The New Black List

[Geoff Alexander]

Originally Posted by FranklinLeonard

I'm saying that you have to make a decision about how many reads you'd like to get. It's a bit like deciding how many times you're going to take the SAT.

To be honest, you might want to look at putting a limit on the number of reads that someone can purchase. Considering the way that you are going about launching this, i.e., doing the planning and information gathering necessary to be certain that this is a reasonably ethically driven venture, I think you may owe it to the writers to protect them from themselves. Maybe three reads would be a good limit? If someone is spending a lot of money that they don't have because they are unrealistic about their material but are trying to incrementally improve their standing, well, I think that would be really unfortunate, and not in line with your mandate.

[Deion22]

Originally Posted by Geoff Alexander

To be honest, you might want to look at putting a limit on the number of reads that someone can purchase. Considering the way that you are going about launching this, i.e., doing the planning and information gathering necessary to be certain that this is a reasonably ethically driven venture, I think you may owe it to the writers to protect them from themselves. Maybe three reads would be a good limit? If someone is spending a lot of money that they don't have because they are unrealistic about their material but are trying to incrementally improve their standing, well, I think that would be really unfortunate, and not in line with your mandate.

Agreed. Don't want to give some of these writers false hope. Someone might think if i can get a few more reads this will lead to the sale for me and might spend themselves into poverty. I think a limit on the reads is a good idea ethically.

[FranklinLeonard]

Originally Posted by Chief

I'd actually prefer if the readers got a 'Finders Fee' when getting a script sold. It gives them more motivation to find a sell able script, no?

If the readers were finding scripts we wouldn't otherwise know about, I'd agree. They're being paid to evaluate the scripts we route to them, not find.

[FranklinLeonard]

Originally Posted by Rhodi

Couple of critical questions:

1. There should be some ballpark indication of the current turn-around times for an evaluation. If it takes a month to get one (not saying it does), then essentially your first month's fee would be wasted.

2. How does the system handle multiple evaluations? Does it average the scores or is each evaluation independent?

1. Entirely contingent on the number of purchases of reads from our members. For obvious reasons, we're trying to keep that turnaround time under one month, and given current load, we expect to be able to deliver on that. We're also instituting other measures to drive traffic to uploaded scripts based on genre and subject matter before we have quality evaluations from our readers.

2. It's neither an average nor entirely independent. We use a few factors tricks of math, like Bayesian estimates, to determine our top scripts, and the recommendations are even more complex, as you'd imagine.

[Jules]

So if it's a waste of time paying the $25 listing fee if you don't/didn't intend on paying the $50 fee for a reader, wouldn't it make sense to include the reading fee into the initial listing fee (total $75) to avoid any confusion on a writer's part who thinks they may be getting something for their $25 alone.

And wouldn't it be even better to allow a writer to pay their $50 evaluation fee before choosing to list it or not, so they don't lose their $25 if their evaluation is poor, which in many cases could go either way with some scripts depending on the reader (I've seen this in coverages before, scriptshark multireader deals that had passes and recommends on the same script)

I think in many cases a writer is going to get a poor evaluation and feel they have to buy more reads to try level it out, and maybe they will, or they'll get more poor reviews and in desperation buy more read credits.

If you wanted to make the $25 listing fee without the $50 evaluation a more viable option then you could increase your search criteria in the way inktip (god bless them) do. For example giving the writer many boxes to tick be it budget, age skew, sex of the protag, story themes, setting, time period, various other content, etc. There's a huge amount of boxes to tick.

Which in turn allows a producer to search for exactly what they want, and if that's your script then at least you have a chance of getting your logline seen among the masses.

What I see happening is a lot of writers uploading because $25 seems viable, and not understanding that they're going to be wasting the money if they don't put down the other $50 for an evaluation, which for most will be a gamble anyway.

I think there needs to be more transparency in regards to this issue, I could not find a faq on your website which went into the dynamics of this.

[FranklinLeonard]

Originally Posted by cshel

So, you could pay $50.00 to get however many of your reader evaluations that you want, but can you choose only to post the evaluations you like?

