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Did you know that you can now share your webinars, syndicated video content or training videos with millions of Amazon Prime members — and earn royalties in the process?
It’s all thanks to a program called Amazon Video Direct. And it’s all available starting today on the Amazon platform.
Introducing Amazon Video Direct
Earlier today, Amazon announced an addition to Amazon Video called Amazon Video Direct (AVD), a new first-of-its-kind self-service program that lets you make your video content available to Amazon customers, including millions of Prime members, and earn royalties based on the number of hours streamed.
You can also make your videos available to rent or own, offer them for free with ads or package them together as an add-on subscription for Amazon Prime members.
Small Business and Amazon Video Direct
AVD is ideal for independent filmmakers, video bloggers, podcasters and digital publishers. Companies such as Conde Nast Entertainment, HowStuffWorks, Samuel Goldwyn Films, The Guardian, Mashable, Mattel, StyleHaul and Business Insider are already participating. You can find their videos at Amazon Video Direct starting today.
It’s also conceivable that small businesses could make their videos available to customers as part of Prime Video, for marketing purposes, even if they choose not to receive royalties.
For example, business owners could publish educational webinars or product-related videos. Business and lifestyle coaches could upload a series of training videos. Food bloggers could syndicate cooking videos. The list of ideas is endless and certainly worth exploring.
Think of AVD as akin to YouTube — a repository for video content and another channel to reach customers and prospects.
Benefits of Amazon Video Direct for Content Creators
The new Amazon Video Direct service has more than a few pluses, the company points out specifically in its release:
- Access to Amazon’s vast streaming video audience. You can target tens of millions of Prime members with your video content while collecting revenue for the content that is viewed;
- Flexible sharing options. That revenue comes from sharing your content in a variety of ways through Amazon Video Direct including purchase, rental, subscriptions and even ad impressions — again in the case of free content;
- Expanded customer reach. You’ll be able to make your videos available to an expanded international audience too. That potential audience includes potential viewers in the United States, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and Japan, — countries where Amazon Video is already available;
- Device option support. Your content will also be available on a variety of devices — specifically those on which Amazon Video is already accessible. That list includes Fire TV, Fire tablets, iOS and Android tablets, connected TVs, game consoles and iOS and Android phones and laptops;
- Optimized performance metrics. Amazon’s performance metrics give you all the information you need to manage the Amazon Video Direct part of your business. That includes information like how long your video was streamed, projected revenue for the amount of video consumed, projected revenue, history of payment and the number of subscribers.
“It’s an amazing time to be a content creator,” said Jim Freeman, vice president of Amazon Video, in the announcement. “There are more options for distribution than ever before and with Amazon Video Direct, for the first time, there’s a self-service option for video providers to get their content into a premium streaming subscription service. We’re excited to make it even easier for content creators to find an audience, and for that audience to find great content.”
Amazon Video Direct Stars Program
Amazon also launched today the AVD Stars program, which lets video creators share one million dollars per month — based on customer engagement with their content — as a bonus to the Top 100 titles included with Prime through Amazon Video Direct.
According to Amazon, the bonus is incremental to revenue earned from hours streamed, rentals, purchases, monthly subscriptions and ad impressions. All titles included with Prime are automatically eligible.
Get Started Using AVD
Get started using Amazon Video Direct by visiting the website and clicking the “Create your free account” button. If you already have an Amazon account, sign in.
Next, agree to the AVD license and then complete your account details, which involve three steps:
- Create a company profile. This includes adding your business name, address, phone number and similar details. Amazon requires a company profile even if you’re not part of an organization;
- Set up payment and banking information. Amazon electronically pays royalties to the bank account information you provide;
- Submit your tax information. U.S. tax law regulations require you to submit information about your tax status.
Upon completing those steps you can now access the AVD dashboard and upload videos in one of two formats:
- Standalone. A title consisting of a single video that is not part of a larger collection of a series. A feature film, short film or documentary are all examples of standalone titles;
- Episodic. A title consisting of multiple episodes that comprise a season. A TV series or multi-part documentary are examples. For episodic titles available for purchase, you choose to offer an entire collection (season) or individual videos (episodes). You also have the option of making your content available to Prime members as a monthly add-on subscription.
Visit the Amazon Video Direct website to learn more or begin publishing content.
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Images: Amazon
Aira Bongco
So does this mean that you can now sell video information? I think that this is a good way to monetize information for Youtubers.
Paul Chaney
That appears to be the case, yes. I agree that it is a useful outlet for monetizing information.
Paul,
This looks interesting. I do think it’s going to better for long-form videos…not the 3-minute ones that folks on YouTube seem to like.
The Franchise King®
Paul Chaney
I agree, Joel. I could see it being useful for training videos. Ultimately, it’s probably best-suited to companies in the film or video production industries, but that remains to be seen.
Angharad Parry
I think it’s super for short videos in a series…the world’s our lobsters…brilliant news for filmmakers 🙂
Get in touch if you have anything which might require a producer/director 🙂
I think this would be a great tool for helping to spread knowledge and help consumers target the information they want. It will also help companies to brand their content and monetize said content at the same time.
Terence
This is probably good news. One possible caveat: Much of the real value in distributing your content is harvesting viewer’s email address. Not sure how Amazon will handle this with their new video program but when it comes to selling on Amazon, they have many regulations and checks to keep you from having a direct relationship with your enduser.
They like to retain the relationship. I hope they are much more flexible in opening up the conduit btw producer and consumer with this interesting new outlet.
Aidan
AVD has a horrible help department. Absolutely useless! My issue is that there is no phone number to contact them if you’re having problems. For a business that is partnering with me at 50%, I expect to speak to someone when I am having problems. As of now I have been dealing with them via email. But they don’t answer my issue directly. Instead, they give me generic answers that leads me no where (repeatedly). I truly believe that I’m emailing an automated robot, not a real person. I have been dealing with this for a month now with absolutely NO headway what-so-ever. Just spinning my wheels. The department of AVD is useless and Amazon heads have NO control over them. I’ve called all head departments and no one can help me.
j h
Amazon only favors their own productions and stuff by the majors – YOUR indie content will not be easily found anywhere on the site. They allow indie content but they stuff it so deep in the far reaches of their system you won’t get enough views to justify the time it takes to upload your film. I’m looking to remove my content until they fix discovery. Waste of time.