Recording and producing a film can be quite daunting. Movies hold an empathetic power that brings people joy, moves strangers to tears, and even inspires others to change lives. Independent filmmakers often struggle to attract the right exposure for their movies, but it’s much easier than one might think. This list of books, targeted at indie filmmakers, helps guide aspiring filmmakers to create a successful blockbuster.

We hope you enjoy our recommendations! Some may have been sent as samples, but all have been independently selected by our editors. FYI: PR ON THE GO and its publishing partners may earn a commission and/or other compensation from links on this page.

Army Of One: PR & Marketing For The Indie Filmmaker by Kevin D Sampson

Independent filmmakers find themselves not only pitching their films but also getting them out to the public. Army of One: PR & Marketing for The Indie Filmmaker includes the best practices in setting up your film to engage the public, and market it from pre-production to post-production. Kevin Sampson offers practical advice that readers can immediately implement in their film's PR. Army of One teaches readers how to build a community of sustained engagement in pre-production, develop a social media presence, attract film critics in a positive light, navigate the film festival circuit in a way that doesn't break the bank, and utilize behind-the-scenes media to use with your film's marketing. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the do-it-yourself nature of independent filmmaking, this book is for you.

Behind the Scenes of Indie Film Marketing by Nicholas LaRue

Provides current and incoming filmmakers with an intensive overview of how to create business and marketing plans to prepare their movies for distribution. With logical data-driven conclusions of independent film promotion, Larue helps new indie filmmakers produce movies through a diverse perspective. The book presents a view of sales and marketing in the independent film industry and explores the new digital tools available to filmmakers in promoting their films. Complemented by a wide array of advice from veteran filmmakers and interviews from film festival directors, publicists, film critics, and other industry professionals, who provide insights into working within the independent film industry.

Indie Film Marketing: Global Audience Strategies by Maria Johnsen

Offering tried and true methods for indie filmmakers to master the art of multilingual film promotion, this book reveals strategies to connect with audiences beyond the studio system.
In today's digital era, social media offers powerful tools for indie filmmakers. With advice on how to navigate cyberspace, build engaging websites, and create compelling content to build a devoted community, Johnsen embraces new tactics to stay afloat in the fast-paced world of digital marketing. Discover the power of multilingual film marketing, data-driven insights, and clickable ad campaigns while remaining authentic. With case studies and a cinematic adventure, grab your director's chair and welcome the chaotic journey of filmmaking.

How to Produce an Indie Film by Alec Ybarra

Covers a range of topics that every producer grapples with when setting out to make their film. Directing and producing films is overwhelming, it’s no secret, but with the right resources, it can be quite seamless. Focusing on film production specifically, readers will learn various lessons and how to overcome the many obstacles filmmakers face.

The Global Film Market Transformation in the Post-Pandemic Era (China Perspectives) by Qiao Li, David Wilson, Yanqiu Guan

This book reviews the development and performance of the film industry during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Examining new trends in film production, Li discusses the distribution and consumption of movies through a global lens, taking indie filmmakers to the next level while still following recent trends.

Filming An Indie: A Diary of Making Revenge In Kind by K. C. Bailey

This diary is K. C. Bailey's memoir of Revenge In Kind, a feature film, and describes the decade-long process of writing the screenplay and shooting the movie. This unique director was misdiagnosed with a fatal illness, and under the impression she had limited time left, Bailey spent her life's savings to undertake a project that would fill her final days. Supervising the editing and coloring of the film, while working directly with the sound designer and composer, Bailey shares her personal memory of making a film. Few artists have the opportunity to see a film project from conception to birth, so she is uniquely positioned to tell the saga as entertainment and as a compendium useful to other independent filmmakers.

Marketing for Microbudget Films by Nick Mackintosh-Smith

Feature film director, producer, and educator, Nick Mackintosh-Smith, shares both blockbuster and indie techniques for targeting a specific audience. Smith provides hands-on suggestions for strategies designed to match a variety of genres and effective promotion, from building relationships with audience members to large-scale distribution companies. Readers will learn tactics such as working with film commissions and other film-friendly organizations, the power of poster art, trailers, and bonus material. Providing advice on how to maintain audience interest during the post-production process. While maximizing the latest social media techniques, Marketing for Micro-Budget Films provides an abundance of techniques to use in a way that will assist and motivate moviemakers of all levels.

Rewriting Indie Cinema: Improvisation, Psychodrama, and the Screenplay (Film and Culture Series) by J. J. Murphy

Most films rely on a script developed in pre-production, yet, recently, they have turned to new approaches to scripting that allow for more complex characterization and shift the emphasis from the page to performance. In Rewriting Indie Cinema, J. J. Murphy explores these alternative forms of scripting and how they have shaped American film from the 1950s to the present. He traces a strain of indie cinema that used improvisation and psychodrama, a therapeutic form of improvised acting based on a performer's own life experiences. Sometimes they benefit from the freedom of digital technology. In reading key films and analyzing their techniques, Rewriting Indie Cinema demonstrates how divergence from the script has blurred the divide between fiction and nonfiction. Showing how filmmakers have striven to capture the subtleties of everyday behavior, Murphy provides a new history of American indie filmmaking and how it challenges Hollywood industrial practices.

Independent Film Finance (American Film Market Presents) by David Offenberg

Teaches the fundamentals of filmmaking to aspiring producers and directors who need to learn film finance from the ground up. Through the voices of more than 60 successful independent producers and a data-based approach, award-winning professor David Offenberg combines the wisdom of well-known and successful producers into one easy-to-follow guide. Readers will learn how to approach potential investors and what those financiers will expect from them in return. Touching on equity, debt, revenue, profits, and their role in your movie along with accessible information about tax incentives and profit participation is included to help emerging filmmakers build a workable financing plan. The book combines hard numbers and data sets, with direct guidance from successful producers, to help indie filmmakers fund their movies.

The Talent Management of Indie Authorship: From American independent cinema and short “films” to pay-TV and streaming by Andrew Stubbs-Lacy

Explores the role that talent agents, talent managers, and producers play in packaging, marketing, and selling screen media products and brands. By analyzing several case studies across a range of screen media, the book explores the strategies that talent intermediaries frequently adopt to allow their films to stand out. Readers learn newfound techniques that complicate popular ideas of indie-auteurs as highly autonomous and innovative filmmakers, yet inevitably invite success.

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