How to Sell Your Screenplay Pt. 1

How to Sell Your Screenplay Pt. 1 There's a really important question that we have not explored deeply enough on this podcast. How do you sell a screenplay?  How do you sell a TV pilot?  How do you actually break into this crazy industry? We're going to start exploring that today, and we're going to continue over a multi-part series of podcasts where we try to build some of the skills that you need to succeed in the film industry.  I want to start with a warning: Anytime someone promises you a fool-proof method for selling your screenplay, that person is lying to you.   Anytime someone tells you, “Here's how you sell your script in 30 days,” or, “here's a simple 10 step plan to sell your screenplay,” or even worse, “if you give me money, I will introduce you to someone and sell your script, guaranteed…” Anytime someone makes you a promise like that, run! Run, run, run as quickly as you can.  Please know that there are no easy answers or fool-proof methods when it comes to selling screenplays in the movie business.  There are a lot of sharks in these waters. There are a lot of people preying on the desperation of screenwriters who want so desperately to break into the film industry.  No one should be charging you for an introduction. No one should be charging you for representation (agents and managers get paid when they sell your script). No one should be charging you, saying, “Hey, if you give me your money, I will get your script to this person.” That's an unsustainable business model. Even if such a person really has that connection-- and there's a good chance that they don't-- if they start sending scripts to that connection because they're getting paid by desperate screenwriters to do so, well, guess what's gonna happen. Pretty soon that connection’s going to stop reading scripts submitted by that person, whether those scripts are good or not.  The screenwriting business is a relationship business. Nobody is going to help you sell your script without knowing your work intimately. And if they do know your work intimately, and like it, they will want to help you, and they will not expect to get paid until you do. If it seems a little too good to be true, if it seems a little too easy, if it seems like a one-size-fits-all set of rules that's going to work for everybody, then run. You're being lied to. What we're going to try to do in this series of podcasts is answer a question that, quite frankly, is really hard: how do you sell a screenplay? One of the reasons why it’s so hard is because it’s a question that doesn’t have a definitive answer. But we're going to try to give you some skills that you can use to break into the film industry once your screenplay is ready. The first thing you want to know is that nearly every story about how someone broke into the film industry and sold their screenplay, represents an exception to the norm. Almost everyone who has actually succeeded in the film industry has some crazy story about how it happened. Often, you're going to hear that story and realize the truth. Wow, they had a lot of luck.  I had a lot of luck. The teachers who work for me had a lot of luck. Now, if you don't do the writing work, quite frankly, it doesn't matter how much luck you have. If your script isn't actually ready to go, it doesn't matter how many wonderful breaks happen in your favor.  If you are not really ready in both your art and your craft to be a screenwriter, it is probably not going to happen for you.