“My approach was to find good writers that didn’t necessarily have the most commercial instincts and marry them to my commercial instinct by giving them ideas and working together with them on scripts.”—Neil Moritz, Produced By
It was delightful to run across this quote from producer Neil Moritz (“Cruel Intentions,” “Fast & Furious,” “Made of Honor”), which reinforces the approach we’ve been focusing on at The Story Merchant. It’s as frustrating to us as it is to our storytelling clients that good-to-excellent stories have such a hard time making their way into the marketplace. When we can convince our writers to take the marketplace seriously, we hook them up with concepts we know are low-resistance to buyers. At the very worst, this approach gets our clients’ work in front of the buyers so they can appreciate excellent writing and storytelling ability. At best, it leads to sales and financing progress.
Whether you’re a client of ours or not, think high concept. Think how you can make a buyer look at your project out of all the others that are raining down on the desk every day. One way we highly recommend: find a classic that is in public domain (so there are no rights issues). ADAPT it to today. On your title page, put, “Based on the novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky,” or “Based on the short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne.” It’s hard for editors and creative execs to resist a story that retells a classic. It’s what they call
a “pre-sold” concept.
If you’re a screenwriter with a fantastic script, consider writing it as a novel, then sell it to a publisher. It then becomes an “underlying right,” which gives the studio exec the incentive and security needed to acquire it.
Think outside the box!
The Power of Patience
George Lucas put up his own money to make Star Wars because no one believed in his vision. By the time the movie came out, he was completely broke. But he ended up becoming phenomenally wealthy precisely because he had been unable to sell any of the rights to the film or sequels. --M.J. Ryan, The Power of Patience
PUBLICIZING YOUR BOOK Suggestions for Success: Part 2
Continued from part one
Now that you have finished your book, and it is ready to be shopped around to publishers (or has already been bought by a publisher!) it’s time to think about what you can do to help promote your book.
Reviews!
LA Times
SF Chronicle
B & N.com
BookReporter.com
Salon.com
American Way Magazine (in flight Magazine for American Airlines)
Esquire
GQ
Giant Magazine
Book Page
Entertainment Weekly
People
FHM Magazine
Hollywood Reporter
Men's Journal
UAS Today
Washington Post
Chicago Tribune
Chicago Sun Times
Washington Post
Wall Street Journal
Pages magazine
Time
Newsweek
Time Out NY
AP
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Boston Globe
Creative Screenwriting
Dallas Morning News
Contra Costa Times
Denver Post
LA Daily News
San Diego Union Tribune
San Jose Mercury News
Miami Herald
Minneapolis Star Tribune
NY Daily News
NY Post
Orange County Register
Philadelphia Inquirer
Variety
Seattle Times
Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel
Deadly Pleasures
SciFiHaven.com
Locus
Fantasy & Sci Fi
CFQ
Starlog
Interzone
Cinefantasy
several major freelancers such as Tom Nolan, Merle Rubin, Dick Adler, Harriet Klausner
Others as appropriate to your particular title—e.g., Today’s Black Woman, Black Star News, Black Reign magazine, Ebony, Black Essence, etc.
One of our star clients, Larry Thompson, came up with the idea of contacting an airport bookstore distributor directly—and succeeded in setting up several in-airport signings—moving 85 books at once! See the following email exchange:
From: Richard Lotti [mailto:Richard.Lotti@THEPARADIESSHOPS.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:18 PM
To: Larry D. Thompson
Subject: RE: Book Signing
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Our Book Store Manager, Sosena Girma, will be contacting you to arrange for the best time for you to do a book signing.
-----Original Message-----
From: Larry D. Thompson [mailto:ldt@lorancethompson.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 10:20 AM
To: Richard Lotti
Subject: Book Signing
Good morning, Richard. I am the author of So Help Me God, a courtroom thriller that your shops around the country have been carrying for the past two months. I have done successful book signings at OKC and DFW. We sold about 85 books at OKC (not a major airport as you know) and about 125 at DFW (I invite you to contact Lynn Allmon there for a recommendation, both as to my performance and the book, which he very much enjoyed). Now, I would like to schedule a book signing at one of your highly trafficed locations at LaGuardia on a Friday. If that is feasible, please contact me to coordinate a mutually convenient date. I will bear my own expenses. All you will need to provide will be a table and the books. Thanks.
Larry D. Thompson
www.larrydthompson.com
713 857 5940
Here’s a service offered by Kirkus that we believe is well worth the money:
Has Your Book Been Overlooked? Do You Need Exposure?
