Have your listeners time your answers as well, and practice limiting them to 10 seconds each. It does no good to have a succinct, 60-second pitch, and then take 3 minutes to answer a simple question. Lots more about this in Chapter 9.
A Shameless Plug
One of the best ways to rehearse your pitch is to hire a consultant to help you mold it into one you know will knock a buyer’s socks off. A coaching session like this should only take 20 or 30 minutes, and will insure that you’ve mastered all of these elements. I know the coaching process works, because I’ve done it a hundred times, and my pitch coaching clients always get their material read.
A pretty obvious sales pitch, I know. But what can I say? It’s something I do very well, I know it works, and this is the place in the pitching process you should consider it. My website, ScreenplayMastery.com, provides all the details.
Just as there is no book or movie, no matter how successful, that everybody likes, neither is there a single, universal market for every screenplay or novel. A positive response to your story requires finding the specific agents, producers, publishers and executives whose taste, experience and position match your project. It’s your job to determine which buyers are most likely to want to read and acquire your story, and go after them.
The most accurate indicator of whether individuals or companies are appropriate targets is to look at their records. What have they produced (or represented or published)? What projects do they have in development? What have they said they’re looking for? Getting this information is not really difficult if you’re willing to do some detective work.
The research you do to find potential buyers will also be invaluable for establishing rapport during your pitch. As you will see in Chapter 8, the information you gather, or the referral you get, can also provide you with the common experience or acknowledgment that will open your pitch session.
Don’t wait until your screenplay or manuscript is ready to shop before beginning this research. Start tracking down buyers as soon as you’ve come up with a story concept, and continue compiling target companies the entire time you’re writing the story.
In fact, beginning your research immediately is an excellent way to determine if there is a market for your story. If you can’t find any antecedents, or any publishers or producers who’ve recently bought similar projects, chances are your story is commercially challenged.
What follows is a list of the primary sources of information for targeting buyers, and for designing your marketing plan.
Contacts and Referrals
Having your screenplay or book proposal recommended by someone the buyer knows and respects is by far your best shot at getting it read. People you know in the film or publishing industries, members of your writers group, or even friends and relatives outside the writing world can provide you with information about who is looking for what.
Once you’ve determined the antecedents to your story, use them to get suggestions for possible buyers: “Who do you think I should go after if I have a humorous romance novel in the style of Jennifer Crusie?”
If your contact knows the buyer he’s suggested personally, ask if he’d be willing to introduce you — to make a call on your behalf recommending you to the person in power.
If your contact says no, or if it’s an inappropriate question because you already know it would put your buyer in an awkward position, or because your contact isn’t familiar enough with your work to recommend it, then ask if it’s okay to use his name when contacting the buyer directly. Telling a buyer that the President of St. Martin’s Press suggested you contact her isn’t the same as a recommendation from the President of St. Martin’s Press. But it’s still much stronger than a cold call.
Interviews
Producers, development executives, publishers and agents frequently participate in panel discussions at film festivals, writers conferences and book fairs. They also promote their books and films by appearing at Q & A sessions or special screenings sponsored by organizations like the Writers Guild, PEN or the Motion Picture Academy. These are terrific opportunities to hear what they look for in screenplays, the kinds of projects that interest them, and even how to approach them.
These public appearances have the added benefit of giving you specific comments and quotes you can use to personalize your approach to the executive. When you write a query letter (Chapter 6), it’s important to reveal why you’ve chosen this particular buyer to tell about your story. Quoting an insightful or inspiring comment she made during an interview is an outstanding way to accomplish that goal. Acknowledging a buyer for something she said is also a great way to establish a relationship at the beginning of your pitch (see Chapter 8).
You don’t even need to attend the event to benefit from what the buyer says. Conferences often make recordings of presentations available during or after an event, and speeches and panel discussions are usually written up in newspapers, newsletters or websites. Simply acquire the recording, or read the article, to get the information you need.
Articles and Reviews
Newspaper, magazine and internet reviews of books and movies always include the producers or publishers involved. So if you read a review of a gothic horror novel, and that’s what you’ve written, add the publisher and the author’s agent to your list of people to contact. (The agent’s name won’t be included in the review, but as I’ll explain below, it’s pretty easy to acquire if you know who the publisher is.)
One of my favorite websites is newyorktimes.com, because they’ve catalogued every recent review — and lots of old ones — that the paper has published, categorized by year. This list is a great reminder of movies or novels like yours that you may have forgotten about. Of course, you’ll have to wade through a lot of obscure Norwegian art house titles to find the antecedents for your teen slasher movie. But when you do, you’ll have important details about companies that might be interested in it.
