How to sell video just for download on Website?

M

Mitzenfauker

Member
So a couple of my buddies and me are going to making about a 30-45 minute snowboard video compiling video from previous years and this years season as well.

I have looked everywhere but i don't think i am typing in the right words to find it.

Here is my question...
I am looking to put this video for sale up on a website or my own website.
Sort of like, you have to pay for it in order to download the movie.

How can i make the video link to a payment site of some sort in order to actually download the whole film?

We dont really want to make DVD's and think it would be easier for people to just download it.

Anyone know how to do this?
 
I haven't done this myself yet, but I believe the solution is to have a payment
link (say Paypal) to a secure web page where your video is hosted, with instructions to right click and download. It can just be any page of your site, as
long as it is secure.
 
Better be sure your hosting plan gives you enough monthly bandwidth to do this. If 1000 people want to download your movie at the same time, this could be a problem.
 
Why not use a service like Lulu? (www.lulu.com) They make and ship the DVDs, collect the payment, and cut you a check for your portion of the sale. Couldn't be easier. They do take a chunk of the profits, but at least it's simple.
 
By "secure" do you mean that the web page where you host the movie is "password protected" and then you give the password and user name to the person who pays via a PayPal button?
 
filmman said:
By "secure" do you mean that the web page where you host the movie is "password protected" and then you give the password and user name to the person who pays via a PayPal button?
Click to expand...

What would stop that person from then passing the user name and password on to all his buddies? You'd have to make the password work only once. Then again, what's to keep the person from buying the video, downloading it, then sending the downloaded file to all his buddies?

Guess there's never a perfect solution, is there?
 
chapelgrovefilms said:
What would stop that person from then passing the user name and password on to all his buddies? You'd have to make the password work only once. Then again, what's to keep the person from buying the video, downloading it, then sending the downloaded file to all his buddies?

Guess there's never a perfect solution, is there?
Click to expand...

For the first question, it's a moot point. After authenticating payment, the server can automatically redirect the customer to a download page. No passwords or user IDs necessary.

That said, programming secure server operations is not like pimping a myspace page. It's some pretty intense (and federally regulated) PHP and mySQL work. While the OP could conceivably learn how to do it given enough time, he's better off using a third party site or hiring a professional web design firm.

As for the second question... answer that and the recording, film, and television industries would all collectively crown you King of the World. ;)

-Jeff
 
One of the simplest ways to do it if you don't have a dedicated website/store is to use something like payloadz.com. I used it ages ago before I had a dedicated shop to sell my music mp3s and it's pretty easy to setup as I remember.

You can get a free account with (I think) 1Gb online storage - they host whatever digital content your'e selling and take a cut of your sale - I think at about the same rate as Paypal. You set up the items you want to sell on their website then create a button that you can put on your site or wherever which does all the legwork of selling it.

Try it, it won't cost you anything: www.payloadz.com

Cheers

Simon
www.thebluemask.com
 
you can podcast it for pay per download. You'll find more value in giving it away for exposure, though.
 
this is very useful info ... what's a dedicated shop, bluemask?

I have a movie I'd like to sell as a download. The DVD sales are going too slow online. I'd appreciate any help.
 
I'm with www.CreateSpace.com right now. I don't remember what they're charging, but the total is $19.95 for DVD and $12.95 for download.

www.CreateSpace.com also lists the movie with Amazon.com and Amazon pays a little less, but there is more visibility. Still the sales are too slow and I don't have marketing funds or sufficient numbers of visitors to my site.

So I need a better way to market my movies. I have five potential movies that I can field right now, but the incentive is so low :-(

So far I have delayed having my movies replicated. The prices are low -- I've been quoted $1.25 for 1000 DVD with some one sheets. But I don't want 900 DVDs sitting in my garage for three years :-)

Download sounds good, but how do you set up the technology to deliver the downloads?

Just putting it on a website and hoping that they will give you the money that's coming in isn't making much sense to me. How can we know what they are really making?

I'm not so worried about bootlegging. If I could just get 5,000 units sold, I'm happy. I think that's the best we can hope for as indie filmmakers. Honestly.
 
John Scherer makes over $100 million a year "giving away" free CDs and DVDs.

Mass producing a DVD in quantity is less than twenty cents a unit. Cardboard mailers are approx. five cents each in quantity. Bulk mailing at the lowest cost is less then fifty cents a unit.

