Mungo

  This just in from J: “ How do you obtain the contact information for producers?   I want to target producers, and I have some in mind who have worked on similar projects, but I have no idea how to get in touch with them.  Any suggestions??” The quick answer is IMDB. This is the motherlode [...]

A Beautiful Mind

5:40 Metronorth to New York. The sky still darkened by clouds, pale blue off in the distance. I sit in the last seat of the last car every day. I nurse a medium decaf with skim milk from St. Dunkin’s. And I think about the exciting day I have ahead of me in publishing. Every [...]

Hugh Grant and I Are Born Exactly One Month Apart

Got the cover letter done (after the laundry, dishwasher, and sorting of old files). I put my list together, culled from a year of reading Variety. I targeted NYC based indie producers who have made films that I love or admire. (This is the same advice I give to writers when they need agent names [...]

Your First Cigarette

I wrote a screenplay a while ago called Sugar Mountain. I got an agent  who gave it to a big deal producer, BDP, we’ll call him. BDP worked with me for six intense weeks, taking the script through  six revisions.  Every phone session lasted exactly an hour and his notes were amazing. He taught me how to write [...]

Bump in the Night

Last night at the Mid-Manhattan Library, 100 or so people were gathered to hear a panel discuss paranormal mysteries. My client Stacy Horn was among the panelists and, frankly, she kicked ass. Am I partial? Besides the fact that everyone there seemed to have descended from the Starship Enterprise or the Good Ship Lollipop (okay, [...]

Twelve-Step Program

Please read this article by Jon Karp, Publisher of the imprint Twelve, if you want some really cogent thoughts on the state of publishing. And you won’t need to turn your life over to a higher power except your keyboard. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6652430.html

FAQ: I’m About to be Published – How Come I’m not Happy?

R. writes, “I’ve got a new book coming out from (major trade publisher) in May. So how come I’m not happy?  R. adds that it has already received terrific early reviews from PW and Booklist (not mentioning Kirkus one can only imagine the worst — who are those anonymous Kirkus bastards anyway?).  She fears the [...]

FAQ – “Fiction Proposals”

Finally, I remembered to check my new gmail account and found three items: a note from a guy who dated my college sophomore roommate (this isn’t My Face, hello!), a query letter about addiction, and a bonafide question from a man we’ll call L. L. asks if I would consider “fiction proposals from works in [...]

Merry Christmas

I thought I was done with the Phil Spector story, the guns, the road littered with dead women, the Jewfro. But now this tidbit of book news from Media Bistro: Spector Son’s Tell-All Surprisingly Not Titled “To Know Him Is To Love Him” From Sharlene Martin of Martin Literary Management comes word of a memoir from [...]

Stronger

Dave Cullen’s book COLUMBINE hit the New York Times Bestseller List at #7. Did I ever say how much I love the number 7? This was a book  ten years in the making, which is a nice way of saying more blood, sweat, and tears were spilled than I can ever recall. I hope the [...]