The Hollywood trade papers — Variety and The Hollywood Reporter — provide articles about production companies and agencies; the people in power; option and purchase deals; which movies are in preproduction or production; and which films are doing well at the box office or at festivals. Both are available in print or online, though a subscription is expensive (see The Internet below).
Publishers Weekly, also available in print or online, offers the same kind of information for the book world: agents, publishers, recent deals, best seller lists and articles about the industry.
Periodicals like ScriptWriter Magazine, Writer’s Digest, Creative Screenwriting, Poets & Writers, Scr(i)pt, Writer, The Hollywood Scriptwriter, and Premiere also offer reviews, articles and interviews that can lead you to additional markets for your story.
Screenwriting Directories
The Hollywood Creative Directory publishes two directories I consider almost essential for marketing a screenplay or film project, plus a third that can be very helpful:
The Studio Report: Film Development is the most valuable reference book this publisher offers to screenwriters (and the one I’d recommend most highly if your budget is limited). This guide lists all of the projects which have gone into development (have been optioned, purchased or commissioned), or which have achieved significant forward movement (such as going into preproduction) at any of the studios during the five months prior to that issue’s publication.
Of even greater value, the projects are cross-referenced by studio, production company and genre. So if you’re writing a horror film, you have an immediate list of production companies you can target, because they already have other horror films in development.
You can also read the log lines of all these horror films, to make certain your plot hasn’t already been created and sold by someone else, and to see how similar stories to yours have been described in a succinct, powerful way.
The directory also provides the names of the screenwriters for each project, enabling you to track down agents who have successfully sold horror films
, and might be open to considering yours.
The Hollywood Creative Directory lists over 2,000 film and television production companies, including staff members by title, contact information and credits. The book includes studio information, and lists of companies that have development and production deals with each studio.
If you’ve come up with a movie that’s an antecedent for your story, and you know the company that produced it, this directory will tell you the name and title of the head of development for the company, his business address and phone number, other movies the company has produced, and whether they have a deal with a studio.
The Hollywood Creative Directory is also cross referenced, so if you hear an executive speak at a conference, or if he’s listed as one of the buyers at a pitch fest, you can look up all his contact information.
The Hollywood Representation Directory, also published by the Hollywood Creative Directory, offers the same kind of information about agents, managers and entertainment attorneys in LA and New York. It’s very helpful, but not as valuable as the two previous directories, since information on agents and managers is available — with more detail — at several online sites (see The Internet below).
The Spec Screenplay Sales Directory contains more valuable information on all of the spec sales that occurred over a period of ten years, beginning in 1994: title, author, log line, agent, manager, producer, attorney, sales price and studio. These elements are cross-referenced, so if you’re writing a romantic comedy, you can look up every romantic comedy spec sale, see who the agents and producers were, look them up, see what else they bought or sold, and target the ones that best suit your project. Then you can look them up in one of the directories above, or through many of the websites below, and make your contact.
Unfortunately, as I’m writing this, The Spec Screenplay Sales Directory is no longer being published with up-to-date information. But the information that was compiled through 2004 is currently available at hollywoodlitsales.com. And perhaps as you read this, they’ve resumed publishing.
Publishing Directories
For book authors, The Writer’s Market is probably the best known and most comprehensive directory for acquiring information on publishers and agents, the types of books of interest to each publisher, and suggestions on the whole process of marketing your book.
This directory also contains a lot of stuff about magazine writing that doesn’t pertain directly to novels, but which you might find valuable for putting food on the table while you finish your epic about ancient Greek vase painters. Magazine articles have to be pitched like everything else, and soon you’re going to be very good at it.
Here is a (far from complete) list of other books and directories for novelists and book authors, all of which include contact information on agencies and publishers, plus their own suggestions on marketing your work. There are many more guides and directories for particular markets and genres: romance writers, Christian writers, children’s writers, mystery writers, children’s mystery writers. This list could be endless, so I’ve concentrated on just a few of the general directories.
Many of the titles below include the year of the latest edition available as I write this. But again, there might be more recent editions available when you track them down.
