Tips about the Film/TV Industry for Novelists: WMG Writer's Guides

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Mention Hollywood and novelists hear promises of riches, fame and glory.

But any writer who ventures into Hollywood alone or with an agent as their guardian actually walks buck naked and unarmed onto a battlefield filled with trained soldiers poised to strip that writer of everything that matters most to them, including the rights to their own work.

In this invaluable guide, award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch offers novelists an arsenal of survival tools and tips for the unwary.

"Such wise words! Even successful, high-earning novelists can be lured by the siren song of Hollywood and end up getting sucked into projects that never make it to the screen." —Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: May 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201267490

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award. Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award. She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.  She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own. To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.

Book preview

Tips about the Film/TV Industry for Novelists

Tips about the Film/TV Industry for Novelists

A WMG Writer’s Guide

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing, Inc.

Contents

Introduction

1. A Cautionary Tale

2. Content, Content, Content

3. Writing Screenplays

4. Money

Appendix

Notes

How to Negotiate Anything

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About the Author

Introduction

I do a surprising amount of business in the movie/TV industry. Yet, to date, no adaptation of my work has hit any kind of screen. This is not unusual. Many writers have made a lot of money off what I will casually and incorrectly call Hollywood without ever having a project begin filming, let alone make it to national or international distribution.

Yet many writers have had their books adapted into movies or television, and have made no money at all. In fact, most writers who find themselves entangled with Hollywood end up losing a lot more than they gain.

Writers ask me all the time to help them negotiate their journey in the film/TV industry. I willingly help some writers and am purposely vague with others. This isn’t a reflection of our friendship, but a reflection of the other writer’s ability to understand the ins and outs of business, contracts, negotiation, and copyright. If the writer doesn’t understand those things, even after years of hearing me harp about them, then that writer isn’t going to make a good decision when someone from the film/TV industry comes calling, no matter what kind of advice I give.

Other writers have ended up doing better than I have ever done—meaning they have negotiated better deals, not that their work has hit the silver screen.

The advice you’ll find in this little book falls somewhere between the advice I give to the clueless and the advice I give to the most savvy. I have a lot of methods that I use when someone from the film/TV industry comes to call, and many of those methods are things I don’t want to see in print.

Then there are things I can tell you generally that will set you on the road to finding out how to do this work yourself. If you don’t read my weekly blog on the publishing industry, then you don’t know that my views about that industry and its ties to the film/TV industry, have evolved over time. The soundest advice I can give all of you is this: Do not hire an agent to take your work to the film/TV industry. Hire an entertainment attorney should the time come.

You’ll find other important advice in here, such as make sure you understand licensing and copyright, learn how to do preliminary negotiation yourself, and watch out for traps that entangle the unwary—which is most of you.

One other thing you need to know: As I said above, I casually and incorrectly use the term Hollywood when I actually mean the film/TV industry. Thirty-year-old habits die hard. The word Hollywood in this context wasn’t accurate thirty years ago; it’s less accurate now.

The industry has mushroomed. It’s not even one industry anymore. You can do deals with a streaming service, or network television or network television in, say, France or make a movie in India or China or make a movie that you can upload yourself on YouTube.

The possibilities are endless. Really, truly endless.

But for the sake of this particular little book, assume this: When I say Hollywood, I mean the movie/TV industry, and I am most likely talking about the biggest one still, the one based in the US.

Some of the details in this book arise directly out of the post-pandemic world of 2021. Some of these details will change in the next few years. Many of the details will not. At the moment, I’m not sure what will change and what won’t.

What will remain the same is this: When someone from Hollywood approaches a writer for the right to license that writer’s work, that someone has a bevy of sharks behind them, ready to negotiate a contract that will give as much of the writer’s work to that someone as possible. These someones are charming and friendly and many are good-hearted, even if their sharks are not. But that doesn’t change the fact that a writer who ventures into Hollywood alone or with an agent as their guardian actually walks buck naked and unarmed onto a battlefield filled with trained soldiers designed to strip that writer of everything they value.

It has been that way since the 1920s, and most likely, it will be that way in the 2120s. The right deals with the film/TV industry can make a writer a lot of money even if the project never gets filmed. If the writer is lucky to have a good deal on something that is filmed, the writer will make a large fortune.

The wrong deal—well, it can strip a writer of any ownership in their own property. The writer might not even be able to write in that series again. And that can happen even if the project never gets filmed. It can happen—and often does.

Use this little book as an introduction to the right way to think about film/TV deals. Use it as the beginning of your research into this fascinating and cut-throat industry. Once you finish the last page of this volume, read everything you can about other writers’ deals. Read the contracts at the heart of court cases. Ask why Writer A got their name on the credits and Writer B’s book was never mentioned, then do a deep