An interesting thing is happening in the spec market...
As a reflection of everyone in the industry believing very few studios are buying right now, less spec scripts went out for the month of April then that of Feb. and March. These are the numbers from Spec Market Roundup: 62 specs went out in Feb. and 77 specs went out in March. Only 46 went out in April.
But yet April was a good month because even though less specs went out, the percentage of sales actually went up. Of those 46 specs, 10 sold (with only one of those selling with a star attachment).
Why is this? Maybe April was just an anomaly. But some insiders think because of the dreary psychology of the market, where everyone believes the market is basically at an all-time low, agents and managers are now being extremely picky (more than usual) about the material they go out with. The days of just throwing half-baked (or even mostly-baked) specs against the wall and seeing what sticks are over. Reps are now pushing their writers harder to make their scripts better -- specs must be a "go script" and not just a writing sample, thus the quality of specs are higher.
Obviously, none of this is a exact science, but keep an eye out for this trend to possibly continue...less specs leads to higher quality (hopefully) leads to more sales. And life finally breathing back into the market.
*The above does not take into account pitches, writing assignments, or sales from other source materials.
As a reflection of everyone in the industry believing very few studios are buying right now, less spec scripts went out for the month of April then that of Feb. and March. These are the numbers from Spec Market Roundup: 62 specs went out in Feb. and 77 specs went out in March. Only 46 went out in April.
But yet April was a good month because even though less specs went out, the percentage of sales actually went up. Of those 46 specs, 10 sold (with only one of those selling with a star attachment).
Why is this? Maybe April was just an anomaly. But some insiders think because of the dreary psychology of the market, where everyone believes the market is basically at an all-time low, agents and managers are now being extremely picky (more than usual) about the material they go out with. The days of just throwing half-baked (or even mostly-baked) specs against the wall and seeing what sticks are over. Reps are now pushing their writers harder to make their scripts better -- specs must be a "go script" and not just a writing sample, thus the quality of specs are higher.
Obviously, none of this is a exact science, but keep an eye out for this trend to possibly continue...less specs leads to higher quality (hopefully) leads to more sales. And life finally breathing back into the market.
*The above does not take into account pitches, writing assignments, or sales from other source materials.
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