Do You Want to Be Discovered?
For the first time in 73 years, Kirkus is offering a new review service, giving a whole new class of writers the opportunity to get attention for their books and giving rights and acquisitions agents the chance to watch out for books that might interest them. Any book is fair game, whether conventionally published, self-published, e-published, published via Print-On-Demand, or not previously published at all.
Kirkus Discoveries is a paid review service that allows authors and publishers of overlooked titles to receive authoritative, careful assessment of their books.
Here's how it works:
Sign up for Google Alerts, they are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. You can see who's talking about you and post comments for them and their readers. It's a great way to network!
Continue reading part three
Read PUBLICIZING YOUR BOOK Suggestions for Success from the beginning.
Click here to buy How to Publish Your Novel by Ken Atchity, Andrea McKeown, Julie Mooney, & Margaret O'Connor on Amazon
Now that you have finished your book, and it is ready to be shopped around to publishers (or has already been bought by a publisher!) it’s time to think about what you can do to help promote your book.
Reviews!
- Get everyone you know to review your book on amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. Though the impact of webstores on overall sales is negligible, they have helped launch countless titles because of its pervasive influence on book-browsers as well as booksellers.
- Whether you do it through your publisher, your publicist, or your own personal sweat equity, make sure “galley copies” (aka “Advanced Reading Copies, or ARCs”) go to book review editors at, as appropriate:
- Kirkus Reviews
- Publishers Weekly
- Book List
LA Times
SF Chronicle
B & N.com
BookReporter.com
Salon.com
American Way Magazine (in flight Magazine for American Airlines)
Esquire
GQ
Giant Magazine
Book Page
Entertainment Weekly
People
FHM Magazine
Hollywood Reporter
Men's Journal
UAS Today
Washington Post
Chicago Tribune
Chicago Sun Times
Washington Post
Wall Street Journal
Pages magazine
Time
Newsweek
Time Out NY
AP
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Boston Globe
Creative Screenwriting
Dallas Morning News
Contra Costa Times
Denver Post
LA Daily News
San Diego Union Tribune
San Jose Mercury News
Miami Herald
Minneapolis Star Tribune
NY Daily News
NY Post
Orange County Register
Philadelphia Inquirer
Variety
Seattle Times
Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel
Deadly Pleasures
SciFiHaven.com
Locus
Fantasy & Sci Fi
CFQ
Starlog
Interzone
Cinefantasy
several major freelancers such as Tom Nolan, Merle Rubin, Dick Adler, Harriet Klausner
Others as appropriate to your particular title—e.g., Today’s Black Woman, Black Star News, Black Reign magazine, Ebony, Black Essence, etc.
One of our star clients, Larry Thompson, came up with the idea of contacting an airport bookstore distributor directly—and succeeded in setting up several in-airport signings—moving 85 books at once! See the following email exchange:
From: Richard Lotti [mailto:Richard.Lotti@THEPARADIESSHOPS.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:18 PM
To: Larry D. Thompson
Subject: RE: Book Signing
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Our Book Store Manager, Sosena Girma, will be contacting you to arrange for the best time for you to do a book signing.
-----Original Message-----
From: Larry D. Thompson [mailto:ldt@lorancethompson.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 10:20 AM
To: Richard Lotti
Subject: Book Signing
Good morning, Richard. I am the author of So Help Me God, a courtroom thriller that your shops around the country have been carrying for the past two months. I have done successful book signings at OKC and DFW. We sold about 85 books at OKC (not a major airport as you know) and about 125 at DFW (I invite you to contact Lynn Allmon there for a recommendation, both as to my performance and the book, which he very much enjoyed). Now, I would like to schedule a book signing at one of your highly trafficed locations at LaGuardia on a Friday. If that is feasible, please contact me to coordinate a mutually convenient date. I will bear my own expenses. All you will need to provide will be a table and the books. Thanks.
Larry D. Thompson
www.larrydthompson.com
713 857 5940
Here’s a service offered by Kirkus that we believe is well worth the money:
Has Your Book Been Overlooked? Do You Need Exposure?
Do You Want to Be Discovered?
For the first time in 73 years, Kirkus is offering a new review service, giving a whole new class of writers the opportunity to get attention for their books and giving rights and acquisitions agents the chance to watch out for books that might interest them. Any book is fair game, whether conventionally published, self-published, e-published, published via Print-On-Demand, or not previously published at all.
