It's about time I posted Part 14 in this series of friendly counsel to those who want to sell their writing or sell much more of it. Part 1 can be read here, Part 2 can be read here, Part 3 can be read here, Part 4 can be read here, Part 5 can be read here, Part 6 can be read here, Part 7 can be read here, Part 8 can be read here, Part 9 can be read here, Part 10 can be read here, Part 11 can be read here, Part 12 can be read here and Part 13 can be read here. You might want to review Part 13 before reading what follows…
To spec or not to spec? You're a writer. Someone offers you the opportunity to write something…but there's a catch. No payment is guaranteed to you. You write it and if they like it and use it — or even if they just use it — you get paid.
So it's a gamble. Should you take it? It depends. As we said in the previous installment, there are good gambles and there are bad gambles. I think most writers take way too many bad gambles. I sure did so some of this is in the category of "Learn From My Mistakes."
In my case, it usually wasn't because I was desperate for work. I usually had work. But someone who seemed trustworthy ("seemed" is italicized for a reason) offered me what seemed (there's that word again) to be an opportunity to write something I really wanted to write. Did you ever sleep with someone and then realize later you'd let the wrong part of your body make an important decision? If you haven't, good for you. I have and it feels a lot like doing spec work you shouldn't have done. The main difference is that the word "screwed" has a somewhat different definition.
Writing is one of those professions that most folks do out of passion. They want to make a living at it but they also want the world to see or read what they create…and to see their name on it. Often, they have some friend or relative who's hectoring them about giving up…
"Look, you may well have talent but this is not working out for you. You're not earning enough to live on. Isn't it about time you forget about becoming a world famous writer and you got an actual job instead of living the way you've been living?"
If you're hearing things like that, it's easy to inflate in your mind, the likelihood of some possible project becoming definite. Real easy. After all, you're good at fantasy and imagining happy endings. That's why you became a writer, isn't it?
So you meet a producer who has some connections to financing. He's looking for a certain kind of script — a kind you think you could write. Maybe this producer has produced something in the past. Maybe he hasn't but he sure sounds like he's got most of this financing thing together and will soon have access to the thirty million dollars necessary to make the movie he has in mind. (Possible Red Flag: The thirty million is a near-certainty but he somehow doesn't have the funds to pay you a few thousand dollars up front to start creating the script on which he's going to spend that thirty million. He has a great, logical-sounding explanation as to why he doesn't but he doesn't…so you'll have to write on spec.)
Should you gamble on this?
Or you're yearning for success in print and you meet someone who's got a book they'd like you to write for them: Their idea, your labor. They have some connection that is certain to be able to get it published and another that can promote it right onto the New York Times Best Seller List. (Possible Red Flag: This is a sure-fire, can't-miss moneymaker but somehow, there's no money to pay you up front. And of course, they have a great, logical-sounding explanation as to why there isn't…so you'll have to write on spec.)
Should you gamble on this?
Either opportunity could go the distance and lead not only to success with that project but to the others that will follow once you have one good thing produced or published. One hit usually begats another…and another and another. Are you going to turn down all that begatting?
To me, the default answer is no. No, you should not gamble. And you should never gamble because you think, "Why not? It's not going to cost me anything." Get that thought outta your head immediately, my friend. That premise — that writing doesn't cost the writer anything — is the operating assumption of every producer or publisher who wasted weeks, maybe months of your life, getting you to write something which he is not going to get produced or published.
The world abounds in what I call Unfinanced Entrepreneurs. These are people who want to become producers or publishers but they lack a certain asset that is very, very important to either of those professions. They lack money. That's the first thing a producer is supposed to be able to produce. If he or she doesn't have it — or if he/she does and doesn't want to gamble it — then they have to get you to gamble to make their project happen.
How do you know when to spec and when not to spec? There's no simple answer to that since every situation is different and since your situation may be different from someone else's. But I sat down and made a list of some indicators that would make me wary…
- You're writing something which if one particular buyer doesn't buy it, you can't really sell it anywhere else.
- You're writing something for a project that you're not 100% certain will ever happen at all.
- You're writing something and your fee, if they like the work, has yet to be determined.
- You're writing something for people who, if they do like your work, might not have the money to pay you.
- You're writing something where the terms of employment — who'll own it, credits, whether you receive royalties (and if so, how much), how many rewrites they can demand of you, etc. — have yet to be determined.
- You're writing something for people who really aren't sure what they want.
- You're writing something for people who just might not even read what you hand in…or have it read by someone with actual hiring/power in their company.
