Self-Publishing Is the Newest Trend on TV

 For writers, self-publishing has been around pretty much since the beginning of the printed word.  Maybe technically even since the beginning of scribbling words on clay tablets or papyrus.  But it was pretty limited until the Kindle came along in the 2000s.  That opened up a whole new avenue for self-publishing and has led to a flood of titles from people of varying skill levels.  A few have made millions while most make almost nothing and some like me make a few bucks.

For TV, the closest to self-publishing was public access, where people would make their own shows to air on some local cable channel.  This was made famous by the Wayne's World SNL skits and movies.  And like self-publishing books in the 80s and 90s, very few people ever succeeded at it.  For most it was just a vanity project. 

A while ago, Michael Offutt talked about the Warhammer franchise launching its own streaming service where for $5.99/month you can watch TWO(!) series.  Wow!  Two!  Sign me up!

It also reminded me that during the annual Turkey Day Marathon broadcast on Pluto TV, Xumo, and wherever else, Mystery Science Theater 3000 announced this year it would be launching its own streaming service that would feature the classic episodes as well as 13 new episodes.  I wouldn't really sign up for it as you can watch all the classic episodes on Pluto TV or TubiTV right now; maybe they will eventually get those pulled to force people to sign up for this.

I already mentioned back in 2020 how Rifftrax created its own streaming channel that also charges a monthly fee to watch a lot of their various VODs.  At this point they're up to 2019 ones so they have about everything except the last 3 years.  A lot of these you can stream on Pluto TV, Xumo, Tubi, and Amazon but except for Amazon they have commercials and they don't necessarily have everything the app does. 

All of this got me thinking that really this kind of stuff will probably become more popular and that it is really self-publishing for TV.  The difference is that the costs of creating a streaming service are a lot higher than publishing on Amazon, Draft2Digital, or Smashwords, so really only brands with a following can actually do it right now.  In the case of MST3K they raised money with a Kickstarter to make it happen.  Like the Warhammer one, this new service will have a monthly fee to pay for it, which is where this form of TV self-publishing differs from the old cable access.

Of course these streaming channels won't have the same stigma as self-publishing books gets.  No one is going to call the MST3K channel "vanity publishing."  But then since these are somewhat known brands, they are better quality than a lot of self-published books on Amazon.

The unfortunate thing is this will create even more streaming channels.  There are already so many with Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Paramount+, Disney+, and so on that adding a bunch of self-published ones is just going to make things even more fragmented.  How many of these can people really support?  Time will tell.

Could the next trend be to merge self-published books with self-published TV?  Let's say I do a Kickstarter and create some low-budget movies based on my Eric Filler or Scarlet Knight or Chances Are books.  Then I could create a streaming service to air them.  I don't see that happening, at least for me, but maybe some series with more support could do that.  Like those Union Station books by EM Foner.  Maybe create some animated or low-budget live action series for the main series and its spin-offs and then create a streaming channel.  Will it happen?  I doubt it.  Could it happen?  Probably.  

The other avenue I thought of is maybe eventually creators with enough following could pull their shows from existing streaming outlets to create their own streaming channel.  Like if Matt Groening could pull The Simpsons and Futurama from Disney+/Hulu and create his own service.  Or Seth MacFarlane could pull Family Guy, American Dad, The Cleveland Show, The Orville, and his movies like Ted 1 & 2 and A Million Ways to Die in the West from where they're streaming to make his own service.  Or Mike Judge could pull King of the Hill, Silicon Valley, Beavis & Butt-Head, and his movies like Office Space, Idiocracy, and Extract to make his own streaming service.  Those get more complicated because there are all sorts of producers and executive producers and so on who would probably need to agree and get a piece of the revenue and whatever.  Not every movie Stephen Spielberg or Ron Howard or Martin Scorsese directs was owned by them, so if they wanted to create a streaming channel, there would have to be some negotiation.  Going forward, though, creators might want to spell that kind of stuff out in their contracts.

The only way any of that works is if you have enough content to keep people on the hook and if you have enough following to actually turn a profit at it.

Something I noticed on Goodreads after I wrote this:  Harlequin is launching "Harlequin+" with access to books and "feel good movies and games."  So there's another avenue I hadn't even thought of.  BTW, shouldn't all games be "feel good?"  I mean who wants to play a feel bad game? I scream at Empires and Puzzles when it rigs a match against me.