Being in the industry for 4 years now on my own, I've worked with quite a long list of companies. Obviously, the more important side to me is the publishers, especially the good ones who always seem to pull the eCPM's. But, as we all know, "great" deals are few and far between, and working with all the publishers you want to isn't always feasible every month, let alone every year.
I look back at my CPA lists from 2002, and realize that half of the companies are either named something else, went bankrupt, or were purchased (which is a whole other post for me, and for those that know me, you understand why.) I also look at my revenue sheets from 2002-2005, and realize that some companies only are present during certain years, or connected to certain deals. I worked with one company when I first went on my own in 2002, and then not again until December 2005. I guess our industry is very cyclical.
There is also something in our industry known as "replacement." I've worked with a few companies in the past that I made a lot of money with and for, to have it end abruptly because of a miscommunication or a bad deal. Yet, that company is usually replaced by another, who not only picks up the slack from lost sales, but adds more. My Entertainment Book deal has been all over the place in the last 2 years, trying out many lists and almost every major network. I always try to get it on every single network, as so many deals are, because each network has their loyal affiliates. Yet, in any deal, not everyone can be involved at the same time. In the past year, three top networks moved on from the Entertaiment Book deal, only to be replaced, from what I thought at the time, to be smaller, inferior networks. Yet to my surprise, the numbers are higher than ever, and the new networks are doing more than what is asked of them.
Every industry has a cyclical part of it, and a big one in our industry is the publishers. I'm sure there is some company I worked with last month, that I won't even hear from again until 2008, but that's ok, since everyone else involved will pick up the slack in the meantime.
