Big Business Small Beginnings ©
By Michael
Casey
Just before I finished with ACNielsen my friend
did the tarot for a bit of fun, we had just eaten fish and chips in the rest
room next to my computer room. Yes we were in England, Birmingham to be exact,
overlooking the Chinese Quarter.
So not putting chippy fingers on her cards I pick
some out. Every card had money on it. My
next jobs over the next ten years all had money connections, but sadly none
went in my pocket.
ACNielsen is of course business analysis, I then
went to Insurance, Finance office, CPNEC business hotel, Life Insurance, Law
Firm, Esol English. All of which make money, lots of money for the company.
The guests at CPNEC were really nice people, all
self-made, the Law firm was really nice too. Esol English made money for the
company, I enjoyed my chance as a teacher.
So how about making some money for myself, or
rather for my own family. When the tarot was done I hadn’t met my Shanghai wife. Marriage means spending money, but in
return I live with 3 girls, all of whom speak Chinese, me I’m the token male
and English speaker in the house.
So how can I provide for my growing family? Well I
am a writer, I do indeed have 6 books on Amazon Kindle, follow links at bottom
of page. However writing is a strange product, nobody ever makes any money out
of it, not unless you are JKR or JRRK.
So you have to plug at it, the selling not the
writing, writing is easy, making a living or money out of it is hard. I read
the news and see how Billionaires made their first buck. The guy with the photo
website was in the newspaper today, his idea was so simple, take “boring”
photos and sell them.
I once applied for a job where I’d be looking at
boring photos of advertising billboards,
why, to make sure the paid adverts had gone up in the right place, to prove the
job was done. I did not get that job, so hello to them if they stumble over
this.
I once applied for a greetings card writer job, I
did not get that either, so hello to them too. AS you can all see I’m not brief
enough, for that job. My shorts can be short and they can be longer, but I hope
always worth a read.
At the moment I’m waiting to see if a script of
mine is going to be made into a film, and to see if my shorts are going to be
used on the radio as a 90seconds with Michael Casey segment.
Some radio stations, the majority, are very
linear, the listeners won’t understand
the concept, if you wean them away from the breast milk of pop the listeners
will switch off or change over.
You can have both, “she can’t sing, she can’t
dance, but she walks like Riana” then hit the button and hear my voice reading
one of my shorts. Trust the listener, Richard Allison and Bob Harris are great
broadcasters for a reason.
Making money is what the Americans are always good
it, England has the ideas and then America buys the idea cheap and gets rich
from it. Always seems to be the case.
So what is you have a great book, full of incident
and action, but getting a push behind the book is so hard. You rebrand it, as
Rupert Murdoch does with his film channels over his empire.
So what can you do with your book? You do things
in reverse, you sell it or part of it as a film. Then as the games market is a
billion dollar industry, you sell the concept of your book as a game. You will
have to persuade the games people to make the book into a game, that can be
hard but if you say if it’s good enough for a film it should fly as a game.
Then at least they will pause for thought. I should add that friends from my
computer room days did in fact create a
game and got £10,000 for it 20 years ago.
Now Hasbro makes games galore and they have just
tied up with a video games company. Now Hasbro makes board games and my book
The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker can be a board game, to stop people
getting bored on wet summers days. You have to have faith in yourself and your
product. My product being my writing.
Yesterday on the Dragon’s Den, which is where
people ask millionaire backers to support them, we saw a variety of people
pitch their idea. Pitching your idea is key, I had to write a one page pitch
for this film. Perhaps I can use the same pitch for video and board games.
Merchandising is very profitable, look at Disney, need I saw more. Now read the
following poem of mine.
Let There Be Light ©
By Michael Casey
Let my tears be my words
Let the candle light be my eyes
Let the flowers in bloom be my lips
Let their scent be my blood
Let the wind be my breath
Let clouds be my mood
Let children’s laughter be my hope
Let widows’ sighs be my conscience
Let a stranger’s prayers be my delight
Let the bees be my wisdom
Let the trees be my strength
Let my patience reach to the stars
Let me be always remembered in your prayers
Now this is a beautiful poem, result of 3 years
daily visits to Saint Phillip’s cathedral, on my lunch break from a Law Firm.
Now I feel this is good enough for radio, but is the breast milk of pop the
only thing The Hits should feature?
I think the poem could be on Tee Shirts, on tea
towels and so on, or should it only be read in church? It is of course my
copyright. So how do I pitch that idea, how will I ever get a chance? Perhaps
if the lift breaks down and the Dragons from the Dragons Den have to spend a
fruitful hour with me.
What about words, my 3 books of shorts or blogs if
you like. Can they only be sold as a coffee table book for dentists’ and
doctors’ waiting rooms. Or can I record them to a data base and people can dip
in and hear them, then buy them on iTunes and so on. And then it’ll be “he can’t
sing, he can’t dance, but he walks like a concierge.” And then all radio will clamour for my shorts.
So all of this is about marketing, it’s about how
you can sell what you have written. They say the first million is the hardest
to earn, then after that the money flows in.
I have yet to find this out, I have yet to earn
the first penny, I just hope it happens in this life. Then me and my 3 girls
can have a big house and a cat for the girls and a dog called Subway for me.
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