around our house when possible with available props and wardrobe. In fact, 90% of our last film, "Tattletale Corpse", was shot in our living room in front of a green screen. On Tattletale, much of our budget was to buy "stock footage" of hard-to-get scenes. Most of our budget generally goes to the actors in the form of "gas money", and for their lunches.
 
We just got an email from Amazon. They are LOWERING the rates on what they are paying on Prime:
Old rate: 15-cents per hour.
New rate on March 1: 6 (six) cents per hour...
Also, minimum royalty payment is now $100. If it takes you six months to make $100, that's when you get paid.
 
I also cut down each film to a 10-15 minute short version for film festivals, as festivals generally will not run long films.
Thanks for the info. That's interesting.
-Do you already plan out the shorter 15 min. version in the script stage so that it's a complete story with no loose ends?
-Your film We Bought a Haunted House is 45 mins. Is that the shortest film Amazon will accept?
New rate on March 1: 6 (six) cents per hour.
-So if it's 6 cents per hour, & someone watches 10 mins., do you get 1 cent?
I heard they also raised the price of their monthly Amazon Prime membership.
 
On making shorter versions of our features, I try not to think about a shorter version while doing the feature. After the feature has been completed, I create the shorter "film festival" version. It's usually pretty easy to do.
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I've never asked Amazon if they take short films. The shortest film that we have on Prime is about 40 minutes.
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Here is something else that we did with several of our films: About ten years ago we began selling DVD copies of our films on Amazon, but as time went on we sold less and less DVDs. We then made them available on Amazon as a VOD, but few people will pay money to watch low budget indie films. We decided to try PRIME, so that viewers could watch our films for free.
BUT FIRST, we took 8 of our feature films, edited each of them down to 40-45 minutes, and changed their titles:
ORIGINAL TITLE.................................NEW TITLE ON PRIME
"Bad Spirits"..........................."Burial Island"
"The Day The World Stopped"...."Day of Darkness In Hillbilly County"
"Dying For Dollars"..................."Conversations With His Dead Grandma"
"The Money Trail"...................."Mosquitos, Alligators, and Bullets"
"Tattletale Corpse"...................(no change)
"Stoned Dead"........................"Zombie Drug Lord"
"Detour To Hell"......................"Robbed, Murdered, and Eaten"
"He's Dead"............................"1 Dead Man, 6 Suspects, $65 Million"
The original titles are all still
available as DVDs, the new titles are Prime only.
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As for the new .06-cents per hour rate...yep, we could now make a penny
a view. It's hardly worth the trouble and expense of having our films captioned.
I wish there was an alternative to Amazon. Hulu and so forth is impossible to get on
without paying an aggregator big bucks, and it's not worth it for us to do so.
 
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we took 8 of our feature films, edited each of them down to 40-45 minutes, and changed their titles:
Did you cut them down for better pacing? less fat?
Hulu and so forth is impossible to get on without paying an aggregator big bucks, and it's not worth it for us to do so.
Have you tried Vimeo On Demand? I guess you'd need to go & do more promotion overall. Have you gone to horror conventions? Not to spend money on your own booth, but just to talk to people & maybe hand out flyers/info?
 
We originally had eight indie films which the public had no interest in. When Amazon announced that they would not distribute VOD titles without subtitles, we saw this as an opportunity to re-distribute our films as completely new products with new titles. The films were re-titled to get your attention, (we don't have any well known actors in our films), and the re-edits were to improve the pacing. (our titles if you want to take a look)
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As for Vimeo on Demand, I get the same service on Amazon for free. Why pay Vimeo. As for attending horror conventions, I would have to pay for tickets, transportation, meals, and the cost of promotion. I doubt that I would create enough sales to justify that. As for Vimeo, even though Amazon is cutting their royalty rates, it still doesn't cost me anything to have our films listed on Amazon. It's free. Why pay Vimeo $100 for the same service that Amazon has for free? So I guess that I'm back to the beginning of this thread, and my conclusion is that we just have to eat whatever Amazon wants to give us... Same as youtube cutting our throats on Feb 20.
 
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As for attending horror conventions, I would have to pay for tickets, transportation, meals, and the cost of promotion. I doubt that I would create enough sales to justify that...
Why pay Vimeo $100 for the same service that Amazon has for free?
...we just have to eat whatever Amazon wants to give us... Same as youtube cutting our throats on Feb 20.
Dark times. But I think you spent years doing what you loved, & are still doing it. Many people aren't that lucky.
I wish you many more years of filmmaking. Maybe some others can chime in so we can continue to brainstorm ideas.
I have a couple titles on there
Nice stuff, how long have they been there & how is their Amazon Prime income?
Did they spike at some point?
 
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