Writer Beware: Buying “Access” to Studio Execs and Agents

A friend I’ve known for 30 years stopped in for a few days, visiting from the UK. We’ve always been close, so he knew I ran a company that did something with screenplays, but didn’t know exactly what that meant.  So he asked, and I showed him how Screenplay Readers worked:  

Agents, writers, and producers submit scripts to our reader team, we read them, and then we give our analysis of their scripts in small 4-5 page script coverages.

He was wowed at the whole concept in general, having given up a writing background and pursued a career in the military some 20 years ago, but his biggest question was:  “Have any of the scripts you’ve read been sold and turned into big studio movies?”

And that got me thinking.  We read over 1,000 scripts every year, and have hundreds of regular trusted clients that come back to us for coverage, but I really haven’t paid close attention to what exactly happens to each script after it passes through the Screenplay Readers office.  

I’m sure that one or two of the scripts we’ve covered has had to have made their way to a huge sale, or made it through to production at the studio level, simply guessing from the numbers years we’ve been in business and the thousands of scripts we’ve read.

 But at the very least, I know for a fact that several of the scripts we’ve read at Screenplay Readers have landed their writers representation from agents and managers,  pitch meetings with executives at major studios, and even option deals from producers, from indie level all the way up to retired studio level.

But then that all got me thinking:  

All those great things are NOT the things we sell.  They’re just the random results of what happened to the scripts after they happened to pass through our hands.

The core of what Screenplay Readers sells, as any good script coverage service or script consultant sells, is the professional analysis of a screenwriter’s script, with the sole intent of helping the writer improve his spec, or helping the agent or producer improve their script at the core of the package they’re shopping around Hollywood or developing into a motion picture.

So it often makes me giggle to see companies out there on the interwebs promising their customers “access” to their awesome industry insiders, or promising to get their customers’ scripts on the desks of major studios, as part of a service they offer to customers for reading and/or analyzing their scripts, because I can see how easy it would be as a company to just say I’m handing my customers’ scripts off to some higher-up muckety muck at a studio, without my customers ever being able to prove that I actually did it.

What are they thinking?!  Here’s what they’re thinking:  Hollywood’s a tough nut to crack for writers, and they know it and you know it, and they’ve got a friend or two in high places who may or may not take the time to read your script if, and only if, that person signs off on it and recommends it super-highly.

Also laugh inducing: Companies posting “Such and such came to our site, ordered our service, we got it in front of a muckety-muck, and then his script sold for $500,000!”

Maybe that service was ultimately responsible for selling that script, but maybe it wasn’t.  Maybe it was the merits of the script’s concept, or the writer’s friendly persistence, or personal charm at a coffee meeting with the buyer, which sold that script.  Or maybe it was because the buyer was looking for a vampire vehicle for Phyllis Diller that week.

But heck, I don’t wanna be a curmudgeon and poo-poo ALL my colleagues in the access industry.  

If you’re comfortable with buying access, by all means, go for it.  It may turn out to be a good investment for you, and the much needed “crack in the ice” you’ve been struggling for.  Not all companies or contests that promise to get your script read by muckety-mucks are in business to rip you off.  

The best path for my company, however, is to stay focused on the core of our business:  improving the script.  Access, contests, formatting, proofreading… all of these are viable script services.  

But to put it bluntly, no service will ever get your script sold.  Not a coverage service, not an access service, not a consultant, and not a contest.

Le Bottom Line:  

The biggest thing sitting in the way of getting a script sold for 95% of all screenwriters is:  the script itself.  At Screenplay Readers, 95% of the scripts we read are rated as a PASS.  4% are CONSIDERS.  1% receives a RECOMMEND.

So my advice to my compadres in the screen trade:  

Don’t think of access until your script is part of that 4% or 1%.  And even then, only invest in promises of access if you feel you can afford to lose that investment.  And if you can afford to lose that investment, please email me and send me cash.  I’m saving for a trip to orbit aboard Spaceship 1.