DESTROY Digital Media Platforms: How Competitive Streaming Levels the Playing Field for Creatives by Christopher Grant Sr.

"Destroy" is a high-impact word with lots of finality,

so when I was asked to review "DESTROY Digital Media Platforms: How Competitive Streaming Levels the Playing Field for Creatives," my sense of caution flared. I accepted an ARC in exchange for my honest review, and I can honestly say there is a lot in these 85 pages that keep me nodding and thinking "Oh, yeah, he gets it. He nails it!"

This book is a must-have for creators on all social media platforms. Competitive Streaming sounds simpler and a lot more user-friendly than other forms I've tried. I've been active on Twitter for more than ten years, and their follow-ratio continues to drive me crazy. (Authors, I #FollowBack, and I retweet links to your novels!).

I like this, and many of us who've missed out on the whale-slaps or the latest big upvotes will identify:

Underrepresented Creatives (URCs)

Like so many undiscovered indie artists, or
underrepresented creatives (URCs), my career
never took off. Over the years, I’ve often speculated
about why.

Hint: Usually, it is not because your content is no good.

Modern innovations like digital media platforms
such as YouTube, Spotify, Amazon, and Twitter
offer URCs a relatively cheap entry into the
marketplace. They’re no longer slaves to archaic
formats like CDs, cassettes, DVDs, and printed
books. The digital medium has little overhead and
unlimited reach. URCs can now make their art
available to billions of people around the world. We
could reasonably restate “If you build it, they will
come” to, “If you upload it, share it, or Tweet
about it, they will listen, watch, read and buy it.”

#Influencers in Chapter 3 had me nodding in agreement while shaking my head in disgust at how easily most people are influenced by the opinions of celebrities:

Never underestimate the power of influence. It can be good or bad, depending on the influencer. Most of us share similar preferences as the people we care about; we love the same things. It’s been called human nature, herd mentality, groupthink, etc., but it’s not always negative. Somebody’s experience, review, or advice about a product, place, or thing keeps us from making mistakes and wasting our hard-earned money and time — effectively by allowing them to be our guinea pig. But, we miss some diamonds in the rough if we only try something new if someone else is speaking, tasting, wearing, or watching for us, even more so if we only ever do so at the urging of celebrities. The celebrities and influencers we consider trend setters may not always be genuine. They, like us, are influenced as well; not only by other individuals, but by the big conglomerates that employ and promote them. This can be problematic in a way similar to the idea of Big Pharma partnering with the fastfood industry to raise funds for research to cure diseases caused by consuming fried and sugar-laden foods that drive prescription drug sales. Influencers endorsing brands for profit not because they genuinely love or even actually use them is nothing new. That’s just business. Celebrities advertise and promote brands all the time, right? We trust our influencers and celebrities to tell us what’s good. Whether it’s really what’s good or just what’s most profitable for them is hard to determine. Digital media has made the world smaller and individual influence broader.

We have influencers, and we have gatekeepers. Publishers who avoid risks and follow a copycat model of what has worked before. Much of this is old news, but Grant spells it out clearly:

Wisdom is the ability to assess what’s hot now, and use the knowledge to get a sense of what might be hot next. The best gatekeepers and industry leaders go beyond the norms in music, movies, books, etc., but doing so is risky. Most are reluctant to take the risk, choosing instead to rely on the copycat strategy for continued success.

This too is old news, but still worth remembering:

"... in 1977 Universal, Disney, and UA all passed on the Star Wars script.
"Top Hollywood studios rejected the 1981 Back to the Future script over 40 times before becoming the highest-grossing movie in 1985.
"J. K. Rowling once an unemployed, single mother on welfare sent her first Harry Potter manuscript to 12 different publishers, only to be rejected by all of them. She now has sold over 500 million books and is worth more than $1 billion.

"These are just a few examples of overlooked talented people. Search the net; you’ll be shocked at how many great creatives were passed on because they didn’t fit what someone thought would sell."

We already know this. So how do we get our creative efforts out there for others to enjoy (and buy)?

I know authors who continue to remain unpublished rather than suffer the "scourge" of self-publishing. Grant says they bought into a lie:

We’re conditioned to the big household names like Sony, Warner Brothers, HBO, Netflix, and others. We conclude that unless we’re repped by one of these major players; we haven’t made it, and our talents are not worthy of the masses. This is a lie.

We do not need validation from a major. Writers have heard for years we should write for ourselves, not for the market, and Grant reinforces that:

At some point you should reason that if you like your stuff, maybe someone else will like it as well? Once again, the goal is to find people who like what you like and who value what you do. These people may or may not be the gatekeepers at some major company. To find your audience, you need to know where to look — and it’s not in the industry, which largely comprises of big money, suits, and copycats. Your audience is among the people, and the people are on digital media platforms. You need to get their attention....