The 2006 Guide to Literary Agents by Kathryn S. Brogan (Editor), Robert Lee Brewer (Editor), and Joanna Masterson (Editor)
The Agents Directory by Rachel Vater
Agents, Editors and You: The Insider’s Guide to Getting Your Book Published by Michelle Howry (Editor)
Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, 2006: Who They Are! What They Want! How to Win Them Over! by Jeff Herman
The Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market 2006 by Lauren Mosko
Video Dealers
In looking for possible buyers for your screenplay, go down the rows of boxes at your favorite video rental store. Most of them categorize their films by genre, so first target the movies that might be antecedents. You don’t have to rent anything; just jot down the key people involved in producing the film, then go home and research the production company in detail using all these other tools.
Write down the writers, stars and directors of the appropriate films as well. Many stars and directors have their own production companies, which you can approach like any other with your pitch. And it’s easy to find out who represents any particular producer, director or screenwriter (see The Internet and Telephone Research below), and then pursue that agent or manager, either because you have a project that’s perfect for her client, or because you’re looking for representation.
Finding lists of movie titles, and the filmmakers involved, is even easier (and offers you a bigger selection) if you simply go to netflix.com or blockbuster.com. These sites also allow you to look up titles by genre.
I know this isn’t directly related to pitching, but I also highly recommend subscribing to Netflix if you’re pursuing a screenwriting career. You should certainly be viewing a minimum of two movies a week, particularly those within the genre of your own screenplay. This is the most convenient way to do it, and the one with the most available choices.
Book Dealers
If you’re researching book buyers or literary agents in the publishing world, go back to the preceding section, and substitute “Book Stores” for “Video Dealers.” And replace Netflix and Blockbuster with Amazon.com (or whichever of the many bookselling sites you prefer). You can then track down an author’s agent as easily as you can a screenwriter’s (again, see The Internet and Telephone Research below).
Pitch Fest Lists
Pitch marts, writers conferences and film festivals offer great opportunities to pitch your project to a lot of buyers, face-to-face, in a very short time.
These events can also be a great source of leads to other potential buyers. But I can get in big trouble for recommending what I’m about to, so please don’t tell anyone you heard it from me….
If there’s a company on a pitch fest list that you’re not able to meet because their time slots are all booked, or because you didn’t learn about them soon enough, just wait until a week or so after the conference, then write, email or telephone them directly. You know they’re in the market for novels or screenplays because they sent a rep to the pitch fest. And it’s unlikely they’ll have heard so many good stories that they’re no longer looking for material.
You won’t get to pitch your story to a buyer in person, but chances are good that someone at the company will be willing to talk to you, especially if you say how much you wanted to meet with them, and that your pitch will only take a couple minutes.
Now here’s the sneaky part: you can do this even if you didn’t attend the pitch fest. Simply get a list of the companies that were scheduled to be there, either from the conference promotional materials or from a friend who attended. At the very least, get the list of who attended the previous year’s conference; these companies are always listed in the advertising for the current pitch fest. Then contact them directly as I just described.
Please don’t misunderstand — I’m not trying to dissuade you from attending writers conferences or book fairs or film festivals or pitch fests. They provide opportunities you wouldn’t otherwise have, to meet people in power and to pitch your material. And phone calls just aren’t as effective as face-to-face meetings.
But no writer or filmmaker has the time, money and geographic proximity to attend every event on the calendar. So here’s a way to expand your marketing list beyond the conferences you do attend.
I certainly don’t want to diminish the success of pitch fests and writers conferences; their sponsors work tremendously hard to offer writers invaluable industry access they wouldn’t otherwise have. Plus I have close relationships with the organizers of many of these events. Or at least I did have, unless one of you squealed, and now they won’t talk to me.
But my primary commitment with this book is to suggest every way p
ossible to get your story read. And this is another way.
The Internet
The web is now the best single source of information writers have for finding and researching potential buyers. It’s current, it’s huge, and it’s really cheap. So it’s absolutely essential that you surf through as many sites as possible in your quest for potential buyers.
There are dozens of great websites for getting the kind of information you need to market your story. Unfortunately, if you’re reading this book years after it was written (and I fully expect it to be in print for decades), some of these sites may no longer exist. Certainly, others will have come along which might be even more valuable. So in addition to the sites I offer, keep surfing and networking to find additional resources for targeting buyers.
The list below emphasizes sites that offer specific credit and contact information on buyers. But many of these sites (including a few of my favorites that aren’t “directories”) contain articles, contest info, resources, member discounts and lots of other goodies that can help advance your writing career.
My apologies to any site I’ve neglected to mention because I’m not yet aware of it, or because there are simply too many to include them all. It’s no reflection on the value of your site. This is just a partial list of what I know is out there right now (minus the http, the //, the www, the .html, and all those other extra letters and slashes).
Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds Page 6