That's less than a buck a unit. Charge $7.95 shipping and handling. Now how much per unit do you want to spend on marketing? John started with the 2AM infomercial and now 15 years later just markets as a regular add during prime time.

Pick a subject, "Feature movie, computer training, yada yada.." and market the product as FREE! Your actually earning revenue off of the shipping and handling.

John calls himself the Video Professor! FREE COMPUTER TRAINING!! Woooooo! You'll certainly fool him by pretending to be someone else and ordering another topic for free, just send in your shipping and handling fee!

You have a product which like printing goes down in cost the more units you produce.

Downloads???? Lazy salesmanship is idiotic and a fast way to not make money. When something has worked for fifteen years why ruin it by doing something stupid. Hey, its a regular X dollars in value, but you're getting it for FREE! FREE! FREE! Just send that 7.95 shipping and ...
 
Craig, Craig! Invest in my movies; I'll give them all away for free!

Sheer genius! Why haven't you told me this before!

But wait a minute, who will replicate my videos for so little?
And what about the 30 second advertising on TV? Who will do it for the least?

Help!
 
i see a lot of truth in that. when i think about the films i buy on dvd... very few are films i've never seen. generally, if I like it, I buy it. a film would have to have an exceptional reputation preceding it for me to buy it unseen.
 
I agree, it's really much harder to sell movies now than in the 80s when the AFM was just getting underway. The foreign market distributors are shell-shocked. I see them at the AFM walking around like zombies. The indie filmmakers also look ridiculous darting around trying to get appointments last minute hoping to find a distributor. The distributors don't have time to pick up films at the market, especially now that it's nearly impossible to sell movies to foreign buyers. The distributors have no time to look at movies during the market. With thousands of movies available to them, how are the distributors going to take a chance on a new filmmaker and pay upfront money?

So the way I see it, it's filmmakers like Shalin who are finding some form of success as artists. It's a really complex approach. Look how many steps she had to go through to get her movies out. She tries to make it sound like anybody can do it, but I know how hard it is. I can't even do one of those things that she does well. What really surprised me is that she said the movie itself is the appetizer and the Q&A sessions after screening the short was the main course. Wow! I don't know, Zak, it's just too weird being a digital filmmaker in this age :-)
 
craigbowman said:
John Scherer makes over $100 million a year "giving away" free CDs and DVDs.

Mass producing a DVD in quantity is less than twenty cents a unit. Cardboard mailers are approx. five cents each in quantity. Bulk mailing at the lowest cost is less then fifty cents a unit.

That's less than a buck a unit. Charge $7.95 shipping and handling. Now how much per unit do you want to spend on marketing? John started with the 2AM infomercial and now 15 years later just markets as a regular add during prime time.

Pick a subject, "Feature movie, computer training, yada yada.." and market the product as FREE! Your actually earning revenue off of the shipping and handling.

John calls himself the Video Professor! FREE COMPUTER TRAINING!! Woooooo! You'll certainly fool him by pretending to be someone else and ordering another topic for free, just send in your shipping and handling fee!

You have a product which like printing goes down in cost the more units you produce.

Downloads???? Lazy salesmanship is idiotic and a fast way to not make money. When something has worked for fifteen years why ruin it by doing something stupid. Hey, its a regular X dollars in value, but you're getting it for FREE! FREE! FREE! Just send that 7.95 shipping and ...
Click to expand...

That is seriously a pretty great idea. Because if you can turn $2-3 of profit per DVD, that's nothing to laugh about if you can move enough units.

I have two books for sale, I only get about $2-3 per book I sell, so it's nothing unusual.

I don't usually fall for the "free except there's shipping and handling" thing, but sometimes I will if it's legitimate. I have been wanting to find some sort of solution to constant random energy drinks, so I saw an ad for FRS, which Lance Armstrong supports, and they'll send you 14 days of free energy supplements for $6.95 shipping and handling. It probably does cost about that much to ship a larger package like this and easily costs that much with the shipping and the products. They don't care about breaking even on that, because the idea is after the free trial they enroll you at $68/month, so the idea is ok if we lose a bit of money on the trials, that's fine, because if we can convert 50% of the trials into memberships, great.

But with DVDs, the costs are so low, as you said, it totally makes sense. That's a great idea.
 
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