December sales on DD

[TDWoj]

Well, I just had a quick look-see at the list (okay, a detailed look-see done quickly) of sold scripts and this month's numbers so far:

Adaptations - 10
Remakes - 2
Pitches/specs - (guessing, because the ones I counted as "specs" didn't identify them as anything, and the pitches, I guess, were original ideas?) - 5

Adaptations are in the lead.

Hmm.

[andrew]

For the last few years a lot of hollywood 'advisers' have been saying: write the novel you have a better chance of getting it published...then if it's successful you'll have a chance to sell the screenplay rights to it.

I guess the suits are trying to find a way of finding good stories with a proven (albeit in a different market) track record.

[Jake Schuster]

Don't keep your fingers crossed. Though my literary agent has always said, "it's always a bad time for publishing", things are particularly dire now, especially for fiction. Even seasoned novelists with a track record, I'm told, are finding doors shutting all over town.

Remember, too, especially for someone who's had some experience writing prose fiction and can write at a fairly even pace, that it takes anywhere between six months and X years (fill in the number--for me my first published novel--actually my thirteenth--took me five weeks to write, but that was after eleven years of writing experience; typically, after that, a novel would take me at least a year from beginning to end) to finish a novel.

Then you have to get it read. Then comes the tough part: finding a publisher. I can write a script in anywhere from three weeks to six weeks, and should it never go anywhere, not much time has passed. But there's nothing like spending two years on a novel and having your agent saying, "I don't think I'll go out with this one. Not with the market the way it is."
:(

[Deus Ex Machine]

Don't forget these are only the "reported" deals. Many more deals go unreported.


:)

[TDWoj]

That's true. But it does make one wonder, though.