Amazon Takes on YouTube and Others, Opening Video Platform to All Creators

DPStewart said:
... As for anyone "paying" to watch your video - how many YouTube or Vimeo videos would YOU have PAID to watch? Ever? Just think about that before you buy into their promises of revenue.
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A content creator has other options. YouTube pays per click/view. Amazon pays per minute/hr watched. But, given what essentially is a no-cost entry, it's a tough go to make a living off it.

Of course, one can also self-publish a book on Amazon. Much like with the videos, it'd work much better for an already existing and well recognized brand.
 
The main advantage Amazon has is that its customers are used to paying for stuff. They'll quickly lose that advantage if this platform gets saturated with vlogs and other free low-quality content. If their reasoning is similar to mine, they will make the process more expensive and complicated, not less (while at the same time trying to attract high-quality content).
 
Though I've queued quite a lot of content for Amazon Prime, only one of my shorts has been live for a few days. (The others are still pending.) And, honestly, I'm surprised with the amount of traffic it's getting. I was afraid that it would be buried, but that's not the case -- not yet at least.
 
I've had a couple of shorts on there for a week now and have already surpassed 100,000 minutes streamed. The revenue isn't great (I've made $50 or so) but out of all the platforms I've put my shorts on this is by far the one with the best royalties. I've had my shorts on Indieflix for a couple of years and haven't seen a penny. So for shorts I think it's a great platform to get more views on your work and make a little bit of beer money. For features though this is not the route to go. I'm sure a proper distributor will ink a better deal than what AD give you by default (which is 50% of revenue).
 
So after over 3,333 viewings you have earned $50, which comes out to .015 cents per viewing? For crying out loud, is my math right?
 
[edit] had a phone call that delated my posting


That's about 1.5 cents per view.

Somebody check my math:

100,000 minutes / 30 = around 3300 views

$50 / 3300 views = $0.015 each view

Is my math correct? Still better than a sharp stick in the eye, but I can see where it will take a long time to recover production costs.

I guess the big question is, has this lead to other work for you? For the little guys this might be a big way to market yourself that actually makes a little money.
 
Greg_E said:
[edit] had a phone call that delated my posting


That's about 1.5 cents per view.

Somebody check my math:

100,000 minutes / 30 = around 3300 views

$50 / 3300 views = $0.015 each view

Is my math correct? Still better than a sharp stick in the eye, but I can see where it will take a long time to recover production costs.

I guess the big question is, has this lead to other work for you? For the little guys this might be a big way to market yourself that actually makes a little money.
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I believe it's supposed to be 50% of 15cents for US and 6cents for other countries. I just think my stats are not fully updated. The dashboard page they give you doesn't update in real time so it seems to be always catching up. Last I checked it was around $90 for the week. It's a combination of % sales from both Prime and free with ad-roll. Looks like for some reason most of my views are coming from the UK not sure why. If it was US I'd be banking a lot more coin.

Yeah you'll clearly never cover production costs, even if your shorts went viral it will take a long time to recoup any decent amount. But if you have a couple of shorts sitting around, dusting them off and making a few bucks here and there ain't such a bad idea. I could be bringing in around $400-$500 a month at this current rate, or until they get flooded with cat videos.

Mine have only been up a week so time will tell if it leads to other things. I am in the process of turning them into a series, so the marketing and getting the word out is good, and my facebook page is getting more likes by the day. I'll certainly report back if it opens any doors.
 
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Well, if that is your first week, that isn't too bad at all. Please let us know what happens after your first month.
 
Okay so I've had my two short films on Amazon for a month now so here's the final tally:

55,000 views total
Total revenue: $650

Weirdly Europe has been the biggest market in terms of sales and not sure why. So overall, I'm happy it's generating a few bucks. Whether this is sustainable I've no idea. I would think sales would eventually start to drop at some point but right now they are slowly increasing every week. It will be interesting to see what the totals are in 6 months. Maybe there's potential to make back your production costs on a short that had a budget of a few thousand. Guess I'll know more in the coming months. I'll try come back with more updates.
 
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Thanks a lot for the update.

$0.01 per view is very low, but still much higher than what youtube pays. If you're not doing anything else with your shorts anymore...
 
The YouTube payouts vary greatly due to different revenue strategies - per click, per ad, per click through, etc. On a payment calculator site, I plugged in 1,900 views per day and the answer was from anywhere $38/mo to $220/mo.

Which makes $650 rather impressive.
 
I'm surprised Amazon doesn't take a hint from craigslist and instead of paying you, offering IMDB credit and an overnighted pizza. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
Can you release your video other places as well as Amazon? Just thinking it might be nice to maximize the revenue. But as an alternative to just releasing the content for free, this seems pretty decent for a recreational user. As I said, better than a sharp stick in the eye and you never know where it might go if you have something that is really good. And with popularity, there might be the option to negotiate a higher rate. Think of a good "web" series that takes off, the second season could maybe pay out a little better after a short negotiation.
 
Greg_E said:
Can you release your video other places as well as Amazon? Just thinking it might be nice to maximize the revenue. But as an alternative to just releasing the content for free, this seems pretty decent for a recreational user. As I said, better than a sharp stick in the eye and you never know where it might go if you have something that is really good. And with popularity, there might be the option to negotiate a higher rate. Think of a good "web" series that takes off, the second season could maybe pay out a little better after a short negotiation.
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It's non-exclusive on Amazon. Actually, my two shorts are the first part of a web-series that we've been trying to get off the ground for 3 years (it's a vampire thriller which is why it's been a struggle). The exposure we're getting from it being on Amazon though has been great, and it's driving a lot of traffic to our facebook page. 99% of the viewers don't know that anyone can put their content on Amazon so having it on there, and on people's TVs, makes it more legitimate IMO. Our goal is to build a big enough fan base that we can then turn to investors to raise a real budget for a complete series, armed with the stats from Amazon should help illustrate potential ROI if we charged per episode/season etc.
 
mrl72 said:
It's non-exclusive on Amazon. Actually, my two shorts are the first part of a web-series that we've been trying to get off the ground for 3 years ...
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Do you or does Amazon have ads running every few minutes or at the opening?

YouTube will vary, depending upon a channel. Some use pop-ups, some hard ads. IMO, super-short (5 seconds and under ads) are feasible but, just from being a viewer, I know I will often skip a video entirely if I have to watch a 15-sec ad that I have no interest in. Daily Motion will frequently run a 30-sec ad every 5 minutes and, likewise, I will often close the window rather than watch the ad.
 
So actually, what you are doing is advertising your pilot... and getting paid to make that advertisement. When looked at like this, you seem to have a no lose situation. If it is popular enough, maybe Amazon will feed you the money to produce it, they are producing original content just like the other services. Getting in on the ground floor may turn out to be a huge advantage for you.
 
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