Epilogue: A Moody Success Story

B.I. Moody, III College of Business Administration graduates Marc-Alain Reviere and his two business partners Justin Fontenot and Ron Domingue have created an innovative digital publishing company named Epilogue that seeks to revolutionize the storytelling process by formatting their projects for e-readers like the Amazon Kindle. Reviere’s education at the Moody College of Business was instrumental in preparing him for this new business venture. Coupled with his work experience and internship, the tools he acquired from having earned his BSBA in Marketing and his MBA were a vital part of his journey toward becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Epilogue is all about storytelling and making the process more interactive. After all, the art of storytelling has always been one of the most basic tenets of the human experience. From oral traditions to music, visual arts, film, and the written word, people have always sought to express themselves through some kind of creative medium. What if you could combine all of these mediums? And what if you could carry them around in your pocket?

Epilogue was founded one year ago with Domingue's own graphic album Hotel Whiskey Tango as their first project. Fontenot and Domingue (a graphic designer/artist) are roommates. They founded Epilogue three months before Reviere got involved.

“We felt at the time that graphic novels were the easiest entry point to independent publishing,” Domingue said, “but we feel that we can expand into a number of genres. The concept is easy to digest with the explosion of tablets, namely the iPad and Kindle. We wanted to take advantage of the platform and offer something that can be absorbed in a few sittings; Hotel Whiskey Tango aspires to be a sort of digital pulp fiction.”

Reviere, the marketing director for Epilogue, feels that the company will give emerging artists an edge that other digital publishing companies do not.

“It gives artists more options,” Reviere said. “We have a profound respect for all projects that come through. We always ask the question, ‘How can we make the reader experience unusual and remarkable?’”

The publishing experience is unique for each artist and they receive the very best customer service from the Epilogue team. Reviere explained that the artists they most love to work with care about the format that will be used for their work, comparing the publisher to a frame a painter would choose for their painting. A painter wouldn’t paint something beautiful only to go buy a cheap frame for it. A true artist wants to present their work on a canvas that parallels their own work and serves to compliment it best.

“Those kinds of artists are those we seek, and they seek us out as well,” he said.

Marketing for Hotel Whiskey Tango was aided by the website kickstarter.com, which provides publicity for projects ranging from eBooks like Domingue’s project to music, art, and games.Epilogue was trying to raise $5,000 to get the book into print. They created merchandise like a vinyl version of the music included in the eBook, signed artwork by Domingue, t-shirts, and Moleskine notebooks with the Hotel Whiskey Tango logo on them. This project (the first project they had attempted to market at the time) achieved 75% of its goal, and they had 88 different backers for the project. Even though those who back projects only receive the merchandise if the project reaches its goal, Epilogue made sure to fulfill the orders for merchandise despite this.

The benefit of digital publishing, according to Fontenot, is that it offers “an interactive option to storytelling with the use of music to help strike a tone, video, 3D models, mobile graphic art, and alternative endings.”

Domingue, Fontenot, and Reviere are always available to communicate with artists who are working on a project at any time, day or night. All three of the founders have an extensive circle of contacts that contribute to the success of Epilogue – Reviere works with musicians, Domingue has connections with art and design, and Fontenot has connections with videographers.

Epilogue of New Orleans

930 Poydras Street, Suite 1409

New Orleans, LA 70112

epiloguepub.com

Fontenot said that the Epilogue team is proud to “create an artist-centric culture by offering the artist more ownership to their creation than traditional publishing. Furthermore, Epilogue has built a network of artists who collaborate by making music, logo designs, and videos.”

Both Reviere and Fontenot value the education they received at UL Lafayette. Reviere received his BSBA in Marketing and his MBA in 2008, both from the B.I. Moody, III College of Business Administration. He worked as a project manager for Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) and was also an operations manager for Sherwin Williams before earning his MBA.

While working on his MBA, Reviere gained valuable experience as a graduate assistant for Dr. Mark Smith and Dr. Ramesh Kolluru , where his largest project was to quantify and delineate the effects of oil and pipelines in the Gulf, a project he had to complete within two months.

“It was a breakthrough when I received a quick reply that what I had done was good,” he said.

Likewise, Fontenot found that his early business courses helped him understand not only the way a business should operate, but how to read market cues so that they know which direction to take Epilogue.

“My early business courses opened my eyes to the dynamics of the marketplace,” he said. His advice to students and aspiring business owners is to “be willing to take a calculated risk, have the right people around you, outsource everything you can, and learn the 80/20 principle.”

Copyright © 2014 BI Moody III College of Business Administration. All Rights Reserved.