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Self publishing is a term that’s often used in literary circles for when an author of a book disseminates their material through private means and without involving an established publishing house. For decades, this has been a way for writers who couldn’t get publishing contracts or wanted full control of their material.

While self publishing has been a reserve of the literary world, it is becoming popular among practitioners in the film and television industry. With the growth of Internet access and social media, film producers are overriding traditional means of film dissemination such as television and film theatres in favour of online platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.

Kenya has not been left behind in this trend. Film makers and TV producers no longer need mainstream media to put out their work as they can now just log onto Facebook or YouTube, create an account, upload and share their content with millions.

But how effective and financially viable is this method?

One of the shows that have been launched exclusively online is Because Love, a drama series that delves into love in an urban setting. However, other than air on a traditional TV station, the show premiered on Facebook.

“There are two main reasons we opted to put the show on Facebook. One is, we wanted direct engagement with the consumers of our show”, says James Kimani, one of the show’s directors. “We were looking at TV stations as middleman, especially among the young people who prefer to get their content not on TV but on the move and on their mobile devices. The second reason is financial; it’s much easier and cheaper to publish your show online than to get into the usual dance with TV stations and distributors, especially seeing as many TV stations were not willing to pay us what we spent on the show.”

It’s easy to see why many stations in Kenya were not willing to step up to the episodic cost of Because Love. The standard average cost that a free-to-air TV station will pay for an episode of a TV show ranges from Sh150,000 to Sh500,000. Because Love, on the other hand, cost Sh2.5 million per episode.

“The producer of the show paid this money out of pocket based on the passion for the story and the belief that we could put out a good show,” says Kimani.

Because Love, which was published in three parts, has so far accumulated close to 600,000 views in about two months. Despite these numbers, the production of Because Love has not made any of the money they invested back. “We’re primarily on Facebook and our content is not tied to any advertising. We’re also on YouTube, where it’s possible to have advertising but the numbers here are not so good,” says Kimani.

SHARED REVENUE

Monetisation of online videos is how a lot of content makers make money. On YouTube, for example, if a video is monetised, an advert will play before the video starts and if the viewer clicks on the advert or watches a certain length of it, usually 30 seconds, YouTube will share the revenue from the advert with the publisher of the video. Facebook, which attracts more viewers, does not yet have a monetisation aspect.

However, not all film creators are after making money. One such entity is the Nest Collective. In partnership with Forum Syd, Nest Collective released a 12-part series in 2016 titled Tuko Macho.

“Tuko Macho delves into different topics such as the death penalty, vigilantism, what Kenyan news looks like, how our justice system works and how Kenyans interact in the social space versus how they interact like. The purpose was not so much commercial but more audience mapping and interaction with our audience,” says Njoki Ngumi, who handles production and administration and was a writer and an assistant director on Tuko Macho.

Like Because Love, Tuko Macho was also initially released exclusively on Facebook and has been viewed over 2 million times with each episode averaging about 200,000 views. “It was an experiment for us to put the content on Facebook... We initially thought of putting it up on YouTube but we realised the engagement levels on YouTube were not as good as on Facebook,” says Njeri Gitonga, a producer on the show.

After its debut on Facebook, Tuko Macho went on to screen on NTV, but this provided the production with a different challenge. “One of the things that was different between when we launched online and when we went on TV was that the lengths for the online shows were varied and we had full control of this, but when we went on TV, we had to re-edit to fit broadcasting lengths,” says Njoki.

“We also had to do some changes on the content because there was language and scenes that could pass online but that could not air on TV,” adds Njeri.

Speaking to these film makers, what comes out is in as far as commercialisation of content goes; self publishing is still a tricky path as the earnings often do not reflect the cost that goes into producing a film or television show. Nonetheless, when it comes to audience engagement, ease of dissemination and keeping track of viewership statistics, self publishing is the way to go. 

The writer is the Executive Producer of TV shows Young Rich, Get in the Kitchen, Our Perfect Wedding and Stori Yangu.