Consistent Quantity of Sufficient Quality, and the Long Tail
Across the board, entertainment industries are overwhelmingly hit-driven. Super high-quality and super innovation both have a chance of knocking things out of the park in a HUGE way. Combine with some luck (the right game at the right time at the right price) and / or excellent marketing (sometimes fan-driven), and the rewards are tremendous. That’s how the game is played in the mainstream games industry, and in much of Hollywood, and the big book publishers, and the big music studios. It works for them because it maximizes the chances for the people with the deepest pockets.
But the other thing they do is throw a LOT of product out there, shotgun-style, seeing what lands.
The thing that I keep seeing across multiple industries is that for the little guys… the individual authors, indies, that group … who don’t have infinite time and resources, there’s another path that is by no means guaranteed, but seems to work better. The problem I have is that there’s a difference between knowing it and executing on it. So I keep harping on it and hope that I can figure it out myself.
The key to (eventual) success seems to be “consistent quantity of sufficient quality.”
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