THE REALITY OF THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY

~ by Corey Michael Blake

The entertainment industry of today is not the industry it used to be when we were amazed by it, when we trained for it, or when we entered it. The industry of today is so over-saturated with people who want to “make it” that it has become difficult to stick out in a crowd. From the industry of acting, to writing, directing, book publishing and making music; every facet of the artistic endeavor is now a place where the majors are struggling to maintain profit and millions of mid-level workers are struggling to sustain an income great enough to survive. In this difficult terrain where no one wants to take a chance on anyone, you have to gamble with all your chips, and you have to place the bet on yourself.

Being talented is not enough. Being driven is not nearly enough. You have to be crazy with desire. You have to increase your odds to major proportions if the world is going to ever hear about you. And that is the goal. To be able to sustain yourself financially and have the freedom you want to continue to create and live comfortably, simultaneously, you are going to have to be recognized by the world and loved or hated by millions.

To understand the scope of a branded name we look to a hero like Stephen King, who no matter what he comes out with, his name guarantees interest. He has branded himself to the world as an expert on his subject matter. This was not talent alone. Branding a name involves marketing, public relations, publicity-stunts, ingenious business practices, networking skills, perseverance and a ridiculous number of finished projects that are put up for judgment. It’s a lifetime of hard work.

When an actor goes out to audition for a commercial today, the competition can be anywhere from two to eight hundred others, where ten years ago, the competition was fifty other people. When a writer takes a new book to their editor, they are competing against an ever-increasing number of wannabes. Filmmakers of today? The last guy to win Sundance shot his movie for seven thousand dollars on a digital camera. Anyone can be an artist in today’s world. The question is: who is going to rise to the top and sustain their career there?

We are living in a society that has so many choices. Audiences only want what they want, when they want it. Knowing what the world wants and being there with the right product at the right time, and having the machine to get it to the masses takes decades to create. How many geniuses have written brilliant books that no one has read, because they were exhausted from the writing alone and didn’t have the energy to find a publisher with vision? How many amazing actors will never be recognized because they did not have the determination to stay in the game long enough to impress the right producer to give them the right opportunity to be seen at the right time by the world?

The most successful artists are not necessarily the most talented people – they are the ones with a business plan. If you do not have a strategic outline to your path in entertainment, you are setting yourself up for a broken heart and lost dreams. Writing the great American novel is not enough. To survive you must understand the steps to branding your own name in the industry, in the media, in your country and throughout the world. By creating a step by step learning plan for yourself that involves continually growing your product, continually growing your marketing strategies, and continually growing your ability to generate worthy public relations, you can grow your network of believers and you can actually brand your name around the world. Anything less and you live project to project, hoping and praying that the next one might be the big one.

A scared artist is an unhappy artist. Don’t set yourself up for a lifetime of worrying where your next meal will come from. Create the table you will eat at for years to come by following a strategic path.

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Corey Michael Blake is the revolutionary thinker responsible for producing and publishing SmarterComics titles by best-selling authors Larry Winget (Shut Up, Stop Whining & Get a Life), Chris Anderson (The Long Tail), Tom Hopkins (How to Master the Art of Selling) due out for release in stores in January 2011. Corey is the founder and President of Writers of the Round Table Inc., a book packaging and publishing company distributed by National Book Network. Prior to publishing, Corey starred in campaigns and wrote and published books that have been profiled in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun Times, Publisher's Weekly, Sports illustrated, Variety and on NBC, WGN and Good Morning America among hundreds of other print, radio, and television outlets. His work has won Addy, Belding, Bronze Lion and London International Advertising awards and he has been published in Writer Magazine, Script Magazine and on StartUp Nation. Corey began his career as the face of commercial campaigns for more than a dozen Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 companies, before venturing off to filmmaking and eventually writing. He is the co-author of numerous books, including "Edge! A Leadership Story" (Finalist 2008 National Best Books Awards) and "From the Barrio to the Board Room" and its companion comic book "Mi Barrio", which are being used throughout the Chicago Public School District and in schools and youth prisons around the country to inspire at-risk youth.