Humanity, particularly America, has built for itself a golden age of entertainment. We live in a world where most people (particularly Americans) view entertainment as a need with a quota that must be met. The number of feature films and new TV shows that come out every year, the number of subscriptions we all feel a need to sign up for, Booktok, theme parks, conventions, etc. are constantly trying to one up themselves and convince you that you need to spend your money on them. We live in a world with endless entertainment options. And they all cost money. The purpose of this blog post is not to speak for or against this reality. The purpose is to discuss how to make the most of it from the perspective of a niche creator or artist.
So what are we supposed to do when we feel like its our turn to do something creative? How do you produce entertainment for a world that’s overdosing on it and can’t even afford to pay for it? In chemistry, and in economics, its important to look at saturation, which can be summarized as how much of one thing can I fit inside of another thing. In economics, you fit products and services into markets. A good way to make money is to find an undersaturated market and start offering a product or service to meet those demands. Entertainment markets, or art based markets, are self-saturating, because its a job everyone wants. Everyone has some sort of fantasy about being a pro athlete or a music artist or an author. Entertainment is a grossly oversaturated market that is constantly growing new niche submarkets to accommodate itself.
So how do you break into a market that is already full to capacity? How do you make the transition from being a consumer to being a producer? The truth is, production always comes at a cost. No matter whether you live in a capitalistic market, communistic market, or whatever, you can’t make something out of nothing. You cannot create a new product unless you have an expendable excess of resources that can be delegated towards its development. *Insert thermodynamics joke here* But wait, that’s not always the end of the story. You can make the transition from consumer to producer by delegating left over resources to developing a new product. Once the product exists in an available format, you are in the market. But where are you in that market? Well, you start at the bottom. Oh, wait, you don’t like the bottom? The purpose of a capitalist system is to keep the legal barriers that prevent moving up from the bottom very low. America is primarily a capitalist system, which means anyone can try their hand at moving up from the bottom, summarily resulting in a whole lot of people trying their hand. The system preserves their right to do so. And moving up takes work, i.e. expending more resources. In short, you need to delegate resources to development of a product (or service) and then continue delegating resources for its continuous production and promotion.
So where do I get excess resources to delegate to my product (or service)? How exactly should I delegate them in order to maximize my success or effectiveness? Now we’re talking. Now you’re ready for the next level of your training. There are a myriad of variable strategies to employ, but lets take it one step at a time. First things first, the expendable resources. First, lets identify possible resources and then identify ways to obtain them. There are two principle resources in economics: money and time. Let’s get money out of the way first. Budgeting is important, especially if you want to have expendable income to put towards entertainment (and we know you do, so don’t kid yourself about it). Looking at your income and deciding to save money for the most important things and not spend money on less important things is a good way to create a little extra cash that you could put towards starting a business. Things like buying an llc, a website domain, art supplies, etc. can all be done with only a few hundred dollars. But let’s assume we’re all broke. Okay, so time is the resource that you can start with. Let’s take a moment to acknowledge how spending time incorrectly can lead to burnout and poor mental health. However much free time you have to spend on your product (or service), don’t spend all of it. Make sure you take some breaks and you give some time to the people in your life who care about you.
So what should I spend my time on? And how much time should I spend on each of those things? Well, this is really just the same question again. What resources can acquire with my time, and which of those resources will be the most beneficial? Let’s focus on two key resources that can be acquired by expending time, knowledge and skill. Doing research and learning more about the market you’re breaking into and the products (or services) you will be creating and competing with is the critical foundation that will determine the quality of everything that you do. Practicing and taking time to acquire a high level of skill in the selected field will allow you to actually do the thing you’re trying to do. Knowledge that is important to acquire includes whether or not their are any legalities around the product (or service) you are offering, the standard practices for its production, and information about your target audience and how they like to be approached and what they like or dislike about the products (or services) that are currently available. You might also want to learn about marketing and advertising and a little bit about business and small business taxes. Just kidding, definitely learn that, too. And when it comes to how much time you should spend is up to you. It’s up to your best judgement and comfort level. Our only word of advice here is to not let your current comfort level define the boundaries of your success.
So lets say you want to make a table top role playing game. And let’s say you can spend a couple hours a week in between classes or after work. Well, you’re in luck and you’re in good company. Nary a TTRPG originated from circumstances other than those. Not that we really have room to talk, since we yet remain in those circumstances. We have produced a product, and now we’re at the bottom of the market barrel trying to work our way up. Table top gaming as a niche market in entertainment is a great place to be because the competition is friendly. There are a lot of resources for advice and morale support, including blogs, podcasts, or other writers who will just give you free advice. Even if your business is competing against ours, we’re honored to make each other’s acquaintance and be in the same boat (barrel). To that end, we want to ask one final question: What’s so bad about being at the bottom? Even if our games never get popular and the company doesn’t really go anywhere, we will still be glad that we did it. Trying at all is an achievement unto itself. However far we go, and however the story ends, we’re proud of us and we enjoyed doing it. Besides, the bottom of this barrel is a really great place to make some friends. So if you’re thinking about trying your hand in this arena, we’re cheering for you and we can’t wait to see you out there, even if we just end up watching you from the bottom of the barrel.
Henry Standage