Getting attention:

I've met a lot of indie authors promoting their books via Twitter, even chatted a bit in public, and as a result, Amazon purged all my book reviews in 2019. Yes, they did. "Violation of Friends and Family Policy" - say what? Other authors have bought reviews or curried one-sentence 5-star reviews from acquaintances, but I was never one of those! I would find authors via "Free Today" books, then find them on social media, then chat with them, then buy more of their books, and this is some kind of personal bias or lack of professional objectivity as a reviewer? REALLY? I should appropriate the title of this book and launch a mission to "DESTROY Amazon" if they continue to leave all of my reviews purged. (My ranking went from Top 5000 to bottom ten million, but I have gradually regained a top 13,000 ranking, which is still not fair.)

No, they did not restore even one of my reviews. I have gotten service reps on the phone, to no avail. I violated Friends and Family content. Here's hoping that the new "Competitive Streaming" will not cause me to get shut down due to some kind of alleged favoritism toward some author I've never even met in real life and never will.

Yes: After exhorting authors to build a social media platform, Amazon keeps surveillance on reviewers, seeing what authors we follow on Twitter or Goodreads. Amazon never restored a thousand purged reviews, but did allow me to start reviewing again. (At what price do I enjoy this "privilege"--?)

So I started posting book reviews at Steemit, and then Hive. Blockchain! Cyber wallets!

Just as Grant explains in this book, the quality of your content has nothing to do with your popularity or your financial rewards.

Mediocrity is rewarded. Good stuff gets overlooked. It's all "Who You Know."

(Doesn't that sound an awful lot like the Friends policy Amazon so heavily punishes?)

Q: What can artists, musicians, writers, and bloggers do about it?

A: Sign up for Competitive Streaming.

Q: How does that work?

A: I'm not sure, and I read the entire book.

You’ve probably experienced the hassle of
skimming through hundreds of poor options
generated by some mysterious algorithm for what to
read, listen to, or watch. Like, you’ve spent more
time scrolling through a menu of hundreds of
channels you’d never watch than actually looking at
something good. You’ve probably also had the
satisfaction of checking out a recommendation
from a friend on what’s hot — or totally agreeing
about what’s not. Competitive Streaming™ doesn’t
stop filtering, it changes who’s doing the filtering,
from people in suits, to you. Again, the people are
the algorithm.

The author's podcasts and other sites may fill in any gaps:

If you like this book, please check out
DESTROY, the podcast that’s helping creatives
eliminate the barriers between them and the
people. DESTROYPODCAST.com

I have not clicked on the links yet nor listened to any podcasts (I'm allergic to podcasts!), but here's what the book is leading to:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Entertainment industry professional and
author Christopher Grant, Sr. has over seventeen
years of successful experience in the entertainment
industry. As the founder and CEO of upstart
media company SEVENHORNS, host of the
DESTROY Podcast, and founder of TraxBox, Inc.,
Chris has recognized the power of multimedia to
impact society for good. One of his lifelong
pursuits has been to create and deliver culturally
relevant content that will challenge the human
condition.

His background includes several years in the
trenches achieving gold and platinum level sales
recognition for major artists like POD, Relient K,
SEVENHORNS Founder & CEO
Switchfoot, Skillet, DC Talk, CeCe Winans and
others as the Northeast Sales & Marketing Territory
Manger for CapitolRecords/CMG (formerly EMI/
CMG), one of the world’s largest music distributors.
As VP of Marketing for an independent hip hop
label distributed by Provident Music Group/Sony
Music, Grant marketed and/or served as executive
producer on several projects by Grammy
nominated artists Lecrae, Da TRUTH, and The
Cross Movement. He has also managed his son,
Chris Grant Jr., whose credits include the voice of
Tyrone on Nickelodeon’s Emmy award-winning
show The Backyardigans, and daughter Sydnée,
who graduated from the USC School of Dramatic
Arts in Los Angeles and plays Jess in the romantic
comedy, “Accidentally in Love.”

Follow Christopher Grant Sr.

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgrantsr
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cgrantsr
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cgrantsr/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cgrantsr/

Summing it up:

I like the ideas presented here and will definitely keep an eye on Competitive Streaming. "Destroy" digital media platforms? I'm also waiting to see what exactly that entails. Because most of this transpires in cyberspace, I'm confident that rioting, looting, and burning should not be part of this mission. :)

Thank you for reading!

"Keangaroo,"

because Kean sounds like Kane (not keen, hint, hint)

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