That's Not The Way It Works: a no-nonsense guide to the craft and business of screenwriting by Bob Saenz

Author:Bob Saenz [Saenz, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

Ten

MARKETING YOUR SCRIPT, part one

Marketing your script is a Catch 22 (look it up). In order for your scripts to be read you have to be a successful screenwriter, but in order to become a successful screenwriter you need for your scripts to be read.

Now that you’ve read that a few times and are digesting it and feeling a little sick, all is not lost. You can succeed, it just takes that time and effort I keep hammering you with.

Before I get into the nuts and bolts and ideas and strategies of marketing your script out there to get it read, optioned, sold, and produced, or to just have it be a great sample of what you can do, there’s a lesson you need to sit through.

THE MYTH OF INSTANT GRATIFICATION

One of the most frustrating things about screenwriting is the time it takes for anything to happen. Anything. It takes time to figure out what to write. It takes time to research it. It takes time to write it, always longer than you think to do it well. Then come your rewrites. Time. More rewrites. More time. Getting peer feedback. More time. More rewrites. More time.

Now you want someone to read it who can make it, or who can get it to someone who can make it.

Here’s where we get to the most frustrating thing about dealing with new writers. Many expect instant gratification. To write their script and immediately see action on it. They have no idea about the reality of film and TV production. They think their script is so good that their thought is: I will write this script. It will sell. I will be on the red carpet at the premiere in six months.

Sounds like an exaggeration, right? It’s not. I’ve heard it more than once. Writers are done with their script and they want it read right now. Except that’s not the way it works.

Even when they do get read requests, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard writers complain they haven’t heard anything back from a producer or rep and it’s been a whole week. Or the manager who requested it hasn't gotten back to them in a month. Or the producer who asked for it never got back to them.

Or the biggest complaint, why can’t they get anyone to read their script at all? Why is it so unfair that you can’t send an unsolicited script to anyone you want and have them read it the next day?

The system of submitting scripts is set up the way it is so that producers, production companies, agents, and managers are not so overwhelmed with product that they can’t read anything. There are hundreds of thousands of scripts out there looking for a home. And every writer of each of these believes they have the next hit film, if only the powers that be would read them.

That includes me. Hey, you should believe in your work. It’s essential to success.

The industry is set up to weed out the bad scripts before they can get to them.

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