www.customflix.com

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I have no personal experience with them, but it's an alternative for indie filmmaker to get their work out there. They take a hefty cut, approx. 55%, but they handle the big upfront costs because if you wanted to self distribute, you'd probably have to have 1000 DVD's made at a cost of around $1.50 each. so you're talking $1500 upfront. In this case they make DVDs as orders come in. I would say the if you want to use them, you'd have to do your own heavy duty marketing to be successfuk and drive people to your DVD site on customflix.

If I were you, I'd try to track down folks who have DVDs with them and see what they say.

Scott
 
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There's been a few threads about these lads and the consensus is that they offer an interesting service, but that they take a fairly large part of the margin on each DVD for the trouble. I've never heard a bad word about them.

The primary advantage, as I see it, is that there is zero fianancial risk for the film maker. I don't have to invest a thousand pounds in DVD production or run a mail order business. They are both big pluses.

The downside is that if I just bite the bullet and invest in actual DVD production I can get my unit cost down from $10 per unit at customflix (no risk, no hassle) to about $1 a unit (or lower). Of course in order to do that I have to take a guess at how many units I'm going to sell.

Personally I like the whole customflixs ethos. With the right product, low production costs and good marketing I could see how a film could go into profit using this method. But I do sort of see it as distribution of last resort (For features that is, for shorts it's a different matter)

If you do nothing else at customflix, sign up for their free marketing guide. They email it out in ten hits, over ten days and there's some good information in there.
 
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indietalk said:
It's a good service.

Click my DVDs for sale to see how they set it up.

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Click to expand...

Somewhat off topic, but from the "my dvd's for sale" I'm looking for a "buy it now" button that takes me to the order page, but I can't find it.. where is it? It helps to make it easy to buy for the customers :cool:
 
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Your right about the free 10 tips about distribution Clive, just read the first one and its a very interesting read.

However while filling out my details, as i am here in the UK it says i have to apply for an IRS number which will take 60 days and sounds like a long boring process.

I think its an excuse to hang onto the money, hoping that i don't apply so they don't have to pay me. Or am i being cynical?
 
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Customflix

Customflix is a great service for getting quality product out there if you don't have alot of money. Yes, they take quite a cut, but you don't pay anything but the $50 set up fee, so its a trade off. They are also fast and reliable. I've had a DVD out with them for 6 months and not one bit of trouble. We will be releasing our next DVD with them also. Our general plan is to sell our stuff on CF till it gets picked up by a larger distributor that can get us in stores, and that plan is working out so far. Detour Vol 1 will get worldwide release soon, and we will pull it for CF, and then put Detour vol 2 on CF for a run.

The only downside is, they aren't a 'distributor' really, and you have to do your own heavy marketing to get it sold. They simply host it and make it really. The don't 'sell' or hype it. Still, in 6 months with our own hype we did move over 100 units of Detour 1, so that isnt too shabby for website only sales. We also had a write up in Fangoria Magazine though. I suppose that helped.
 
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Yea..

Basicly they make DVD-Rs 'on demand'. You make the master, and pay 49.99 set up fee. You make the art for the keepcase and the disc from the templates and upload them. They give you a online store for your title and handle all the sales. You link the store to your site or wherever. You set the price of the DVD.

Customers buy a DVD from them, they make it and mail to to the customer. At the end of the month they send you a profit check based on your sales. The more you sell, the lower there cut gets per disc (as low as $6 I think, so if you price your DVD at 15 like us, you get a nice profit.). It really is a nice no hassle way to sell films.

You can also make your own purchases 'at cost' if you know soemone that owns a DVDs store or you have a screening coming up and you need copies on hand. I offered my disc through mail order and pay pal as well, so I filled those orders, while CF does all the Credit Card orders on demand. I didn't have to do anything for that. You also get a list of who bought and when. They also set up a page on Amazon.com for you.

The product is high quality and the DVD itself has full color art transfers, not crappy stickers.

They also offer 'real' DVD mastering as opposed to DVDRs, but I haven't done that yet. If its anything like there on demand service its probably worth it.
 
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Heard some more good news about the Action on Film festival which is that they have a distribution deal with Customflicks and all films screened in the Action on Film Festival will be distributed via Customflicks at no cost to the filmmaker. This is excellent news as i am always a bit reluctant to pay any processing fees.
However with Amazon.com buying out Customflicks i am hoping they withdraw their up front fee altogether and work on a commission basis.
 
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Does anyone know how much are the international shipping costs for a single DVD on customflix (more specifically, to the UK)? I'm looking into using it for the DVD of a music video, I don't want to make any money with it, just be able to have replicated DVDs. What I understood from the website is that the minimum retail price for the DVD would be $9.95 but they don't elaborate on international shipping costs.

Also if anyone knows a cheaper solution when putting no margin on the retail price (given that I need a DVD on-demand service since I don't know how many copies will be needed) in general or for the UK that would help me.
 
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