Also, though, you're saying that every time somebody in your HW database reads it, they give it an evaluation, too - and does that stay with it forever, or can the writer choose not to have those on there, if they are bad? Or is that one of the basic points of this? So others in your database can avoid your script?

Obviously, if all of your evaluations from either source were bad, you should probably just take your script down altogether.

Yes, you could pay for as many reads as you want and only make the positive ones visible, but the content of those evaluations would still be considered as far as the "top lists" material by that description.

An extreme example, I buy 100 reads. 2 of them, miraculously, are good. 8s out of 10. The other 98 are terrible. 2s out of 10. I could choose to only publish the 2 positive reviews, but there'd be considerably less traffic drawn to my script by the Black List algorithm than there would be to a script that, say, had only 2 paid reads that were 8s out of 10.

As a matter of policy, we "do no harm." The attention of industry professional members is only drawn to a script if either 1. one of our readers likes it. 2. many of our industry pros like it and rate it highly or 3. our recommendation algorithm things that individual industry pro will like the script based on their taste.

If the script's getting bad ratings, you should probably take it down, but the site isn't going to spoil your reputation because you've written a bad script. It's going to inform you that the ratings are bad and that no one particularly wants to read it, but it's not going to inform anyone else of that fact.

[FranklinLeonard]

Originally Posted by Manchester

Yes - But only if you do get that read/feedback soon. That was why I raised that question, above.

As much as this seems like an interesting venture, and as much as the $50 read seems like a reasonable thing (with all of the details as to how it's handled), here's where I run into a wall with the concept:

If someone is going to do this, the $50 read makes sense. For starters.

Then... Since all of the potential buyers know about the $50 read deal, if there are any scripts posted without one - seems reasonable to assume the person (a) could not do the math, or (b) got a bad review. And if it is (b) - which would be a reasonable assumption (especially after the first month a script is posted), how many potential buyers want to check scripts that they presume received a bad review?

And so from a writer's perspective, this seems to be the proposition (assuming you can get the read results back within a week or so): $75 for a read and posting for one month - plus, if you get a positive read, maybe another $25-$50 to have it posted for 1-2 more months. But if the read results are bad, then $75 - and that's it.

As someone else mentioned above, this is kinda like a contest, from a cost perspective. OTOH, you don't have to wait 6 months or more to find out what happens.

You're making my argument for me. Please spread the word. Worst case, you spend $75, get a bad review from our readers, decide you want to pull the script, and move on. Best case, you spend $75 (or more depending on how you'd like to use the site), and get the kind of exposure that you literally can't get anywhere else.

[RobWriter]

Sorry if I missed this earlier in the thread Franklin, but when you're talking about what a screenwriter can view on the site, I've seen mention made of member ratings - is that something that happens for free on the site once you've uploaded a script? Basically a "like" button for the scripts? Or are the ratings actually quantifiable based on a numeric scale (1 - 10)? So even if you don't pay for the $50 coverage, there is some method for the screenwriter to receive "feedback" on their script?

Hope my question makes sense.

Had another question - but just read through the comments and see it was answered.

[FranklinLeonard]

Originally Posted by figment

Thank you for continuing to answer our questions, Franklin.

This new info is interesting, as it gives the writer a bit of control as s/he is able to see how many people are downloading/viewing and rating their script. That would definitely help one decide to keep a script up or pull it.

That's the idea. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: this was designed explicitly to be a tide that raises all boats, but especially writers (both pro and non-pro.)

And I'll keep answering your questions as long as you have them. Given the history of people doing work in this realm, a healthy skepticism is a rational response, and it's our obligation to allay people's fears about our intentions. We'll continue to do that until people realize that this is indeed something unlike anything that has existed before.

[FranklinLeonard]

Originally Posted by CColoredClown

Sorry about getting those numbers wrong, Franklin.

And thank you for answering all of these questions. I kept thinking up of questions to ask, but most have been addressed in this thread alone. After reading up on the topic, I decided to pony up the $50 for the read too.

No apology necessary. It's an entirely reasonable assumption. Glad I could clarify.

Glad you decided "to pony up." Here's hoping your script is brilliant and that the site provides the access that allows you to continue to pursue screenwriting.