Mass email queries

[expat in LA]

I've just got hold of a current list of over 1,000 email addresses of producers and agents. I'm planning a mass send out (the whole lot at once) of queries because I think that getting your work read is a numbers game and that email is the way to go these days.

What do you think? Is this a good idea to do it this way?

Would like to hear any thoughts on this - positive or negative.

[JoanEasley]

I wouldn't want to do all at once because you may get some feedback along the way and will want to change something before it goes out to everybody else.

You also might want to try all the agents first, while you still presumably have a script that hasn't been seen by all the production companies. Agents prefer an unshopped script. If no agent bites, well. at least you tried. Then you can move on to the prodcos when you's sure an agent isn't going to do it for you.

Besides, if you do all 1000 at once, and they all want to see it, you're going to have a hell of a bill at Kinko's and the post office. :]

[jacinthee]

Expat - are you sure you'd like to deal with all 1 000 people on your list?

Personally, I don't do mass mailing, for the excellent reasons that Joan pointed out and also because I like to know with whom I am dealing and with whom I'd like to work.

Good luck

[Naudikom]

How about passing on those e-mail addys? :lol

[TravisBickle]

definitely target those queries, expat. i for sure wouldn't send out blindly. there are a lot of free trials and resources, etc, online that will help you target specific companies/people that fit your script.

[GirlinGray]

Do you know who those 1,000 people are? Who they work for, what they are doing, what they have done in the past?

If not start doing research.

And never query someone just because they are on a list. Query someone because you know something about them and would like to work with them. Otherwise, for all you know you just sent Jo Bob Plumber a script.

Do you know this is a good query? Have people who have done this before and have a pretty good track record read it and said, "Yeah that is a good query send it you will get bites"? Make sure that's a good letter before you paper the town with it, your name is on it and you do not want to learn the hard way "big."

If you do not have people resources to give you feedback on the query, start small. With maybe 25 letters. See what response you get. If it is a good response, you have a good letter and you send it wider. If it is no response, rewrite the letter and keep testing and rewriting it until you are getting "yes send it" regularly.

I do not believe the maxim "agents like unshopped material." Agents like material other people like. And other people can not like material if they do not read it because, well, how can they they have never read it. And if you only send material to agents who won't like it because you are a new writer and too much work and no one else likes the material because, well, no one else has read it, you are trapped in the dreaded Hollywood Agent Catch 22 -- "I only take material on referal but you cannot get a referal because you cannot send it to people who are not agents who could refer it because I only want material no one else has seen." Something in there has to be a lie. And it is the "unshopped material" part. So yes, you send to agents because in a freak occurrence you could get lucky and hit an agent who actually will back material no one else has read and liked. But you also send to producers because, if producers like a script, agents will like it too.

Good luck.