Thoughts on the Economics of Creative Abundance

a practical approach to growing bioregional cultural community

The narrative, as told by the handful of publishers controlling mainstream creative content, is that good content is hard to find. A team of dedicated editors scour the world looking for the best music, literature, film, etc so they can bring it to the world. A narrative based on scarcity.

But good creative work is not scarce, it’s abundant. I have learned this again and again throughout my life, first as a music photojournalist, discovering dozens of extremely talented musicians who never made it big because of the scarcity model the music industry follows. Later, as I became involved with writing groups in different cities I saw the same thing: an abundance of creative talent that goes un-discovered.

Far too much to pump out globally through a handful of monolith channels. We would be overwhelmed if 1,000 new books were set out on bookshop displays around the world every month. So how do we narrow it down?

One idea is by geography, taking a bioregional approach. Not to say regions only create and consume creative works within their own region, but that this is the focus of a bioregional socio-technical system operating adjacent to the monolith global creative one we are all more familiar with.

But is this any different than the already operating indie publishing houses? Yes, because indie publishers are just as caught up in the global capitalist artificial scarcity narrative as the monoliths are, they may be small, but they want to discover, distribute and market on a large scale. No specific focus on finding local works nor marketing to the local consumers.

Or is there even a problem here? In the eyes of the monolith publishers and sellers large and small, maybe not. But for the people creating and consuming the content, yes. This is described well in books like ‘Chokepoint Capitalism,’ but not the authors don’t offer feasible solutions, more focused on top-down policy solutions than grassroots and market-based ones.

So what would a bioregional cultural system look like? There are already local artists making works, maybe they share their work with people who know them, but most have their hearts set on making it to the ‘big time’ even though their chances are slim to none, no matter how talented they might be. What’s missing are people and institutions to develop local work and bring it to a local audience. Local creatives are often left with no option other than entering the big time lottery.

Why not create these bioregional creative businesses? Because they need to know there is a market of consumers out there who would keep them profitable. Does this exist? Do ventures not take this opportunity because they think the market isn’t there?

On one hand, they’re right - a lot of people don’t want to take a chance on something they have never heard of, something that hasn’t been inundating their senses through mass marketing. If someone’s going to take a chance, it needs to be via a trusted route. From a publisher or seller who has established a reputation of producing high quality works.

When am I willing to take a chance on some creative work I’ve never heard of created by someone I’ve never heard of? Rarely. But if it’s at a venue with a reputation for quality, then I’m willing to give it a go.

And the question not asked often enough: What if there is local work that could actually be of higher quality than whatever is coming out of the monoliths? I’m confident, based on my experience that this is often the case.

If I’m right, there is a real business opportunity for folks passionate about the arts and wanting to serve their local artists and creative consumers. Such a business’ success would depend on its ability to build trust within the community as producing great works. Ultimately, they are serving content consumers (the customers), not creators (the product). But talented creators get opportunity they might not otherwise.

I think a lot of this comes down to development as well, finding great artists who have created works with potential but perhaps in need of further editing, revising, reworking. The business would need to have experts at refining works, time would need to be devoted to this process and not simply putting whatever comes in on the shelves/stage/etc. At the end of the day, profits would come as community members become loyal customers, knowing they are in for cultural work that is local and at an equal or greater level of quality to what comes out on the mass market.

Works could perhaps use this stage as a ‘proving ground’ and the monoliths may well end up relying on them to pick and choose what they want to mass produce, but their system wouldn’t change, only their sourcing, it would still be a system selecting a handful of works to distribute to the masses. Variety would remain at the bioregional level, with these community-focused development organizations scattered across the globe, thousands, perhaps millions of them.

This is not a new idea. I saw it when I was in Scotland with regional arts organizations like The Stove providing ‘for us by us’ opportunities in a variety of ways. However the focus on developing artists and their works to be on par with mass distributed ones was lacking. Since the organization was government-funded, they had little incentive to appeal to their customer base, but instead could focus solely on the artists - good for artists, but not community as a whole. In the US, government funding for the arts is less of an option, so appealing to the market is more of a necessity than a choice.

Another example might be my favorite theatre in London, Royal Court Theatre. They have built a global reputation for producing extremely high quality new plays. I don’t know how much of their funding comes from public sources, and their regional focus is more on finding artists from across the UK (and sometimes further afield), rather than just in London. But with the nature of theatre, they are primarily serving a local customer base.

I’m writing this mainly for my own benefit, as a means of thinking through the business I would love to start. A place that invites local artists (musicians, writers, etc) to share their best work, have it be developed and brought to a local market. If artists and developmental editors want to be paid, it would be best if done so in equity - rights to a share of the proceeds from the end product. Less risky than debt financing.

Is this any different from what’s already happening? In the case of theatre, there are local theatre companies, but they primarily produce established works from outside the region. They might occasionally commission new works, but again they set a global scope, rather than local. There are some festivals and events that do focus on local artists for a local audience, but they don’t seem to target the mainstream audience or invest the time into serious development.

For local writing, indie bookshops might carry local works from local publishers, but it’s usually hidden in a corner with little effort put into focusing on quality or marketing it to the mainstream audience.

A viable business following the bioregional ideal would only be successful if it could establish a reputation for quality equal to or greater than the mainstream.

The next step would be opening up for submissions, whether it be of music, writing or drama, perhaps all three. And then finding developmental editors in each area willing to work on an equity basis, which would likely mean they play a role in the initial selection process too. All I would do is serve as a means of organization and facilitation, a project manager of sorts.

There’s nothing to lose and everything to gain, even if it’s a failure.