Kirkus Discoveries is a paid review service that allows authors and publishers of overlooked titles to receive authoritative, careful assessment of their books.
Here's how it works:
- A review is commissioned ($350 per title) from the Discoveries team, who assigns the book to one person within the Kirkus pool of professional reviewers, who in turn provides an honest, caveat-emptor evaluation, under the same impartial rubric as Kirkus Reviews.
- The review, written in the same format and style as a traditional Kirkus review, is sent to the author or publisher as a PDF. (Allow 8-10 weeks for turnaround.) The author or publisher is free to excerpt the review or reprint it in whole as part of any promotional or marketing material, whether print or online.
- The review is then posted on the Discoveries website (www.kirkusdiscoveries.com), which has a niche audience of agents, rights representatives, booksellers, librarians and film and TV producers. At the request of the author or publisher, the review may be withheld from the website.
- Reviews are eligible for inclusion in the monthly Kirkus Discoveries monthly eNewsletter, which highlights the best submissions to the program, at no extra cost. That HTML newsletter goes to a targeted base of subscribers, most of whom are looking for the rights-including both print and film-to books and unpublished manuscripts.Click here to signup for the free monthly Kirkus Discoveries eNewsletter!
Sign up for Google Alerts, they are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. You can see who's talking about you and post comments for them and their readers. It's a great way to network!
Continue reading part three
Read PUBLICIZING YOUR BOOK Suggestions for Success from the beginning.
Click here to buy How to Publish Your Novel by Ken Atchity, Andrea McKeown, Julie Mooney, & Margaret O'Connor on Amazon
The Power of Patience
Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself…every day begin the task anew.—St. Francis de Sales [via M.J. Ryan, The Power of Patience]
PUBLICIZING YOUR BOOK Suggestions for Success Part One
Now that you have finished your book, and it is ready to be shopped around to publishers (or has already been bought by a publisher!) it’s time to think about what you can do to help promote your book. 1) A little promotion, focused on NY media, can help us bring your book to the attention of major publishers. Brainstorm with us about this!
2) All other PR should be saved for the month of your books’ launch and following.
3) Read the chapter on publicizing your book in KJA’s How to Publish Your Novel (Square One Books).
4) Read John Kremer’s 1001 Ways to Market Your Book.
Come up with a marketing Plan!
• Books don’t publicize themselves and, today, publishers rarely put maximum effort into a book’s release until the book starts selling. This Catch-22 means that YOU are your book’s best hope. The sooner you take that approach, the better your chances will be. Even well-known writers have found that putting little effort into marketing will produce virtually zero results—one or two thousand sold.
• Let us review it before you start implementing it and spending money.
• Start a website (or blog)! Create a website solely dedicated to your book. The Story Merchant’s webmaster provides that service for our clients at rock-bottom prices. And get your link sponsored on other websites too!
• Write emails! Send an email to friends, family and co-workers about your book, and ask them to pass it along to everyone they know. You’ll be amazed how fast word of mouth spreads!
Endorsements
It’s invaluable to get endorsements for your book–authorities and/or well-known people who will say great things about your book to display on the jacket. There are numerous ways to request endorsements (aka “blurbs”):
• Ask your colleagues! If you are a professional in any given field, it’s always a good idea to ask your colleagues for their own endorsements, or to recommend you to well-known others, especially those who are writers too.
• Does your topic deal with a timely issue? Can you think of anyone in entertainment who may relate to your topic? Try and seek out celebrities (actors, best-selling authors, athletes) to endorse your book (it never hurts to have a famous name on the cover!)
• The Story Merchant recommendations! Being a part of the The Story Merchant family includes you in a circle of writers and creative people. We have many authors in our pool who can give you endorsements!
• Brainstorm with your editor. Check out your publishers catalog, and suggest writers who might appreciate your book.
• One suggestion. Busy people have good hearts but not enough time. Write the endorsement yourself, and fax or mail it to them, saying, “Would you mind endorsing my book along the lines suggested here?” You’ll be surprised how often they just say yes, and let you use what you wrote as their endorsement.
Hire a Publicist!
It’s never a bad idea to hire your own personal publicist to help spread the word about you and your book. A publicist can help you land radio or TV spots, get you interviewed in newspapers or magazines, and much more.
While all publishing houses have a PR department, and will do all they can to promote your book, it never hurts to have more personalized attention on top of what they can provide. Realistically, your publisher is never focused on your book. Only you and your personal PR team are. Costs for a publicist range, depending on what kind of service you’re looking for. Generally $2500-$5000 per month is the going rate.
