Michael Rogan - How to Sell a Screenplay in the 21st Century: Your No-Nonsense Screenwriters Guide to Launching a Film Career (Book 5 of the Screenplay Writing Made Stupidly Easy Collection)

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I could tell you it's the unprecedented power of social media to make connections with film industry decision-makers.

Or that the line between content creator and distributor is as thin as a Russian supermodel's waistline.

Or that the systematic collapse of the traditional publishing paradigm has redefined what a published property is, making any self-published novel, eBook or blog fertile ground for the start of a bidding war.

But, really, I think it's that nobody in this business knows what the hell media will look like in the future.

Are we STILL going to go to movies in five years? Ten years? Next week?

Will movies need to be shot for mobile devices, not just for your local Cineplex 3-D projector? (And what the hell will cell phones look like?)

And will there still be a window between the time a movie is released theatrically and when it arrives on your TV/DVR/Blu-Ray Player/Robot Brain?

Nobody knows.

And that scares the hell out of everybody who works in this town.

Because it means the folks who distribute and develop content can't instantly say no to every project that comes in the door.

It means they can't assume the best material out there comes from writers with overpriced USC film-school educations.

Julie and Julia grossed 94 million dollars, and was based on a mundane, self-indulgent food blog.

Fifty Shades of Grey started out as a Twilight message-board vanity project and quickly created one of the biggest bidding wars in Hollywood. (You have no idea what kind of final approval the writer got for that deal.)

Colleen Houck couldn't give away her young adult novel Tiger's Curse to anybody in the publishing industry. So, she self-pub'd it on Amazon. (Paramount Pictures - the studio that made The Godfather bought it and immediately put it into development.)

To feed the ever-demanding content beast, development people need you.

They just hate admitting it.

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Why the Film Business Hates You

As a writer, you are a major time suck.

You take up their weekends, with your 123-page sprawling historical epics and your sci-fi fantasy yarns.

You force them to write extensive pages of reader coverage, to prove to their bosses why you suck.

You squander their time with your annoying phone calls and misspelled query letters and stalker-ish questions at conference Q&As.

And if they like what you wrote that's when the major time suckage really starts.

That means theyve gotta devote months, if not years, fighting for you on studio lots and pitching your talent to bipolar actors & insufferable directors.

The last thing they want to do is say yes.

But they also know there is the slightest, remote chance that the next script that plops on their desk - your script - might be the next Hurt Locker or Bridesmaids or Paranormal Activity 14 1/2.

And to have the chance to be a part of a project like that is what everybody - even the most cynical, jaded, coked-out, sex-addicted development person - dreams of.

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Take Your Stinkin Paws Off Me, You Damned Dirty Ape!

When selling your script, you will hear the word no.

You will feel you're the worst writer in the world.

You will get hung up on and ignored and told you should give up your dreams and, instead, get a job at your local Orange Julius.

Don't worry. It's just noise.

If your script is awesome and unique - and I'll go over how to get it there in a later chapter - then it WILL capture the attention of somebody who can jump-start your career and change your life.

Finding that somebody is what this book is all about.

1

How to Conquer Hollywood From 3,000 Miles Away

The life you have led doesnt have to be the only one you have.

-Anna Quindlen

John Wanamaker, marketing guru and overall cool guy, once said:

Half the money I spend on advertising is a waste of money. Trouble is: I don't know which half.

Most of the action steps in this book won't work. They won't lead to substantive leads.

Trouble is: we've no idea which steps those are.

You've got to throw everything against the wall and see which email query and festival pitch fest sticks.

You've got to have a mindset, as the Persian poet Rumi opined, that is: Open to everything, and attached to nothing.

And, believe me, there's a whole lot of "nothing" in Hollywood.

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She Was a Junkie for the Printed Word

This is how most screenwriting books suggest you approach selling your script:

1. Buy a copy of the Hollywood Creative Directory.
2. Send out 150-200 query letters to agents and managers.
3. Hope for a 10 percent positive response rate.
4. Send out 15-20 scripts for consideration.
5. Hope one of them buys your script.
6. Rinse and Repeat.

This might have worked back in the Mesozoic era (or as I like to call it, 1995), but things move a whole lot faster now.

For starters:

• The Hollywood Creative Directory no longer exists.
• Query letters are a joke. (No one I know in production reads them anymore.)
• Agents and managers (most likely) won't have anything to do with you until you have talent attached to your project.

I suggest a more holistic, 21st Century approach in which you do the following simultaneously:

1. Come up with a kick-ass script idea.
2. Create a database of above-the-line talent (producers, actors, directors, etc.) for every film in your genre that was released in the last two years.
3. Write your script.
4. Use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to build out your social network and list of contacts.
5. Rewrite your script.
6. Attend every film festival and conference you can possibly afford.