- You're writing something for people who are soliciting so many auditions and so much spec work that the odds are pretty damned daunting.
I ran that list in our previous installment and what I've decided to do is to go over it item by item for the next few chapters in this series, however many it may take. Let's start at the top of that list with…
- You're writing something which if one particular buyer doesn't buy it, you can't really sell it anywhere else.
This may be the most important one on the list. Someone comes to you and says, "I'm trying to assemble an anthology of short ghost stories. Would you like to write one on spec?" Okay, that's not bad. If this guy can't get the book together, maybe you can sell the story somewhere else. Just make sure you retain the rights and can pull it from his project after giving him a reasonable amount of time to place his book. Oh — and also make sure it's clear, preferably in writing, what you'll receive if he does get the book published and what rights you'll be giving up for that money.
What you don't want to do is this: The guy comes to you and says, "I want you to write a story on spec of my creation, Bartholomew the Lactate-Intolerant Giraffe." You write it and then the guy doesn't like it or his publishing deal falls through. Well, there aren't a lot of other places you can sell a story of a lactate-intolerant giraffe, especially if other elements of it are specific to his creation.
You need to make the distinction between "speccing" (awkward word) your own work and someone else's. It's one thing to invest in your own projects. You have an idea for a great original screenplay or a novel? Write it. Write it, polish it, finish it and then go out and try to sell it. Maybe you can do that. Or maybe you can't sell it but it'll get read by someone in a position to actually hire writers who'll say, "Hey, this person's a pretty good writer." You probably wouldn't be too broken-up if instead of producing your original screenplay, Sony Pictures wanted to hire you to adapt a novel they bought for Bryan Cranston. (Hey, and once that's a hit, your original screenplay will become more commercial.)
A lot of working screenwriters became working screenwriters that way. They wrote a spec screenplay that one or more producers wanted to produce…and while the deal never quite coalesced to produce that particular script, it got around the industry that there was this new, hot writer. Suddenly, other producers who were looking for someone to work on one of their projects thought that writer might be the one. They probably also thought, "I'll get him [or her] while he's [she's] available and cheap!"
Nothing in these articles I'm writing should ever dissuade you from spending time and writing your own work. I'm warning you about the old Jewish curse, "May you have partners."
If you spec on someone else's project — an idea they had, a property they control — then you're doing their work. They're involved in what happens with what you wrote and your ability to do something with it is limited. Also, your remuneration often becomes dependent on them selling their project and/or maintaining an interest in it. I've told this story before on my blog…
A writer friend of mine was approached by an Unfinanced Entrepreneur who held the rights to the life story of a noted personality in the news. Dustin Hoffman was, the U.E. claimed, eager to star in a movie based on this person's experiences. So, allegedly, was Al Pacino. "I need a screenplay," the Unfinanced Entrepreneur said. "Dustin promised me he'd read it right away and so did Al. If either one of them likes it, we can write our own ticket at any studio in town."
My friend fell for it. He figured, "Hey, even if the movie doesn't get made, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino will be reading my work. Maybe they'll hire me for some other film." The U.E. was even willing to draw up a Letter of Agreement covering the matter. (This is rare for Unfinanced Entrepreneurs but, of course, this one didn't obligate him to my friend in any way; it merely said that, if the script was placed with a studio, the writer would receive at least Writers Guild scale — which he'd have gotten anyway.)
So the starry-eyed screenwriter spent the next five months, night and day, researching and writing a 125-page script. He was very proud of his handiwork and, in idle moments, even fantasized about Dustin and Al both loving it and fighting over the lead.
When the script was done, he sent it over to the U.E., who called to say he had moved on to other things and allowed his (unpaid) option on the person's life story to lapse. It's very easy to drop a project when you don't have any money tied up in it.
The writer scurried around, trying to acquire the rights to the story he'd just spent five months turning into a screenplay. Turned out, the subject had already sold his story to Universal for megabucks and they had a top screenwriter adapting it. No film was ever made from it but that's irrelevant to this tale. What is relevant is that my friend was stuck with a script that consumed five months of his life and guts — a script which he couldn't sell anywhere. He couldn't even get Dustin or Al to read it.
This happens a lot to writers who write on spec, meaning for others. If they didn't commit up front to paying you, they rarely care if you ever get paid. They figure, "You gambled, you lost, not my problem!" The fact that you may have lost due to their efforts (or lack of efforts) never bothers an Unfinanced Entrepreneur. They're usually too busy finding the next sucker who'll write something for them without pay.
There will be more examples of all this in our next installment. And the one after and the one after and the one after…