Introduce Yourself : Bill Martell: Old To Stage 32 by William Martell

Oh, I love your sense of humor! It was nice of you to bring your book back down to reasonable rates and staying out of trouble is overrated anyway.

Hi Bill. Jack Kolkmeyer here. I met you quite a few years ago at the first Santa Fe Screenwriting workshop. Still frequently refer to your book the Secrets of Action Screenwriting!!!

I look forward to your enlightening sometimes pointed posts and your youtube offerings.

Do you have any plans to write more screenwriting books?

Hi Jack! (probably shouldn't say that on a plane) Helena: Ages ago I wrote 20 little booklets on different aspects of screenwriting, and am now expanding each into a 200 page ebook. New one is 312 pages. There are 9 done at this point. I also have a book on Hitchcock's story and cinema experiments, and this year I hope to write a second Hitchcock book on suspense in films... and a book on writing Lo & No Budget screenplays. The blog "programming" is also secretly writing books: so THRILLER Thursday will result in an episode guide to that show, and my Trailer Tuesdays will end up several books on different genres which look at fifty films in the genre. I'm a one step at a time person, and figure if I write "a chapter" a week on a book and put it on my blog, at the end of a year I'll have most of a book finished. Lots of people look at a book or screenplay or whatever and think it's too big, they can never do all of that work... but I like to break it up into bite sized pieces that I know I can finish. And the pieces add up. I am also writing some new screenplays (though the next one is an old script that I'm throwing away just about everything on and starting from scratch with the idea).

Holy cr*p, that's a lot of books! But breaking it down into smaller pieces sure does make a huge difference. I used to blog (for three years) but when I gave it up I printed the blog into books just to keep as memories, and it added up to be four 300+ page books. I didn't expect that so I'm immensely proud of having written four books! (There's plenty of pictures in them too so not all of it is text but still, I only wrote a little every day and it added up.) So now I don't beat myself up if I have a day where I only manage to write a little, I know it'll get there eventually. Too bad you will only publish them as ebooks, I'm old school and want a paper book I can scribble notes in and I just prefer the feeling of a book in my hands I guess. Maybe there's a way to get an ebook printed without paying a fortune though, I've never bought one to find out.

I've had three publishers talk to me about the Action book, but they seem to be all talk. What seems to be the stumbling block are ebook rights, which I do not want to part with. Because paper costs are so high, the ebook income for a publisher is "gravy" and none of them really want to give that up. I will probably do a POD paper version somewhere down the line. Because it's a different format, there's a lot of "stupid work" to do the print version... so the plan is to get as many books written as I can, then do the stupid work later... maybe when I have become stupid and it's less of a chore. The blog thing is exactly what I'm doing. At first I just came up with some stuff to fill out my blog... and then I thought: what if these things were meant to add up into books? Maybe I should aim them in that direction when I write them for the blog? Sorry they're only ebooks now.

Of course they don't want to let you keep the ebook rights - they can make money doing nothing (which is a lovely thing, so I can't really blame them). I've heard of all the "stupid work" involved in POD, a guy in my writer's group published his novel that way and he told us what a hassle it was. So you can't sell the rights and still get royalties for every sold ebook? Maybe the royalty is just too low for digital copies. One of my family members was lucky enough (talented enough/hard working enough) to get her debut novel picked up by a big publisher and they do everything for her, she just has to do interviews and fun promotional stuff. I guess I just have to read your blog every day then, a little at a time, instead of binge reading a paper copy!

Wow!! Love the story of success—and how easy it is to connect to such successful people on Stage32. Inspired

"Bill" used to (I don't know if he still does) post on DoneDealPro and though he has no idea who I am, I have a lot of respect for him and can only urge writers still learning the trade to soak up any knowledge he offers. William, if and when I'm in the position to finance scripts, I'll read pretty much anything you send my way (provided that it's not too similar with anything of ours, of course). May 2015 put you back in the saddle, Carl

Impressive, William. Congrats on all your success!

Thanks for sharing, Bill! I saw you at the Screenwriters World Conference in 2012, and your session on script secrets is one of the only sessions I still remember. I was about six months into screenwriting, and I had come to the conference as sort of a baptism by fire kind of thing. There was so much information, especially for a novice like me, and I found it difficult to take anything away from the sessions other than "Here's what you don't know. Good luck." But you brought us into your stories in such an engaging way that I remember thinking that this guy knew what he was doing and knew how to teach it. Whether it's a screenplay or an e-book, you still know what you're doing and how to teach it, and I will read anything you write. Here's to a 2015 that embraces your dedication and rewards you for it.

funny. Lifted from the day job-what a miracle. :)

Hello Bill, I really enjoyed your lecture about action writing a few years ago at Screenwritng Expo. Why not write a T.V. action pilot? There seems to be a huge need. I myself write comedy (unproduced so far) situation comedies and feature comedies. T.V. is the new frontier despite the lawsuit about agism discrimination for t.v. writers over age 40.

Sex in a Submarine? Is that a seamen joke?

Always good to see you in here, Bill! :)

Bill Martell wrote: "I sold a spec script and we're currently doing rewrites, turning it into something completely different than they bought." If Stage32 has a store, I want this text on my t-shirt, Bill!!!

I am still old. Here are all five segments of HITCH 20, on the TV episodes Hitchcock directed. I do commentary on the last four. http://sex-in-a-sub.blogspot.com/2015/03/all-five-hitch-20-episodes.html

Bill, I hope they gave you several extra T-shirts -- with the line drawing of Hitch's profile. An enjoyable series. Thanks for the link.

Okwuchukwu Victor Eze - - your comment is inappropriate. This is not a dating site. Join Tinder or Match or something. Sheesh.

Bill: episode where a wife (Vera Miles) says she was raped and, after she spots the man, the husband kills him by beating him with a wrench (in dumb show). It was mentioned Hitch never showed violence, blood. But wasn't that also because he had to follow the Motion Picture Code and FCC restrictions on violence?

Hi Bill! Nice to meet you.