On Saturday, the Season 6 premiere of Accident Suicide or Murder aired on Oxygen. In the first episode, “A Man and His Balloon,” I play Detective Moretti. To watch the episode, please visit this link.

These crime scene reenactment projects are a great deal of fun to work on. First, as the cases are real, so are the characters we are playing. In some cases, we are given a complete background on the case and character to assist in our portrayal. The process reminds me of the work I did at the Naval Justice School in Newport when I portrayed an NCIS agent. Once we knew the background, we could interpret the character accordingly.

I won’t share it yet, but I play a character in another episode who was such a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that I almost couldn’t believe it was an actual person. But it was real with all the duplicity, horrors, and deception this person created for themselves. Reflecting on what we produced on set, it will be interesting to see what made the final cut and how they put that story together.

Speaking of stories, the process to find an editor for SOS United States has begun. The time has come to put the novelization of the story into production for release under The Ashton Times banner next year. Given the state of the publishing industry, even if an agent was secured, it could still take months or another year to get the book released. Frankly, not only do I not want to wait that long, but friends and colleagues have been asking me about the book’s status. The time has come to go the self-publishing route.

Self-publishing isn’t what it was fifteen or even ten years ago; the process is easier, far more accepted, and, in fact, mainstream. At the end of the day, all the reader wants is a well-written, well-edited book to enjoy. In the back of my mind, if the release of SOS United States through The Ashton Times goes well, I may look to publish other books under the imprint. The process reminds me of what I once accomplished at my former company, Ashton International Media, when we produced magazines, special events, and started to dive into book publishing (Frozen Assets: The New Order of Figure Skating).

In the world of self-publishing, Reedsy has been a terrific resource. From their availability of freelance editors and designers to assistance in marketing, along with a host of live video seminars with guests from the publishing world, they really are a one-stop shop for writers at all levels.

With the screenplay version of SOS United States still being reviewed for production, two articles came out in the past couple of weeks that discussed the state of the film and entertainment industry. One talked about the rise of microdramas, but it was The New York Times article about how, even with “stars”, box office receipts are collapsing.

As you will see, the NYT article addresses many reasons for this, but as I have mentioned over the years, it comes down to budget and story. If you have a competitive budget and a great story to tell, you’ll find enough of an audience to justify the return. Simply, the films with “stars” are too expensive in the fragmented world we live in. Of course, there will always be films like Conclave that resonate with the box office ($127 million on $20 million budget), but those are no longer the norms; they are the exceptions. I reflect on the budget of First Signal and how that film has returned its budget 3x over.

Although those films are in two different economic universes, the one thing they had in common was a robust marketing plan. As I recently told a filmmaker the other day who inquired about a distributor, the key to success is finding the film’s audience and creating and executing a marketing plan that reaches them.

Next episode.