(2009-11-16) Wenger Content Capital

Albert Wenger had an interesting post on the idea of "Content Capital" (kinda like Venture Capital) for Book Publishing. My believe is that agents have to start providing content capital. The idea behind content capital is pretty much the same as that behind venture capital. Content capital puts up the money, the author creates the work(s) and all proceeds are shared. These would be what the music world has started calling “360 deals,” where many different revenue streams are generated. Probably based around a tiny corporation (Virtual Company) whose main assets are some amount of Intellectual Property by an author, and the author's time. A way of (possibly) providing a Living Wage advance to the writer, and Marketing for the property, then sharing revenue. Bringing together multiple revenue streams is important. But would an author most-often end up with a single relationship/SmallCo to cover his whole output/life, or a series of single-work-specific ventures? If the former case, and the 1st work doesn't do super-well, is there going to really be any money to continue to pay the creator to work on object2? Conversely, if each work has its own fund, then do 2 funds end up competing for the same creator's time (for different purposes supporting different stages of the respective objects Life Cycle)? Seems like almost a form of Patronage with a possible payback (like a Broadway play - so the creator really wants to sell 200%).

If you were just focused on the financial payback (rather than emotional benefit), would you need a big Portfolio to catch the low-odds Big Hit/Home Run? Meaning you'd need the scale of a, uh, Book Publisher? Or a Venture Capitalist - like the kinda willing to do early-stage Lean Startup funding (so that you do a larger number of small deals than a typical VC - raising scale issues like in Makers with New Work).

Some good comments in the thread.