Are you spending too much time writing and too little time trying to sell a screenplay or get a writing job? One of my pals in LA just told me I need to spend more time selling.
How are you branding yourself? Not with a hot iron I hope. What say you? Who are you writing for?
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I try and carve out time specifically for marketing myself and my scripts.
To this end I look for opportunities throughout the web, including comps, and I regularly post these online for other writers to use.
In addition I keep my own website up to date, have a separate facebook presence for my writing and tweet too.
I conduct interviews with screenwriters and producers (and post them online) and focus on how they got produced or find material.
I hope that this combination of marketing and paying it forward will combine to help me sell more scripts and who knows, eventually make a career out of it.
I write for me with the consideration of a jaded audience.
Just like Bruce Springsteen says, he looks at his audience and sees himself. I write for myself.
Right on Phillip! Yes, just recently I had a face-to-face with myself as a Salesman in my career I can sell anybody but when it comes to my precious script I just become a shy little girl who didn't want a first date with a Manager. A script is never done and in saying that, you have to take a big hairy, gorilla of a chance. In the words of my character Yodel Von Grunsky: "When you have balls, you have no fears!" Just do it! Tomoroow making that phone call will report back.
To answer that question Who am I writing for? I'm writing for people 30- and beyond who want to laugh and at the end of the day I like to make mysef laugh.
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The single most important thing in all sales in finding the problem you are solving. Once you know that the price and the sales process become irrelevant. You don't want to be a solution in search of a problem, the coat hanger combination cigarette lighter. Answer this question, my script meets the need of "insert group name" that want to see stories about "insert concept". To see if it financially viable, estimate hold big the audience is.
Craig: the single most important thing in sales is to close the sale. Monkeys can learn problem-solving. Children can learn problem-solving. Only sales people know how to close the sale.
I write for me and then for the reader. My audience is nerds. :) - Chris
When ghostwriting, I obviously write for the client. When writing my own scripts, I write for my kids. They tell me what kind of adventure they want to have. I hope some other kids out there would love my stories as well.
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Yes and No Bill. You can't close a sale on an unneeded product. The pillars of marketing are People, Price, Product, Position & Promotion. "Making Business and Sales Work" 120+ podcast episodes by yours truly. You can't sell a brink to a man needing a meal.
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Craig: no disrespect intended....but if a Sales Manager is interviewing a job candidate...and asks "what is the single most important thing in all sales?"....the prospect better answer "close sales" with a confident voice.....or else they will definitely not get the job. It almost sounds like a trick question...because the candidates will think to themselves...."providing solutions?"...."being a good listener?"....."overcoming objections?"....' being perseverant?"...etc...etc....but they better answer "closing sales," or they are not going to get the job. A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing....Always Be Closing!
I've often asked myself that question and honestly, I always get confused because so many different types of people of different subcultures and demographics have movie genres in common. The old conservative granny who likes romantic comedies, next to the punk rocker teenager who loves romcoms too. How are we supposed to isolate these audiences from one another when essentially they like the same things? Or worse, they don't like the same thing and the demographics are marginalized by personal preference? I simply sit at my computer and write for whomever will want to see my work because really, the people who can answer these market related questions have degrees to distinguish between the granny conservative, and the rebel punk rocker having anything in common. I studied scriptwriting and that alone is a tough enough vocation without trying to manage my work under a brand I'm not qualified to understand.
Bill it is about the buyers motivation. You need to close when a buyer lacks motivation. We are approaching people that want to buy. This is their job, find a great script. We are selling food to the starving. They die without our scripts. To balance the equation they have lots of choice. They are just weeding out the bad fit. If you focus on meeting their needs they buy. In many ways they have closed themselves. My fear is that people drift away from what they have control over, which is the writing. The reason the sales manager asks that is he needs someone that can make a sale when the buyer isn't motivated. We have motivated buyers, they are ready to buy the right script.
craig
The script is the cheapest cost of a movie. There is no guarantee whatever a person thinks a great script/concept is will be a successful/profitable movie. People lose jobs, money. The ex-Sony Studio Boss risked $200mIl-++ on "Passengers". Marty Scorsese spent 35-years++ making "Silence". Written by an Oscar winner. Flopped.
Craft the best story you can, pray you work with inspired folks, have Champions pushing your material, make some money to do this full-time. Repeat.
Dan M, yep. What makes all that happen? There must be a first step. Someone that says "I can....". Now whatever they can do solves a problem for them. I can see us spiralling into a physiological argument.
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One final thought. Pretty much everyone agrees that a script is a starting point. Directors will want rewrites, producers will give notes. So it doesn't matter what you say, they are buying raw material to shape it to what they want.
I agree with you, Dan. I recently pitched to a producer here on S32 and received the best scorecard I've ever gotten. All 5s. His comments were very positive: Great Pitch! Wonderful story! Humor everywhere. He even said he could really see it in his head. But....he also said that since he already has something similar, he had to pass. So no amount of salesmanship on my part could have changed that outcome. However, his feedback did make my day. :-)
A.I.D.A is a great formula for writing an advert. A writer a great opening sentence or phrase, I get their interest with a question, D build their design A give them a call to action. Watch infomercials, this is their format.
And if we go back to Phil's original question " how are you branding yourself?". Well brand is definitely different to selling. Brand is what people think when they hear your name. Great horror writer, romcom, or very prose based. Your brand is stuff that happens when you're not in the room. Action/thriller writer that has a lot of personal drama, not a happy ending guy (I think that's my brand).
I eschew online branding of human beings as commodifying life. Also, I write sit-com and am available for staffing! ;)
Dan G:
No tattoos for me either. But if I get, I think it'll say writer for hire. Or I consider a picture of William Goldman, but I don't think anybody would recognize it.