The Story Merchant has contacts with several publicists we’ve used over the years to great success. If you need a recommendation, contact us. Otherwise, contact the following publicists and tell them you’re a Story Merchant client:
Maryann Ridini, Ridini Entertainment
323-960-8071
maryann@ridinientertainment.com
Rick Frishman, Planned Television Arts
212-593-5845
frishmanr@ruderfinn.com
Devon Blaine, The Blaine Group
310-360-1499
blaine@pacificnet.net
Continue reading part two
Click here to buy How to Publish Your Novel by Ken Atchity, Andrea McKeown, Julie Mooney, & Margaret O'Connor on Amazon
How to Escape Lifetime Security and Pursue Your Impossible Dream: A Guide to Changing Your Career: Excerpt
By Kenneth Atchity
The never-satisfied mind
I was taught to be a perfectionist, but in a practical way. One hundred percent is the goal, but we aim for it with the foreknowledge that we're human and will never reach 100%, or if we do, we’ll maintain it only temporarily.
Yet 100% is a better goal than 88%, because if 88% is your goal you'll never hit 90%. So 100% is a better goal as long as you understand that goals are, almost by definition, unreachable because the enterprising goal-seeker will have set a second goal by the time he accomplishes the first. If your goal is to finance a $30 million film, by the time you've closed your deal for $28.6 million you'll be so busy planning your $75 million dollar film you won't be upset that you "fell short" by $1.4 million.
But the 100% standard is used by the Accountant as a superb sabotage mechanism. The Accountant uses the argument of "quality vs. quantity": "Yes, I know you could rush to production with this new Visionary script. But a million things can go wrong with it down the road and it's better to troubleshoot them all before you make an enormous laughingstock of yourself with an equally enormous liability. Let's do a quality job." So the Accountant proceeds to supervise an endless troubleshooting expedition that tunes, fine-tunes, and re-tunes the script to the point that it's no longer recognizable; or until someone else goes public with the same story. "But I want it to be 100% perfect," it argues when the Mind's Eye scolds it. "We'll settle for 98%," replies the Mind's Eye, realizing that such a compromise is required if we're going to reap the benefits of the Visionary's great idea and escape from “development hell.”
Without losing the spirit of the quest for excellence, the perfectionist, also known as “the judge” or “the critic,” must be tamed if you are to accomplish your goals, objectives, and dreams. How do you know when to stop fine-tuning? You don't. Rewrite can go on indefinitely. You set a deadline, beyond which you will cease fine-tuning and begin pre-production.
Buy How to Escape Lifetime Security and Pursue Your Impossible Dream: A Guide to Changing Your Career on Amazon
The never-satisfied mind
I was taught to be a perfectionist, but in a practical way. One hundred percent is the goal, but we aim for it with the foreknowledge that we're human and will never reach 100%, or if we do, we’ll maintain it only temporarily.
Yet 100% is a better goal than 88%, because if 88% is your goal you'll never hit 90%. So 100% is a better goal as long as you understand that goals are, almost by definition, unreachable because the enterprising goal-seeker will have set a second goal by the time he accomplishes the first. If your goal is to finance a $30 million film, by the time you've closed your deal for $28.6 million you'll be so busy planning your $75 million dollar film you won't be upset that you "fell short" by $1.4 million.
But the 100% standard is used by the Accountant as a superb sabotage mechanism. The Accountant uses the argument of "quality vs. quantity": "Yes, I know you could rush to production with this new Visionary script. But a million things can go wrong with it down the road and it's better to troubleshoot them all before you make an enormous laughingstock of yourself with an equally enormous liability. Let's do a quality job." So the Accountant proceeds to supervise an endless troubleshooting expedition that tunes, fine-tunes, and re-tunes the script to the point that it's no longer recognizable; or until someone else goes public with the same story. "But I want it to be 100% perfect," it argues when the Mind's Eye scolds it. "We'll settle for 98%," replies the Mind's Eye, realizing that such a compromise is required if we're going to reap the benefits of the Visionary's great idea and escape from “development hell.”
Without losing the spirit of the quest for excellence, the perfectionist, also known as “the judge” or “the critic,” must be tamed if you are to accomplish your goals, objectives, and dreams. How do you know when to stop fine-tuning? You don't. Rewrite can go on indefinitely. You set a deadline, beyond which you will cease fine-tuning and begin pre-production.
Buy How to Escape Lifetime Security and Pursue Your Impossible Dream: A Guide to Changing Your Career on Amazon
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)