It’s really simple: you send a query letter.
Companies DO NOT want to see your screenplay; that is the “unsolicited material” they don’t accept. They’ll accept query letters all day long.
Do your due diligence: find out who you contact, and send your query letter specifically to that person (or department). That’s the professional way to get your foot in the door and, ultimately, to get the company to ask to see your screenplay.
Baker & Taylor has put up a press release:
Baker & Taylor, the world’s largest distributor of digital and physical books and entertainment products, announced today that through a pilot program it will now be able to make available more than 450 popular ebook titles from Simon & Schuster imprints to classrooms and school libraries using the Axis 360 digital media circulation platform.
The pilot allows Baker & Taylor’s K-12 customers to purchase access to many popular, classic and award-winning Simon & Schuster ebooks for school-aged readers. Simon & Schuster titles are now available from Baker & Taylor via Title Source 360, the company’s new, comprehensive collection development and ordering tool for library and educational customers.
As a multi-year winner (including this year, he wrote, tooting his own horn), I always look forward to NaNoWriMo. And Camp NaNoWriMo. And I have fond memories of Scriptfrenzy, and hope they bring it back.
An article from the Examiner puts NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in perspective:
A day to remember for a lot of writers. NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) has officially come to an end. While a lot of authors have triumphed, writing 50,000 words in just one month, others gave it their best but didn’t quite make it. But that should hardly be the point.
A lot of people think the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words in a single month is about completing that. It’s just a goal; a difficult goal. But the point of this goal is to learn how to squeeze every ounce of free time into your creativity: For writers to give it their best, grasp the concept of pumping out a rough draft without worrying about revisions, editing, or how a chapter flows.
Talk to any writer and most of them will tell you they have an abundance of ideas, and the hardest part is writing it out. This is the sole purpose of NaNoWriMo: get that idea out on paper and worry about refining when it’s finished! This could very well be a revolutionary idea in the realm of books.
You can read the whole article HERE.
If you’re a writer, you can find out more about NaNoWriMo HERE.
The Guardian UK is reporting that Penguin UK has teamed up with the Berlin-based ebook app developer Readmill to bolster direct ebook sales. From the article:
The app allows readers to share ebook highlights and to talk to each other while they’re reading, “liking” one anothers’ updates and discussing the books.
The deal includes more than 5,000 digital titles – Penguin UK owns digital rights to works by authors such as Zadie Smith, Hari Kunzru, and John Updike, as well as Morrissey’s Autobiography. People who buy ebooks from Penguin.co.uk will have the option to “send to Readmill”. The arrangement sidesteps Amazon’s Kindle and means that Penguin can retain more data on customers.
The free app, designed for iPhone, iPad or Android phones, lets readers share highlights, and supports digital conversations about books by linking reading to social media. Readers can use the app to update Facebook and Twitter when they begin reading a book, if they want to highlight passages or when they finish a book.
I had wondered about this for awhile; having an interest in photography, I’ve got a copy of Master Your DSLR Camera. When I went to the BetterBook site, I noticed that the ebook was available as an app. It’s an ebook. It’s for sale on iTunes. It’s #1 in the iBookstore, but way lower on the app store. I saw this as probably a failure of Apple; they must have categorized the ebook incorrectly, or the ebook creator had made a mistake with the upload.
Turns out that the publisher – Open Air – is selling 10 to 30 times as many ebooks through the app store as they are through iBookstore. Being #1 in the iBookstore is 10 sales a day. Ranking around 7th in the App Store translates to 150 sales a day.
Laura Hazard Owen wrote a piece about this particular book over on PaidContent, titled “Want to publish an ebook for iOS? Surprising tips from iPad publisher Open Air.”
From the article: Continue reading
